It’s Ramadan, so belated best wishes to all readers of this blog who are fasting. I’m told it’s gruelling but also incredibly fulfilling.
Some are also intent on making it politically fulfilling. You can’t beat a deeply religious occasion for a bit of political opportunism, I suppose.
As dawn broke on the first day of Ramadan, this appeared on Lutfurite Facebook pages:
It’s funny how our Mayor Lutfur Rahman, so shy and silent in the face of questioning in the council chamber, never misses a chance to plaster his name and boasts everywhere else.
He’s also just posted this newsletter to specially selected homes throughout the borough.
The Mayor’s News. Quite why he needs it when he has the multimillion pound machine that is East End Life at his disposal is something of a mystery. For the avoidance of doubt, this leaflet will have been funded privately not from our council tax.
At the bottom of the second page, it says it was printed by Faith Business Ltd in Greatorex St, Whitechapel. This is a business whose former directors include Shah Yousef, the ex-owner of the London Bangla “newspaper” who was responsible for printing these smears against Cllr Helal Abbas in 2010, and a certain Mohammed Jubair, the talented multi-tasking journalist who manages to combine a chief reporter’s role with Channel S and a £175 a day job as Lutfur’s “community media” adviser.
As for who funded the leaflet, I don’t know. But it seems that Lutfur has made amends with his former self-proclaimed backer, Shiraj Haque, the millionaire housing association tenant who was convicted by the council last year for relabelling cheap Italian plonk as more expensive Australian shiraz at his restaurant in Brick Lane.
He’s such a man of the people is Shiraj. A true champion of workers’ rights…
Which is why, I’m sure, another media darling of late, Unite general secretary Len McLuskey, was so happy to be pictured with him at the end of last month. Red Len went on a walkabout with Lutfur and Shiraj, citing the EDL threat to Tower Hamlets as their guiding motivation. I wonder.
Now what might Lutfur, still ostracised from Labour, want from Len? Funding? Is Lutfur part of Len’s grand plan for an alternative party of the Left? Does Lutfur still have ambitions beyond Tower Hamlets? For Westminster or City Hall perhaps?
Watch this space.
Meanwhile, here’s a selection of amusing photos of the new Best Friends:
(In the background to this one above, you can see Lutfur’s £55k a year media consultant, the journalist Mark Seddon, but does anyone know who the taller chap is to his right – the man with greyish hair and glasses behind Shiraj’s left shoulder?)
Trial by Jeory 
Thanks for the post Ted. Good photos. One vile man who is culpable for the disgraceful state of Tower Hamlets politics with another vile man who is culpable for the disgraceful state of UK politics.
It would seem to be indeed true; birds of a feather flock together.
Tim.
Jolly nice pics. One never knows what interesting details lurk in the shadows or in this case in the background.
Who is the fat young man in the pic labelled “walkabout_in_brick_lane.jpg” ?
On left side of the picture is a man wearing a dark and light blue striped polo with white collar. The picture was taken on an Apple Ipad at 14:10 on 21 June 2013. (information derived from the EXIF data).
The fat man is white, wears spectacles and has a black collar on his grey jacket or coat. He looks like a wealthy political adviser.
After Falkirk perhaps London is next ? Could it ever happen that a bunch of wealthy people decide, in true Labour Party fashion (it happens every year and everywhere in England), to ‘pack’ a Labour Party selection meeting with obedient followers who will vote to select a local election candidate approved by the behind-the-scenes people organising the ‘packing’ ? I’m not accusing anyone just thinking out loud what regularly happens, and is happening, in London. When Labour detect this ‘packing’ they put the constituency Labour Party (a branch of national Labour) into “special measures”.
Curious Cat.
The Mayor’s News looks like an election leaflet.
Curious Cat.
The leaflet is clearly aimed only at Bengali people. The photos in it are only of Bengali people and I presume it was posted quite selectively, only to Bengali households. The photos with “Red Len” are outside the London Muslim Centre. All this obvious racial bias and then they say they’re working to stop the EDL threat? What EDL threat? Last I saw two men, just two, attempted to walk peacefully up Whitechapel Rd and were themselves violently assaulted before being arrested. How is this an EDL “threat”? It seems to me that this is a racially biased election campaign using the fear of a non existent threat (let’s call it “Anglophobia”) and efforts on the part of people like this Len of suspended disbelief. Or maybe he’s just a treasonous enemy of the state.
There is a strategy of division being pursued by Anglophobic racists which is being assisted by communists (mostly Scots, interestingly) who want to harm their own country…
I fear you are seeing Bengalis everywhere, GM.
This was delivered to a non-Bengali household in an area not usually associated with Lutfurism.
When I saw it, I thought it was aimed v much at those like Carole Swords to be honest. I was also intrigued why on his Blackwall Reach picture, he chose a photo without either of the two Bengali faces in his original Twitter boast of that event. See here
https://mobile.twitter.com/MayorLutfur/media/grid?idx=3&tid=348065880615301120
I thought that’s what you meant when you said “specially selected homes”… after all, there is only one Carole Swords (thank God)
Reblogged this on Sundial Centre Shipton Street.
Let’s also be frank about homelessness. What is Lutfur doing to reduce the shameful amount of “gatekeeping” that Tower Hamlets engages in by turning away homeless applicants in defiance of the legislation?
A common trick is to dole out the free homelessness advice that Shelter puts in, claim (falsely) not to be able to help, and then tick the box marked “prevented homelessness.”
I’ve been fortunate (?!?) enough to receive not just the Summer edition of the Mayor’s News but also the Spring edition (lots of focus on education). If you didn’t get that one, Ted, and want it just let me know.
I suppose it’s good that the Mayor is at least acknowledging that people in Bow (outside his usual stamping ground) have opinions, will turn out to vote and therefore might need to be wooed to gain support although I’m not sure that he’s going to get very much help around here.
Re who is funding the Mayor’s News: I’m sure I saw a post on this blog (probably within the last year) in which,Ted, you mentioned that the Mayor had convened some committee to devise a re-election strategy. You published an agenda or minutes or strategy from the meeting.
One of the items, I believe, included a proposal for the committee members to allocate a portion of their allowance towards a fighting fund (that’s my synopsis from memory so may not be 100% accurate). I remember that you questioned whether that proposal was legal or not.
I’ve tried searching through the blog to link to the specific story but with only these vague details I’ve had no luck. Maybe you’ve got a better behind-the-scenes search facility and might be able to dig up and check whether the story does correspond to this publication?
In the meantime, in searching fruitlessly for the article I was looking for, I did come across posts relating to the election of Ghulam Robbani in Spitalfields last year. It may just be me but I detect a common design element between his election literature and the Mayor’s.
https://trialbyjeory.wordpress.com/2012/07/05/five-councillors-expelled-from-labour-labour-is-racist-and-what-about-the-lord-sugar-and-dan-hodges-cases/
https://trialbyjeory.wordpress.com/2012/04/03/tory-questions-for-ghulam-robbani/
The second link is particularly interesting – if the leaflets were designed and printed by the same people it would provide the answer to Peter Golds’ question about the name of the printer of election leaflets.
Thanks…yes, please, can you send that to me?
I think you were after this link:
https://trialbyjeory.wordpress.com/2013/03/26/election-matters/
I’m looking for some of our dear mayor’s other publications. Can you please put up all his newsletters from last year? thanks