This is the moment 71-year-old Tower Hamlets Alzheimer’s ambassador John Wright was asked to stop filming a segment of last Wednesday’s full council meeting.
It demonstrates the confusion caused by Eric Pickles’ announcement a couple of weeks ago that residents had the right to film their councillors in action.
Just hours before the meeting was due to start, Tower Hamlets council’s most senior officer, Stephen Halsey, wrote to councillors telling them the Communities Secretary’s opinion appeared to be wrong. In a letter, which I reported here, he said the council’s constitution specifically barred filming of full council meetings. This advice was then repeated to everyone in the council chamber by Speaker Lesley Pavitt at the start of the meeting.
However, John, one of the borough’s most colourful campaigners, was convinced Eric was right. So, during a segment in which Lutfur’s cabinet member for housing, Rabina Khan, rose to her feet to give her opinion on social landlords, John, who is a longstanding council tenant, got out his camera and pressed start.
Just prior to that, I’d tweeted that town hall security guards seemed to be getting twitchy. And so they were. They clocked John and surrounded him. A council civil enforcement officer, one of the £40,000 a year THEOS, flashed his “warrant card” and told him he would call the police. I later saw an officer hovering outside with the chap who runs the council’s CCTV control room.
The video lasts for 15 minutes and it’s well worth watching it all. This is a man who clearly thought a senior Cabinet minister had given him the green light. Following a couple of minutes discussion with the Speaker, who later told him she would try to get the constitution changed, the meeting was suspended until he decided to back down.
For about 10 minutes, a series of people talk to him, including the veteran East London Advertiser journalist Mike Brooke, who wrote this report. Commendably, Lutfur’s finance chief, Alibor Choudhury, someone more used to provoking a verbal fight in the chamber, intervenes to calm things down.
There are some memorable lines in the exchange: too many, in fact to type out now. But here’s a flavour of John’s quotes:
My Government is filmed, the London Assembly is filmed: why is your council not allowing me to film, or are you hiding something?
Why are you not allowing me to photograph when Eric Pickles says I can?
This is England–we are democratic.
Why are you hiding? Are you all corrupt?
In response, Speaker Pavitt tells him they are not hiding anything, just that they need to have procedures in place because there might be some people who do not wish to be filmed. I think she means people in the public gallery.
John, who has published the video on YouTube, is for many a local hero and I think his actions will be seen as a tipping point. The council will be urgently looking at ways of allowing filming next time round.
Here’s the video.
Trial by Jeory 
What a total prat.
Dan, someone who is prepared to challenge authority and outdated rules is not a prat.
I suspect George Lansbury would be rather proud of John Wright.
Dan… what a vile, comment. Your comment betrays your instincts somewhat… shows your real views about openness, freedom and democracy really… I sometimes wonder what exactly about the Labour Party initially attracted you to it.
You are also wrong – which appears to be your default setting. John Wright is actually being incredibly brave and is standing up for his rights as an individual and elector and for the people of this borough.
John Wright repeatedly made the point that it is routine for elected public officials to be filmed and photographed. And these are public officials exercising for more power than the lowly Councillors at these meetings. Parliament is filmed. Parliamentary committees are filmed. The London Assembly is filmed. Numerous other councils across this country have their meetings filmed. If you are a public official and you are speaking in public you have no right to demand privacy in those circumstances.
Also, given the controversy surrounding these LBTH meetings I think it is quite understandably that someone would want to record them. We the people have a right to know.
Eric Pickles’ office said: “Council meetings are public meetings. Elected representatives and council officers acting in the public sphere should expect to be held to account for their comments and votes in such meetings. The rules require councils to provide reasonable facilities for any member of the public to report on meetings. Councils should thus allow the filming of Councillors and officers at meetings that are open to the public.”
It is also widely understood that anyone has the right to film anyone else in public. There is no right of privacy if you are in public. A council meetings is a public events. The council therefore MUST amend its constitution to permit filming or accept that its constitution is flawed and legally unenforceable.
I believe there is rank hypocrisy at work. Lutfur’s contempt for the public and his refusal to answer Councillors’ questions is part of it. There is also a clear desire by some Councillors to “control” what the public know about what they do… and one must presume that desire is based on the wish to cover it up. They are not genuinely interested in their “privacy” because there is never a shortage of Tower Hamlets Councillors (especially Lutfur’s crew) wanting their picture in the EEL or the ELA.
So who is behind this? We could all see the huddle of Lutfur’s goons nervously chatting when this protest began. We can see Ghullam standing in front of the mayor as “his” shield. We heard Alibor come over and start telling the pensioner what he thought he should do. And we heard NOTHING from Labour. Nothing at all. Nobody spoke up for this man.
Ted, if you may, would you ask these pertinent questions on our behalf:
a) Ask the Speaker to state which particular Councillors object to being filmed and why the object.
b) Ask the Head of Democratic Services (or whoever is appropriate) exactly how the Constitution of the Council is changed; is it done in the same was as any other resolution
c) Ask the Mayor for his opinion on filming by the public and whether he would support an amendment to the constitution.to permit it.
d) Ask the Leader of the Labour Group and the Leader of the Tory group the same question each.
I think a LBTH produced recording that was edited would be unacceptable because the whole point of recording meetings such as this is for there to be a true and accurate recording of what goes on… all the cussing and the dissing included. And that is the point. If the behaviour of Councillors and Officials brings the council into disrepute then so be it: it is not the recording itself that brings LBTH into disrepute but the subjects of that recording doing it themselves.
Eric Pickles said: “Data protection rules or health and safety should not be used to suppress reporting or a healthy dose of criticism.”
However I note that the council “heavies” during their entertaining good cop bad copy routine (when they tried to intimidate and appease at the same time) then tried to make out that filming these meetings was a “child protection” issue. Precisely how many children (save Ribena) are there in the place being filmed: the council chamber? What risible nonsense.
As I have said on other posts before we should not just blame Lutfur. It is the culture at the Town Hall we must blame – and that culture was created by Labour. I strongly suspect that Labour would be able to command a vote in the chamber to change the relevant part of the council constitution..but what are they doing? Absolutely nothing as per usual and we must presume, therefore, that they too don’t want to be filmed.
Simply put: Labour fart in your face. First they say they can’t smell anything and you must be imagining it. And then they say it wasn’t a fart at all but only when it is proved, in fact, to be a fart do they then seek to make out that it wasn’t their fart (even though they are the only ones in the room, save yourself) but must be someone else’s. Finally, when at last they are actually heard breaking wind, do they then try to convince you that their farts smell nice – and you should thank them for it.
And thus Labour sit their breaking wind, quietly wafting it towards Lutfur. Lutfur… sitting up there in his incontinence pants. The whole place urgently needs someone to open the windows or at the least some air-freshener. Lesley Pavitt – it is your job to open those windows and demand the security guards allow people to film our meetings.
John Wright’s brave and commendable protest must not be in vain.
There should be a camera protest in the chamber (using mobile phones) at each and every full council meeting until this issue is resolved because these public meetings effect us, we pay the wages of all the people taking part in these meetings and it is our money, not theirs, which is being spent; they are OUR meetings.
At full cabinet meeting everyone should turn up with cameras
Glad to see you supporting citizen journalism Dan and you a photographer and all…
Technically the council is right to say that there isn’t any order of central government which overrides its own Standing Orders. But why has the council not changed its Standing Orders? The issue has been going around for several years. It isn’t as if it’s a big fuss to alter the rules. I remember when Westminster City Council did it – a quick report to General Purposes Committee on 6 July 2011, which recommended a change, then a vote in favour at the full council meeting on 20 July 2011.
Personally I suspect the objection to filming ‘third parties’ (ie other members of the public in the gallery) is bogus. Especially given the frequent comments about behaviour in the public gallery at Tower Hamlets meetings.
Not entirely sure about John Wight’s point about Parliament given it was only televised in the 1980s; there was 30 years of resistance to allowing it. One reason often given for opposing was that MPs would have an incentive to be unruly and play up for the cameras. In fact the effect was the opposite: it was one thing for constituents to read descriptions of their MP’s behaviour, quite another to see their MP misbehave, and Parliamentary behaviour has actually improved very substantially since 1989. Definitely something to bear in mind in Tower Hamlets.
LOVE JOHN WRIGHT.. CORRUPT CORRUPT COUNCIL
interesting how not one the so called democractically elected councillors have bothered to speak to him
Alibor Choudhary did, and credit to him.
Firstly to Dan: I don’t mind you calling me a prat at all, but why am I a prat? If it was my voice then I thought I sounded a prat, 50 years of working as a Drag act changed my voice into what it is.
I was 50/50 about filming, but when I watched decent local residents putting questions to The Mayor, questions that directly affected their lives being trivialised, I decided to film. Do the council realise how ridiculous it looks with the Mayor sitting behind a big box that looks as if it was made from an old pallet, probably containing a packet of cheese and onion crisps and 6 cans of Redbull and answering nothing! Those petitioners did not get a valuable reply. That is why I started filming. Can you imagine that behaviour happening at Prime Ministers Question Time?
I could have bought a cheap spy video camera at Maplins and filmed it secretly and then put it on YouTube, but that would have missed the point. Ted gives us the excellent ammunition, but we sit behind our net curtains, say nothing and seeth.
The last time I protested was in the 1960’s when the very first male stripper was arrested at a Hen party. We protested because strippers were allowed at Stag parties, but not at Hen parties, so we chained ourselves to the Houses of Parliament dressed in drag. From that protest 10 days later the ruling was changed. So protest, as long as nobody is hurt, works.
Hopefully our council will now look at filming meetings, I guarantee the councillors will behave a lot better than they currently do,
John, what you did was inspirational. Thank you. It was disgraceful how you were treated but at least you stood up and made the point for all of us – those of us who have attended these meetings, joined the campaigns, asked the questions and signed the petitions – trying to change things, their way. You have started something great, John. I agree with Ted that this is a tipping point. You are a local hero John who has done so much for Tower Hamlets: you did it their way and now you do it your way, for us. Thank you John. (And don’t let the real PRAT Dan McCurry bully, insult and intimidate you.) You are brilliant John and I just wish we had filmed you, making history here.
As soon as LR saw the camara I would have thought he would be stright over – working the camara! Or would he not want the world to see that he refuses to answers questions (breech of his human rights) that he “reads aloud” and watch him sit back when held to account for wasting public money in his Merc etc etc
WELL DONE JON WRIGHT. Thank you, sir. If I ever bump into you then I will happily stand you many many rounds of drinks.
Why is the council so set against filming of council meetings? Is it because they are afraid that our idiot mayor will be publicly exposed for the charlatan that he is? Or is there more to it than that?
Tim.
My guess is that most politicians would be in favour of the principle of filming. The concerns are about how it is done, eg can people in the public gallery be filmed? Many would not want that.
In Parliament, there are strict rules about what can be filmed during debates and committees.
However, during select committee hearings, members of the public are frequently caught on camera in the background. The assault on Rupert Murdoch is an interesting case in point: the cameras showed him being hit by a foam pie, but they weren’t able to pan on to the attacker.
But the council spends millions filming us?
If you go to a public event (e.g. a council meeting) you cannot expect privacy. If I go to the park and photograph my friends I don’t need to ask every person in the park’s permission just in case they appear in the background!
That’s a very helpful clarification Ted, thank you.
Good stuff Mr Wright – was an answer given about the RSLs? Or HPs as they are saucily called these days.
Not that dodgy mustards like Eastend Homes take any notice of the council
Only that there was general agreement for councillors who serve on the boards of RSL’s to be open and accountable. I hope that will also apply to the 4 councillors on the board of Tower Hamlets Homes, all of whom are part of the Mayor’s cabinet. So much for ‘arms length.’
People in Tower Hamlets need to turn up at the next Cabinet Meeting with cameras of all kinds
Do not let the council take away your democratic right (regardless of the law) to film public officials destroying your borough. They will try and say that they will film the meetings, stand by your convictions and film all meetings.
The public in my opinion in a public meeting have also lost their rights to not being filmed at these meetings. There has been too much abuse shouted at Councillors about their sexual orientations from members of the public. Bullying has occured of our public representatives, without any record taken by the council. Its only blogs like yours ted that alert the rest of us to this destruction of our rights at public meetings. vested interests are turning this borough into somewhere that is being overdeveloped and saturated with flats everywhere on public grass, public buildings etc etc.
Everyone should pull out a camera and film the meetings, its the only way we can stop the destruction of our borough.
While John is obviously to be congratulated, there is a danger of provoking the council too far. Turning up armed with cameras is likely only to result in the clearing of the public gallery and meetings then being held in secret.
Their objections, as spurious as they are, seem to be of the practicalities of allowing filming rather than them saying no altogether. All they need to do is amend their constitution and install fixed cameras facing only the chamber with the public behind.
As simple as this sounds, let’s not underestimate the ability of the council to delay, obstruct and obfuscate, particularly if they feel they are being pushed.
I suspect that closer to the truth is that councillors don’t want it and have been scurrying around trying to find ways to avoid it. Here lies an opportunity for Isabella Freeman to get one back on her employer that she has so obviously taken a strong disliking.
The danger is that “only official cameramen” would film meaning we got the “Rania Khan Show” as a result – an edited and distorted version of events construed to present the Junta in a unfairly positive manner. An independent group such as the /East London Advertiser should do it, I wouldn’t trust Freeman or any other borough hall stooge to be impartial, would you?
This same issue of filming council meetings is about to become an issue where I live as well. A group of local residents have vowed to try and film the next full meeting of the local council in my town. Mr Pickles has certainly started something…
I think the objection from filming comes from certain local government employees (especially the mayor’s inner circle of hired hands). When I have attended committee meetings I noticed that certain employees seem to know how their bread is buttered and go out of their way to say what they think his Mayor wishes to hear. Cameras would provide evidence of this.
Ironically I was just on a 277 bus coming from the Leamouth when the driver lost it with a passenger and started swearing at him in English and then it deteriorated into both shouting Bengali. The driver changed his tune when the passenger got his mobile out and started recording the driver.
Once any “official filming” has made it through the LBTH multi million pound PR machine (paid for by our tax) the dear leader will be made to look like the saviour of the free world.
The reason he is a prat is because he is attention seeking and nothing more. My view is that cameras should be allowed. But he’s not helping.
Why do you say he’s attention seeking, Dan? He didn’t announce he was filming, he was clocked. And his intention was to post on YouTube, possibly even under a false name.
Dan McCurry, you are contemptible. “He” did not say who he was when tried filming the meeting, and only gave his name to the reporter (Mike Brooke), when Mike asked for it. Should he have refused to answer the reporter – would that have satisfied you? How is he attention seeking or on a personal ego trip as you imply (which is pretty rich coming from you) when he is well-known to the council, having an incredible background in GENUINE community campaigning. Have you represented residents, gone to council on countless occasions in that capacity and given your own time and indeed even your own possessions away, to help local people? Nah, you go to council and intimidate residents in the public gallery by telling them they will ‘regret going public’ on the sale of Bancroft Library.
John is in his 70’s, has high blood pressure and is Tower Hamlets Alzheimer Ambassador and he did what he did the other night, without declaring who he was and in a fabulous pair of earrings. He is brilliant and a local legend. Not helping? What the hell are you doing for Tower Hamlets?
It is the callous, cool and detached attitude of the political types in this borough like yourself – the ones who can just walk away and leave John sitting there, with his blood pressure soaring and waiting for the police to drag him away. Nasty, nasty, nasty.
Yes.
Not Dan’s finest hour.
Has he had a “finest hour”?
[…] first hand coverage can be found here in a post by Ted Jeory here: Video: the moment a Tower Hamlets resident is told to stop filming council meeting. If you don’t follow Ted Jeory you are missing some superb […]
Wonder what Cllr Shahed Ali had to say on this, as few times he had brought motions to televise the council meetings. when he was a Labour and Respect (or something else)
Cllr Shahed Ali cannot currently make any official respresentation in regards to this matter as he is occuppied evicting noise hipersensitive residents of Victoria Park area to Whitechapel.
I was interviewed today at the Town Hall by the BBC. It will be on The Politics Show BBC1 on Sunday, I think the program is around midday.
Fantastic John. The BBC and The Politics Show – well done! Looking forward to it.
You got your 15 minutes of fame. Well done!
Once again John, good, and thank you.
Your action shames me when compared to my inaction.
Tim.
What a silly attention seeking man! Playing the victim by using his age and blood pressure levels. Disrupting council business and wasting time. He says that he doesn’t care about Tower Hamlets but national government? Then why is he sitting in the council chambers?
Cringeworthy at best
I think you’ll find he does care about Tower Hamlets and that he has done for decades – and he’s prepared to be named in public, unlike you.
Try listening again.
I do listen Mr. Jeory Saheb, but my listening isn’t selective nor is it partisan. He clearly states that he doesn’t care about Tower Hamlets but what Mr. Pickles utters, even though what Mr. Pickles has said is not an edict.
That’s funny. At 1min 30secs in he says “I love Tower Hamlets.”
Which is why he dislikes the council.
You seem to think the two are the same.
Which is why I think you’re a (wannabe) councillor as well.
Tell us your name.
maybe he should stand for election and see if the people of TH care about his motive. Its always easy to be opposition to everything. I say this to Ted and everyone put your money where your mouth is and see if people agree with you. Armchair auditors are lazy people who cant be bothered in acutually doing something.
And you’re a councillor, right? Or at least someone who’s put your money where your mouth is?
You see, I’m afraid any answer you give now is going to make you sound a bit stupid..but I’m still interested in hearing it.
My guess is you’re a councillor.
doshnombororsassa,
You seem to have the same problem with Peter Golds of whom you wrote on this blog: “He needs to get out of his closet, move away from this victimhood mentality and be more open about his policies both on the campaign trail and on the web.”
You do seem to have a problem with gay men, on either side of the council chamber. Why label and demean both as ‘victims’…and about the last thing either are is closeted. They also both actually do things for Tower Hamlets – supporting various local community campaigns, past and present. It’s a shame that you do not have the humanity to appreciate that veteran campaigner John Wright now has Alzheimer’s, is over 70 and has high blood pressure.
I do not have a problem with gay men, and I wasn’t aware of John Wright’s homosexuality and it’s something that doesn’t bother me. Please do not make this into something that it isn’t. The ball is being played here not the man.
I am actually the only person who is being objective here. Regardless of Mr Wright’s civic participation, which I wasn’t aware of, over the years it does not give him the authority to overrule the Council on matters pertaining to filming – I am objecting to him disrupting council business. There are rules, regulations and procedures to follow for a reason and he should take his concerns through the necessary channels instead of trying to make a martyr out of himself.
I am in favour of filming and I am in favour of outting crony councillors but I am not in favour of people who have no recourse to procedures. I think they call it vigilantism. Him directing a shout of “This is England” to a group of brown folk can be misconstrued and it doesn’t help his cause.
Absolute cringe.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/your-councils-cabinet-going-to-its-meetings-seeing-how-it-works
If I’m not mistaken page 6 of the plain english guide on filming and using social media at council cabinet meeting, released by DCLG states:
“councils may reasonably ask for filming to be undertaken in a way that it is not disruptive or distracting to the good order and conduct of the meeting…we recommend that those wanting to film liaise with council staff before the start of the meeting.”
Clearly Mr Wright was being disruptive and obtrusive and he quite clearly disnt liaise with council staff before the start of the meeting!
So if that isn’t attention seeking then what else is? To top it off he’s got himself a spot on the sofa with Andrew Neil.
Well, I think John would say he wasn’t being disruptive, that he was filming very quietly until some £40k a year THEO flashed a warrant card in his face.
What I can’t understand about this is that that guidance you cite and Eric Pickles’ well-publicised comments about it came on June 14.
It wasn’t until 12 days later – a few hours before the start of the council meeting – that senior town hall officials wrote to councillors to say filming would be banned because the constitution did not allow it.
Why the delay? Surely if this was such a black and white issue, the council could have issued a press release or published a piece in East End Life way before then explaining all this to residents.
Was it just incompetence? Or total disregard for the people who pay their wages?
doshnomborosassa. Why are you called number ten uncle?
Raised at Business Questions in Parliament today:
Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con): May we have a debate on transparency in local government in the modern digital age, to raise in particular the concerns that council senior officers and monitoring officers, notably those in the London borough of Tower Hamlets and others, have sought deliberately to undermine recent guidance by the Secretary of State to encourage more widely available filming and broadcasting of council meetings by local residents and journalists?
Mr Lansley: I am interested in what my hon. Friend says, and I will certainly raise it with my hon. Friends at the Department for Communities and Local Government who, he will know, feel very strongly about the importance of such openness and transparency. Previous issues in relation to the desire of some councils—only a very few, we hope—to try to control the media in their area is in part what has led to the Local Audit and Accountability Bill that is currently in another place, but my hon. Friend raises a further important point.
Well, well,.The comment by David about a question in Parliament today really is a “up yours” to the haters on Ted’s blog. Maybe they will have the gumption to do what Ted does and that is to tell the truth about TH. Or are the haters hiding something?
Come come now John, what would the haters be hiding? The truth? Of course not ….
Tim.
doshnomborrorsassa – you say you do not have a problem with gay men, but you do not explain why you have said about Cllr Golds: “He needs to get out of his closet, move away from this victimhood mentality” and John Wright is “playing the victim”. Instead of explaining yourself, you find another way to attack John Wright with this utterly disgusting comment about John apparently directing something at “a group of brown folks”. What about the ‘white folks’ there? And by the way it was only “brown folks” who walked over to speak to him while the rest of the white, brown and every other colour of council folk departed, leaving John obviously suffering, to await the police and his forced removal.
Please do not talk about ‘playing the ball and not the man’ with the personal comments you are making about John Wright and Cllr Golds on this blog – and then refusing to answer for those comments. As for a past comment (in a discussion about gay marriage funnily enough) about Rushanara Ali: “Rushanara a devout Muslim? GUFFAW.”
You seem to have some sort of agenda. Why else come on here to say these things about these people? Yes, John has it: “haters” there really is no other word for it.
Perhaps there is no point speaking up as a resident anywhere in TH as it seems the haters with the undeclared personal agendas will attack. At least it is just you, ‘Mr Barnes’ and Mr McCurry while so many, many more people appreciate John’s “civic participation” (again, another slight from you) – have a look at Save King Edward Memorial Park campaign, which is just one local campaign he has devoted much to: http://www.savekemp.org.uk/
I’m not getting involved in your game of selective quoting out of context. What does Peter Golds stand for? What are his policies? What is his vision for the borough? All he seems to do is cry like a little girl, who isn’t getting her way. Politics is a dirty game and he does more than his fair share of mud slinging, but sometimes we also want to see from politicians what they are about. He needs to come out a little and share his views on crime, social mobility, the demographic time bomb and its effect on school places and provision for the elderly because at the moment he’s just this whiney, irritation and nothing more.
doshnombororsassa…what a silly unintelligible name/ user id that is…. almost as silly some of your naive and foolish comments. And for the record, I am a ‘brown person’ and I rather proudly agree, ‘This is England’, ….except that it aint quite so anymore in Tower frickin Bangla Hamlets …
[…] express sympathy with John Wright who was quickly surrounded by the council’s media blackout guards as he tried to film nine day…. Anyone interested in this issue should watch the Sunday Politics show on BBC1 this weekend; the […]
I think that “doshnomborrorassa” is either extremely stupid or deliberately winding us up, and we are falling for it.
When do I mention “brown people” in the video? I don’t give a flying **** what colour, religion or sexually orientated a councillor is, as long as he/her does the job that they were elected for
Regarding Peter Golds, love him or hate him, can anyone tell me any other councillor who regularly holds the council to account ?
Maybe I am lucky being non-party political, I don’t have to back a councillor because he/she is from my party. I am able to back them as I find them.
For example Rabina Khan. Rabina is one of my estates ward councillors. Until Rabina was elected we have NEVER had a councillor interested in our estate. She has been fantastic. I take as I find.
[…] builds on the debate started on this blog about the filming of Tower Hamlets council […]