Tower Hamlets police have launched an investigation into a homophobic smear campaign against former Lib Dem councillor Nigel McCollum.
Posters appeared in bus shelters near his home in the Old Ford Road area of Bow late on Wednesday night, Thursday morning and again today. In total, about 10 have been found.
The posters, which include a recently taken photograph at him at an event in Bow attended by the Duchess of Gloucester, label him a ‘paedophile’. They gave his address and phone numbers.
They also went into more details which I’m not publishing. All are false.
He is openly gay and delivered a petition on behalf of other residents in Bow at Wednesday’s council meeting, which also heard a series of people and youngsters condemning homophobia in the borough.
Although a former Lib Dem, as regular readers of this blog will know, he is now a supporter and good friend of Mayor Lutfur Rahman.
The mayor has just posted comments about the incident on his blog today. That he failed to condemn the homophobic rants against Tory Peter Golds at previous council meetings in no way detracts from the gravity of his words.
Here’s what Lutfur says:
I have been appalled to learn of the quite shocking and potentially criminal actions that have directly followed the public intervention of one of our borough’s prominent and respected residents, former Lib Dem councillor, Nigel McCollum, in the full council meeting in the Town Hall on Wednesday night.
I understand the police have launched an immediate investigation in to who is behind the posting of deeply offensive leaflets, picturing Nigel McCollum, and claiming that he is a ‘paedophile’. These posters have been posted in and around public areas near to where Nigel lives.
Fortunately, Nigel was alerted by concerned neighbours and friends upon waking on Thursday morning.
He had raised what he believes to have been the scandalous role of some local Labour councillors in wasting £1.6 million on developments in the Roman Road the previous evening at a meeting of the full council.
Both Lib Dem leader, Councillor Stephanie Eaton and I are urging the police to mount a full and thorough investigation. Both Stephanie and I wish to condemn what Nigel and ourselves believe to be a serious homophobic attack, and one that may well be politically charged. I have spoken to Nigel and offered him both our sympathy and our full support.
There can be no place for homophobia and hate in Tower Hamlets. Those who attempt to promulgate it must know that there will be consequences to their actions.
And here’s what Lib Dem councillor Stephanie Eaton says in the press release she’s just issued:
Former Liberal Democrat Councillor Nigel McCollum has been the subject of anonymous smears and lies following his presentation of a petition to full council on Wednesday night. On Thursday morning, a number of posters were found in Bow making untrue and homophobic accusations against Mr McCollum. The police have launched an immediate investigation in to the production of the posters, which included a recent photograph of Nigel McCollum and his contact details. The posters were posted in public areas near to where Mr McCollum lives.
Liberal Democrat Councillor, Dr Stephanie Eaton said: “I am appalled to learn of the shocking and potentially criminal actions that have directly followed the public intervention of one of our borough’s respected residents, Nigel McCollum, in the full council meeting in the Town Hall on Wednesday night. Nigel McCollum had raised what he believes to have been the scandalous role of some local Labour councillors in wasting £1.6 million on developments in the Roman Road the previous evening at a meeting of the full council.
Nigel and I believe this to be a serious homophobic attack, and one that is aimed at stopping him from continuing his political activities. To post anonymous homophobic attacks about a resident and former councillor simply because he has raised legitimate questions about public spending is cowardly and unacceptable. It is an attack on all people involved in local politics, and one which has the potential to deter LGBT people from public service.
There can be no place for homophobia in Tower Hamlets and in Tower Hamlets politics.”
Notes for Editors
Nigel McCollum was a Tower Hamlets Councillor from 2002-2006 representing the ward of Bow East. He is a gay man in a long term relationship with his partner.
In 2005/2006 Nigel McCollum was subjected to anonymous hate mail making similar homophobic accusations. At the same time anonymous defamatory statements were also circulated to the Police, media and local politicians. The intimidation and harassment was a key reason in Nigel’s decision not to stand for re-election in 2006. As soon as this decision was announced, the harassment stopped.
Whether it was politically motivated or just some evil idiot with another grudge should be easy to prove. Plenty of CCTV in the area in question.
Trial by Jeory 
This is absolutely vile and disgusting politics, lower than vermin.
Is it unrealistic to hope it is a coincidence that this occurred the day after Nigel appeared at Full Council?
On the matter of Cllr Golds, ‘rants’ is disingenuous. On two occasions, it was alleged that a homophobic word had been shouted out from the public gallery. I was in the public gallery for the second meeting, but somehow it must have carried across the chamber to councillors whilst by-passing my closer ears. Obviously I can’t comment on the first occasion because I was not there. All I’ve ever heard from the public is clapping and jeering, and a councillor being compared to the famous singer, Susan Boyle.
I only bring this up because through Chinese whispers this has been reported in various media as ‘regular rants’ and ‘Lutfur Rahman’s homophobic rants’. Robin De Peyer described the behavior on LBC as regular homophobic chants in Bengali, as did a member of the public in his tabled question at Wednesday’s council. Maybe Robin and the member of the public could tell us what homophobic words of Bengali they know, because I’m none the wiser.
Anyway, this was the Mayor’s position, as you reported at the time: here was what the mayor had to say:
http://mayorlutfurrahman.wordpress.com/2012/02/18/i-call-on-the-police-to-investigate-allegations-of-homophobia-in-tower-hamlets/
How do you know it’s politics, as you assert in your first par?
Have you never heard the camp ‘girly voices’ being slung Peter’s way before? I have. Not Chinese whispers. Maybe you’re just deaf to them.
I meant politics in a broad sense. Clearly this is an attack on a local political figure and nobody is naive enough to suggest this is totally unconnected to his position. Whether it is party politics, I leave for the police to establish.
And no, I haven’t heard these ‘voices’. Honestly and truly, and I am hurt and insulted at the suggestion I would be ‘deaf’ to it as someone who spends a lot of time campaigning against homophobia.
Whatever my disagreements with Cllr Golds’ values or approach to the borough, that is vile politics whoever it is aimed at. Unequivocally. Period.
Councillors should be held to account for their policies, not for their sexuality nor – I might add – their accents.
Er, not accents….ability to communicate properly and fully in spoken English, something that comes from practice.
Your comment ‘nobody is naive enough to suggest this is totally unconnected to his position’ is equally naive…and a little suggestive before you have any evidence to back that up.
I think you’ll find Stephanie’s gone much further than I have.
And as Josh Peck has asked on Twitter…based on what evidence?
What happened to that Feb 2012 investigation. Lutfur should give us an update given he encouraged the police to act.
Lutfur has done the right thing quickly condemning these posters, and whilst I’m sure he isn’t a homophobe many of the company he keeps are probably quite homophobic, e.g. Speakers at the ELM and I suspect most of the IFE who are supposedly “progressive” et cetera.
Double speak?
Homophobia across the borough is common oldford1. Labour/Conservative and Lib Debs have all been victims of it although this is the first time I have heard the Mayor pipe up. That to me is disgusting politics. Implicit in both the Mayor and your remarks, and via a leap of reason, is that Labour are somehow responsible for the posters. That is a vile exploitation of the situation.
Can we just, for once, join together, and condemn this vileness. Those children were magnificent at the council meeting. Please let their words be heard first.
Glad to see the Mayor and other political leaders condemn this act. Hope they catch the culprits soon.
Ted, your teenage take on people’s ability to communicate is a little worrying. Hope it doesn’t reflect your general attitude to those who can speak fluent English and those who can’t.
Have no idea what you’re saying. Try again.
Ted what problem have you against people without the “ability to communicate properly and fully in spoken English”? I know many people who try to learn English but it is difficult for them. Sometimes even practice fails. Anyway “properly and fully” is a relative term. I do worry some people who do not reach certain standards expected by certain people may be discriminated against. That is my concern.
I have absolutely no problem with people trying to learn English. Where I do think there’s an issue is when people are paid a fair bit of money as council cabinet members when their grasp of English or ability to communicate their ideas in English is poor.
The ability to communicate is everything in politics. And I mean in English.
In Lutfur’s cabinet there are at least three men who do not have that ability. They were all selected by Labour. It’s embarrassing to hear them try to debate in the council chamber and I’m sure frustrating for them.
Local Government catechism
Q1. Why is a councillor elected ?
A1.To serve ALLthe local people in all the wards of the local authority.
Q2. What is the official language of the local authorities in England ? Double-Dutch, Punjabi, Urdu, Arabic, Polish or Somalian ?
A2. English
Q3. When councillors can not properly speak the official language what translating facilities does the LBTH provide to enable the public to understand the councillors and for the councillors to understand the public they were elected to serve ?
A3. &sff-=@sd sdd sdnier £%&*(+@
Sorry, can you say that again ?
None under Stan. Him say me later.
Cor mate. Can I ave dat again mush ?
my friend he say. my friend busy. me counmcillor.
Curious Cat
Although their grasp of English is not brilliant I did understand them in the council meeting recording. But it’s not just a Lutfur cabinet problem. labour have their own language challenged councillors.
TBH it’s not only about language either, I genuinely cringed when Cllr Shiria Khatun expressed concerns that residents of Brownfield Estate were very worried because the Mayor said he would be building on brownfield land. :S these are our elected reps!
=> Hamleteer
That’s a funny joke.
Don’t be surprised or shocked. Its fairly typical in English local government in areas of high immigrant populations, usually among Labour councillors.. The reason is lack of adequate basic education.
Few councillors run councils. Most decisions are taken by unelected, over-paid and unaccountable officials who, inevitably in local government, are Labour supporters.
More public referendums, just like the Swiss always have, would be better than not very brilliant councillors holding-up their hands to vote as told.
Curious Cat.
Its sad. Its usually just the British residents that seem so obsessed with homosexuality. In most other European countries there is tolerance and acceptance of those with an specific gene inherited from their mother.
Sad too that only the Labour Party out of all the big parties would stoop to this type of action. Labour have a track record of smearing from other parties but never ever their own.
At the time of the Miranda Grell scandal in 2006 (Lab ward candidate falsely accused her Lib Dem opponent of being a paedo and he had to flee London for the north of England for his personal safety), I searched Google and there were lots of entries showing Labour were slagging-off their political opponents for being homosexual but most surprisingly never slagging-off any Labour homos.
Its time Labour cleaned-out its cesspit.
RING CRIME STOPPERS on 0800-555 111 if you know anything or have suspicions and help to put the c**** behind bars.
Curious Cat.
I take it you don’t remember the Bermondsey by-election of 1983? Of course you do: Peter Tatchell (Labour candidate for MP) was smeared horrendously for being gay by the press and the Lib Dems stood by and watched it even though their candidate was well known (by all the labour councillors for instance who kept a dignified silence on the subject) to lean the same way.
On a technical matter if you try to clean-out a cesspit it will stop working. Clear it out yes, but don’t clean it.
=> John Lee
No I don’t remember the Peter Tatchell affair probably because the telly news didn’t cover UK domestic news – apart from the first item on many occasions which was “English Strike”. English newspapers arrived next day at astronomical cost, so it was cheaper to read the local newspapers instead.
On short-wave radio Radio Moscow spoke clearer and better English than the BBC’s woman presenter with a difficult to understand heavy Welsh accent. God only knows how the foreigners managed to listen to BBC’s English outpourings then financed by the FCO.
I also missed lots of Falklands War coverage for the same reason. No Sat TV at the time otherwise I would have tuned-in.
Peter Tatchell was well-known as an arrogant, disruptive and sometimes nasty person. The media always added his sexual preference as if to suggest it was that that made him unpleasant at that time.
Instead of having cesspits, and you are undoubtedly correct, lets flush the unacceptable permanently away down the loo.
I agree with the thoughts of Mr/Mrs/Miss/MS Mad Mullah from Brick Lane who wrote:-
By the way, why does ‘Mad’ think it was colour printers and not the local Labour Party’s Risograph ?
Curious Cat.
I must say that I had never heard of this councillor before this matter but there are a number of points that don’t seem to add up. It would seem to be that he decided that he wasn’t going to stand again as a Lib Dem because of the original homophobic threats back in 2006 or slightly before.
It was at that election that the Lib Dems were finally eclipsed and it may well be that he was doing a Sarah Teather and not standing as he knew he wasn’t going to be elected. As far as I know Labour swept the board in the Bow area which had previously been a Lib Dem stronghold.
I understand from previous blogs by Ted that there have been, at the very least, rumours that Ms Eaton was about to jump ship or at least take a seat in Rahman’s cabinet but was restrained because of her marriage to a prominent Labour Cllr but she is to say the least still very anti Labour they having effectively demolished the Lib Dem hold of the council.
Let’s look at the timing of what happened. Both Rahman and Eaton have clearly linked the posters and McCollum’s decision not to stand in 2006 to homophobic campaigns against him the evidence for which is, at the moment, anecdotal. Perhaps we can have some evidence of what actually happened back at that time. What is clear from the statements from the Lutfur/Eaton camp is that as soon as he announced his decision not to stand the campaign, whateverit was, ceased.
This is a clear accusation that it was Labour who were either behind the “smear” campaign or certainly did nothing to deter it as they were to be the eventual beneficiaries, no other implication can be drawn from the statements of both Rahman and Eaton in relation to that matter.
In relation to the current allegations matters are far more clear cut. Rahman and Eaton have nailed their colours to the mast when they link two events that occurred with a few hours of each other. Think about this everyone. At a council meeting on the Wednesday night McCollum raised questions about the expenditure of a large amount of money,£1.6 million that he claimed had been wasted on Roman Rd developments by Labour Cllrs.
In the early hours of the next morning a series of posters, ten possibly in total, were posted in the area where he lives. This of course means that individuals with either animosity against him personally who were totally unconnected with Labour just happened to decide, for no apparent reason, to renew the campaign against McCollum or that Labour members or supporters were so incensed by his questions that they sat up all night on the their colour copiers producing the posters.
Black/false flag operations have to be carefully planned and carried out, this is no territory for amateurs. Whoever was behind this bodged attempt at an anti Labour smear will now find that it has backfired on them. There should be a police investigation and they should be looking at who benefits, and the answer has to be Lutfur Rahman and supporters.
If Ted allows this to be posted I would welcome a discussion but only on points of fact. I would also like to see the evidence for the campaign of vilification against McCollum in 2005/2006 as we may be able to pick that apart as well.
[…] « Police probe as posters appear smearing gay ex-Tower Hamlets councillor a ‘paedophileR… […]
I believe and accept that a person is never born homosexual (please stop gasping). It’s my god-given right to believe that. I am not judging any individual by having this belief.
I am not saying homosexual feelings/behaviour/tendancies/actions/acts/relationships/partnerships are inexistence. I am merely stipulating the right of an individual on this earth to believe that it is reversable.
“Once you’re gay, you’re gay for life”
“You can be born gay or straight. Not you’re choice”
“It’s not reversable”
What if a person who believed they were homosexual one day decided they actually want to be heterosexual. Will you deny their right to believe they were gay once upon a time?
Why does it always have to go down to being PC? Who makes these rules? Don’t say British values… please.
I have friends who are gay. It’s their right. As is my right to be straight and believe I being straight is how it is first intended.
Now don’t call me names. Like the H-word. Don’t judge me. If you oppose my thoughts, be polite about it.
=> Muslamic Islam
You wrote
Yet the reality is homosexuality is genetically determined before birth by one of the mother’s genes. Thus the likely incidence is 25% of her children will be born homosexual.
Hormones in one’s body, caused by recycled drinking water, plastic milk bottle containers and other sources can have a detrimental effect on heterosexuals. One good animal genetics study were the fish in England’s then most polluted river, the Humber. Fish of one gender were converted into almost the other gender because of hormonal pollution. Like it or not, males long domiciled in England are very slowly becoming less male and females ditto very slowly more masculine. Very small changes but observable to clinical/medical studies. People from third world countries appear not to have this established pattern of very slow gender diminishing.
But what has all this academic pondering to do with unwise and irresponsible people deliberately engaging in hate crimes ?
An appeal in English, Arabic and Urdu at all the nearby mosques for information about the villains and their crime would be most beneficial to the entire community.
Curious Cat
Why only mosques Mr Curious?
=> Hamleteer
* Because most people in the LBTH are Muslims?
* Because most voters in the LBTH have to be told what to think and, usually, how to vote and mosques are places where that can happen just before prayers start ?
* Because my instincts suggest the mosques will be the best places to reach those with knowledge of this Hate Crime ?
The Hate leaflets are not a Tory practice. It is Labour circles.
Curious Cat.
Why does your name have religious connotations? Anyway it’s people’s right to have their own opinions as long as they don’t use it to discriminate against or harm another. It’s a free country. But if I don’t see some scientific evidence I won’t be inclined to believe either argument of nature or nurture. What I do believe is, it’s entirely up to the individual to be gay or not be gay. It doesn’t affect me in any way.
I have been on the net trying to find any reference to the 2005?2006 smear allegations but can’t find a thing. Does anyone have any info at all?
=> The insane Mullah of Brick Lane
The best I can find is:-
http://london-borough-politics.blogspot.co.uk/2005/10/defections-since-2002-l-w.html
Saturday, October 01, 2005
Cllr Nigel McCollum (Bow East) now describes himself as Independent Lib Dem, having resigned from the Lib Dems in autumn 2004. The Tower Hamlets Lib Dems have a record of splits and personal hatreds that at least matches Labour’s local record of ya boo internal politics. When they controlled the Council for two terms from 1986 to 1994, they ended up splitting into at least three factions …
Curious Cat
Thanks Curious Cat. I found this but I don’t know if it’s the same person. www. telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/theroyalfamily/6257981/Royal-society-two-shock-exits-and-bagful-of-trouble.html. If that doesn’t work just google his name and Royal Society. It would seem from your article that although he is presented as Lib-Dem for four years he resigned after two. This is getting curiouser and curiouser.
=> Ms/Mr Mad Mullah of Brick Lane
Think it probably is because of the Gay Rights campaign issue.
The immigration court case is here:
http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2001/40.html
—
[1] The applicant and Mr Renato Lozano are in a long term single sex relationship. The applicant is a citizen both of the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. He wishes Mr Lozano to come to live with him in the United Kingdom, as his spouse or as a member of his family. The respondent has refused permission to Mr Lozano on the grounds that he is not entitled to be treated as `spouse’ or a family member. This forms the substance of the present challenge. ……..
[19] In my judgment, despite the ingenious submissions which were advanced on behalf of the applicant, this application must fail. The submissions made on behalf of the Secretary of State are compelling. There is clear authority which demonstrates that neither the Directive nor the Regulation which are in issue in this case can be interpreted so as to permit Mr Lozano to be treated either as `spouse’ or as a `member of the family’ of the applicant. This is clear both in domestic as well as EC law. ………
—
Gay Marriage has clearly overturned that decision.
Yes the general matter is puzzling.
Ted do you wish to interject ?
Curious Cat
All very interesting curious cat but is it the same Nigel McCollum? I suppose it must be. Still no info on the alleged incidents in 2005/06.
Ted can you highlight the Telegraph link that I gave as it might jog peoples memories?
That should of course be people’s.