..you can see them on the City Hall website here. The details for his latest claims are here.
£5.
If anyone needs reminding of the fares claimed in that same financial year by his Lutfurite opponents, they can read all about them here:
Lutfur Rahman, including a £28.56 cab from McDonald’s in Commercial Road (total £2,789 + £70 a day chauffeured Mercedes).
Deputy Mayor Ohid Ahmed: here and here (total £1,482, including £140 to celebrate Jesse Jackson’s birthday).
Rabina Khan here (total £1,088, including £220 for a 1.5mile trip to the park).
Oli Rahman here (total £1,400, including trips to Channel S; so far he is the only one to apologise).
Now, if I were John Biggs, I’d be putting all this on an election leaflet. It’s the kind of thing that people understand.
Trial by Jeory 
Its a fake. It must be a forgery. It has nothing to do with Tower Hamlets ‘cos its too small and too modest and too reasonable to be true.
I prefer the Mayor’s and his entourage’s expenses; they are much more entertaining even astonishing !
A quite from Shumi on the last thread on here:
“The politicians that I really admire are ones that are modest in words and behaviour, though these are rare creatures.”
Wise words, Mr Shumi. Maybe Mr Biggs is indeed one of those rare creatures.
Ted, this looks like a shameless bid to become Bigg’s campaign manager! 😉
Hey, I live in Tower Hamlets: everyone has their price.
And what’s yours then? More or less than a fiver? 🙂
Looked at the GLA website and John does seem to be a very honest politician from what I can see. First John does seem to lunch/dine a lot, considering he’s lost so much weight in the last few years – but the fact that he declares every single one in such detail is amazing. Now compare this to LBTH politicians – these fat cat Cllrs of all parties are entertained and dined literally every day – but none of them declare it. I wonder how many of them declared their invitation and dinner at Channel S last night or any other year. They cant deny being there because its televised live and you can see them on TV. Or all those meals in the Brick Lane restaurants or the events at Water Lily, Regency Hall, Troxy, ect.
Looked at his declaration of interests as well and just really amazing how even the smallest details are declared which even isn’t required:
“Licences
5. Details of any licence that entitles me or my partner (alone or jointly with others) to occupy land in Greater London for a month or longer.
My wife is an allotment owner at E14, Isle of Dogs. I do not know if this is declarable but including it for completeness.”
We need transparency of who our Cllrs/politicians are being wined and dined by as John’s declarations show.
Which councillors were there at Channel S?
While your looking into declarations and interests of politicians – Maybe you can investigate how much Cllr Abdal Ullah (who you praise often) gets from all his side businesses – none of which appear in his declaration of interests, such as the annual ramadan calendar that he produces or the SNT tournament he organises – these are sold to the public as community events/activities, but they are far from it – they are money making schemes, whcih attract lots of sponsorships and funding that he gets using his influenec as a cllr. Both activities receive significant tax payers money – from public organisations such as LBTH, Police, NHS, housing organisations, thames water, queen mary uni, ect. An FOI to these organisations will reveal everything.
At least with the Mayors Cup all surplus income from the event is given to local organisations and not pocketed by individuals.
Or how about investigating how much he gets paid to do the Business Show he does on one of the bengali TV channels, his co-hosting of other bengali tv shows some of which gives him all expense trips to Bangladesh – again none of this declared.
Equally some of the other business interests of other politicians – again goes un-investigated and not declared in members interest. Until cllr positions stop becoming money making schemes by using their influence as cllrs, we will get scrupulous, dodgy and selfish cllrs only in it for themselves.
We deserve full declaration by all politicians. Lets oust some of the dodgy dealings of these politicians and name and shame them and maybe, just maybe we can get more transparency in politics.
Do pls send me via email other cllrs’ business dealings that are linked to their elected office.
I agree that transparency is vital but the current rules do not encourage the necessary detail.
Why is it only the councillors of Bangladeshi heritage who are getting up to all this dodgy stuff? We’ve all read the postings about the dirty deeds of Lutfur, Ohid, Ribena, Abdal, Shelina etc etc and, shock-horror, none of the non-Bangladeshi councillors appear to have been up to anything improper. Indeed, Mr. Biggs only claimed a taxi fare of £5 (perhaps he was using an actual cab and not paying a relative to drive him)…
I am genuinely sorry if it is deemed a “racist” thought-crime to make such a connection but why is it only the Bangladeshi councillors who keep doing this? Is it Ted being selective or it something about the way these people regard the purpose of politics?
GM, that surely is the pressing question. Why is it that people of ‘Bangladeshi heritage’ (as you so accurately put it) are statistically more likely to be reliant on benefits, more prone to criminal activity and pay less tax than others? Why is it that such people are more likely to live in council housing, less likely to do well academically and much less likely to go to university than the national average? Why are people of ‘Bangladeshi heritage’ much more likely to claim disability allowance, to lose a child in childbirth and have lower life expectancy? Why are this same group of people far more likely to smoke, have more unhealthy diets and take very little exercise?
More accurately, why are you and I worried about being called ‘Racist’ for even asking these questions? Is it because ‘racism’ in Tower Hamlets is simply being critical of someone more Bangladeshi than yourself?
Tim. (Non-UK born Asian immigrant, although not Bangladeshi).
How about publishing some councillors expenses who are not Bangladeshi to compare? What about Josh Peck, Judith Gardner, David Edgar and Peter Golds as a snap shot, just to see how they compare?
Newham Mayor and cllrs taxi claims=nil
The Mayor of Newham’s generous allowance, of over £80k, probably goes some way to funding his travel arrangements.
I was talking to someone who was describing the situation when he went to vote at the Labour mayoral candidate selection. A known Lutfur supporter approached him to seek his support for Rachel Saunders. He also said he saw John Biggs standing on his own while others had their cronies around them the time he was there.
The more I read/hear about Biggs the more I like the guy. Just hope ALL Labour members give him their full support.
In talking of Rachel, not of her own doing, but she definitely benefited from the Lutfurite labour members. They saw Rachel as the weakest candidate and felt she would be the best person for Lutfurs chance of getting re-elected. A Abbas re election would’ve split the bengali vote who lutfur depends on, and Biggs has a fairly high profile across East London and can also unite the Labour supporters and campaigners. At least 100-120 Lutfurite votes went to Rachel.
Having said above Rachel would make an excellent Mayor with a bit more experience of Tower Hamlets. She is still young and fairly naive. What was she thinking of in having an ex Stepney labour councillor (Nasir Uddin) who was convicted of embezzlement & fraud from a youth organisation/charity for thousands of pounds as one of her key supporters and campaigner. This was a guy similar to ex-cllr Salina Aktar, got convicted for fraud while in office as a Cllr and spent 2 years in prison for it, along with his brother and one other. The effects of their fraud is still felt by the people of Stepney as the centre where they carried out their fraud is still closed, while the brother now runs a string of restaurants in Brick Lane (wonder where he got the money for the restaurants). Not sure why labour have re-admitted a convicted fraudster back in their ranks, who brought so much shame to them.
Rachel has much to learn about the politics of Tower Hamlets. Lets hope Biggs stays clear of such characters from the past and present.
Anon is Alibor Choudhury, a former friend of Nasir Uddin and was his partner in crime. A real dirty cunning player and was very lucky to have got away, he is a hypocrite to now pick on on his former gang mate. Sadly they are all bad as each other, I know them all really well.
Alibor Choudhury is Lutfur’s Rottweiler and likes to act as a bully to intimidate other councillors. We really need to expose such nasty characters.
Just for the record in this whole term I don’t think I’ve claimed for any expenses from LBTH.The majority of my travel is funded via my travel card which I pay for anyway and on the odd occasion when I’ve needed a taxi because I’m running late I’ve assumed that is meant to be covered by my Councillor’s Allowance and not made a further claim. I did make a couple of travel claims from the ODA when I was on their Development Committee in relation to meetings when I had to travel back from outside London but those would have been more than cancelled out by the fact that I didn’t get round to claiming for every meeting I attended.
A story about John Biggs – which I hope he does not mind me telling.
Back in the 80s we were both members of the same ward party, which put on fund-raising jumble sales. My brother-in-law who worked in the high end fashion trade once donated some samples. Sorting thru them JB commented on a nice tie. I asked him if he wanted it. JB declined, indignantly telling me the tie was Labour Party property.
Seems like he’s still very honest in these matters.