The camera never lies, does it?
President Lutfur Rahman held a very Presidential fundraising rally on Tuesday night. I wasn’t invited, alas, but I suspect it was cheaper than the £100-a-head affair hosted in honour of John Biggs last November at the same venue, the East Wintergarden in Canary Wharf.
Apparently, it was a good and impressive do. I’m not sure who paid for it, but in a press release issued today, Lutfur’s new party, Tower Hamlets First, said they’d raised £56,000 AFTER the event. Wow! There’s no such thing as a free dinner, is there? Except in Tower Hamlets, where there are plenty of free lunch clubs…
Well, since Lutfur has always been a transparent sort of guy, we can all look forward to the break down of that £56k when he declares it in the most minute detail to the Electoral Commission.
Now, one of the accusations frequently levelled at President Rahman is he’s almost exclusively interested in the Bengali vote. But that’s not true. Because his press release included a main photo to prove his broad appeal.
Helpfully, though, he also sent us a wider shot.
Which appears to match the description given by someone who attended: very Bengali and very male.
Here’s the text of his press release (I’m just pasting these without correcting mistakes):
Press Release
For immediate release – 16 January 2014
Mayor reports back to the community on three years in office
‘Transforming Tower Hamlets’ event sets vision for the future
Mayor Lutfur Rahman was joined on Tuesday night (14 January) by over 500 representatives of local organisations, community activists and supporters at the East Wintergarden in Canary Wharf to mark his administration’s delivery after three years in office.
The event was chaired by broadcaster Rizwan Hussain and Nana Asante, the Mayor of Harrow. Guests were treated to two films detailing Lutfur Rahman’s political journey and the administration’s string of nationally recognised achievements in housing, education and investments in fighting crime, as well as speakers including:
Ohid Ahmed, Deputy Mayor of Tower Hamlets; Simon Woolley, Founder and Director of Operation Black Vote;
Lillian Collins, Chair of the Poplar Baths Steering Group and former Chair of Poplar and Canning Town Labour Party;
Shiraj Haque, Chair of the 2010 Yes for Mayor Campaign;
Father Michael Dunne; Head of the Catholic Deanery, Tower Hamlets;
Captain Nick Coke of the Salvation Army and TELCO/CITIZENS UK;
Muquim Ahmed, Chair of the British Bangladeshi Chamber of Commerce;
Mawlana Shamsul Haque, Chair of Council of Mosques, Tower Hamlets and
Nazia Ahad, teacher and local resident.
In his speech, Mayor Rahman thanked the residents of the borough, community activists, supporters and the business community and embraced his unusual political journey saying:
“There are plenty of conventional politicians up for election in Tower Hamlets; plenty of very ordinary candidates with very ordinary ideas… I’m glad that I am an unconventional politician; I’m glad I’m not a careerist or a party man, because Tower Hamlets is an extraordinary place.”
Mayor Rahman also set out his vision for the future of the borough; centred on the £100m Whitechapel Vision redevelopment project which will bring 5,000 new jobs, 3,500 new homes, space for retail businesses and a publicly-owned town hall in the historic former Royal London Hospital building, saving residents millions each year in rent and service charges on the current town hall.
After a successful event, local business people and supporters pledged a total of £56,500 towards Tower Hamlets First and the re-election of Mayor Rahman.
Mayor Rahman said: “Our administration as a proven track record of implementing progressive policies to deal with emerging issues such as the government’s cuts to welfare, but we’ve also shown we can successfully plan and deliver the big projects that will change the face of Tower Hamlets forever.”
Operation Black Vote Chief Simon Wolley told the gathering: “Lutfur has made history as Europe’s first directly elected black mayor. He’s a role model to black communities across Britain
Speaking after the event, Deputy Mayor Ohid Ahmed said: “Lutfur Rahman stands head and shoulders above the other candidates. He has the vision and determination to transform this borough and I’m proud to fight alongside him for the ordinary people of Tower Hamlets.”
Lillian Collins, Chair of the Poplar Baths Steering Group said: “Lutfur is committed to ordinary working people in Tower Hamlets; he delivers on his promises and cares as much about our heritage as our future. Four years ago, the reopening of Poplar Baths was a mere dream. Now it is fast becoming a reality.”
Trial by Jeory 
It’s clear from the photos that he had precisely seven non-Bangladeshi people at the whole event. Someone with sharper, younger eyes than me can probably identify them from the photo.
Tim.
Yes Tim, and all of them no doubt on generous grants from the taxpayers of Tower Hamlets. The name of one of them rings a bell and I’ll do some digging and get back tomorrow.
Lutfur was not the first directly elected mayor from the BME community in Europe by a long way (in fact out by about 106 years).
For example Dr Allan Minns, elected mayor in Thetford, Norfolk in 1904, John Archer elected in 1913 in Battersea and Raphaël Elizé was elected as a Mayor in France in 1929. For a useful summary see here;
http://afroeurope.blogspot.co.uk/2009/09/afroeuropean-mayors-or-black-mayors-of.html
Do you think they will correct the press release?
I also read the Whitechapel master plan, 3,500 new homes, number of new schools? Zero even though the council in 2012 estimated that they would be short of 510 primary school places by 2020 based on current plans
Simon Wolley wrong?
Tank you for that Andrew Wood. Now do you have anything sensible to say?
Women are third class people – you simply can’t invite them who are our mothers, our sisters, our daughters, our wives and our lovers to an important event.
Goodness gracious me, whatever would the people say and think if I took along a woman? People would laugh at me, as if I wasn’t a proper man. Some men may try to speak to my wife or my daughter. That would be insulting to our family values.
Our culture has taught us over many many centuries that a woman’s place is in the kitchen, looking after the children, cleaning the house, doing the shopping and when I feel a little bit randy, taking care of my needs.
How can any sensible person dare to suggest a woman could attend such a prestigious community event? Women are not part of our community. They have a special role to assist the men. It is better, always, that the man takes all decisions for the good benefit of the family and the community generally.
If you take a woman to the event she could do something outrages like shaking the hand of a man who is not her husband. It would not surprise me if some wayward women, influenced by the American society, will embarrass their menfolk by taking-off their bras and burning them. There are too many sinister, dangerous and revolutionary ideas in the world detrimental to women’s best interests. It is better for the men to protect the women and not expose them to all these dangers. Safely at home, the women can relax and know that everything will be all right because the men are making the important decisions.
I hate this strange alien Western ideas. Its all getting out of the hand. I would not be surprised if some dangerous person wants to give education to the girls. It would destroy their lives and make them more susceptible to the horrible Western ways. We must do all we can to protect our women from these dangers that threaten them in this evil Western world.
My father and his father too, never had the Western education or the strange Western ideas. They were honourable persons; pillars of their community. Look at the badness education can bring to the lives of the Pakistani and Bangladeshi women. Its makes women argumentative and disrespectful of their lords and masters – the men in their lives.
The Western world is attempting to seduce our women by offering them votes. They must not vote unless it is a postal vote and our men supervised the ballot choice at home in the safety of the family surroundings.
My friends we must work harder to introduce in to this immoral Western world, good and proper community behaviour that flourish in our home countries including corruption, assaults, bribes, rapes and even murders. This London Borough of Tower Hamlets is safe in our hands while we all protect, preserve and respect our well-established traditional cultural values.
Mr Ali Cat
Keeping our women safe by locking them up at home for their own protection.
Well done. As usual you’ve typed out a whole essay that is pretty boring brings nothing to the debate. Nice italics too.
=> Oldford 1
It does remind everyone of the ‘culture’ that is the majority culture in the LBTH.
Ignoring the anti-women status quo is silly.
Women’s second class citizenship, third class in some parts of the community, is alien to the beliefs of the vast majority of UK residents but not, so it seems, to a significant quantity of immigrants from the Indian sub-continent domiciled in the LBTH.
Education is the only method of improving the local situation, the local community and removing some of the old and wrong community attitudes which are dominant in some parts of the Indian sub-continent (also known as South Asia).
Why was it a Men’s Only dinner? Did we miss the Strippers? If men can share the same bed as women why can’t they share the same table as woman as such events ???
Does this perverse social Apartheid (a Dutch word) appeal to you? It doesn’t to me. I just happen to think women are equal, more of less, to men.
Women are always discriminated against in Mosques, kept separate from men. Some mosques don’t allow women in. Not so with Sikhs, Hindus and Christians. Is TH ever going to improve if the growing majority of the community wants to import the negative and retarded ways from back home?
Where is the community cohesion if half are banned from attending these weird Men Only social events ?
Why is no one asking the Mayor why women were banned from his social function ????
Curious Cat.
Is he, a wolly that is? More of him later. I was fascinated to see the presence of the Mayor of Harrow and she rang a bell. There has been, last year to be precise, a similar racial split in Harrow Labour Party as there had been earlier in that of Tower Hamlets.
http://www.harrowtimes.co.uk/news/10433844.Council_gets_new_Mayor/.
Also google Independent Labour Councillors in Harrow and about five or six entries down there is an article from Labour List which for reason doesn’t come up when posted.
Exactly the same process has happened as in Tower Hamlets but on an openly anti white basis as opposed to the Bangladeshi one that we are dealing with. One similarity is that one of the independents formerly defected from the Tories to Labour, sound familiar?
The Rizwan Hussain mentioned has also had a chequered career, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rizwan_Hussain. What seems to be happening is that local opportunists in Labour around the country are trying to use their muscle to get positions where they can extract jobs and grants and positions on shortlists and when they don’t get what they want they break away, the model being Tower Hamlets. More details of what is going later.
Can someone try to put up the post from Labour List as it will be easier for people to read it and it is very important?
I don’t normally buy the Sunday Telegraph but I saw a Gilligan article that is behind their pay wall so I went out and bought a copy. The article is headed ” Bought that is a byword for sleaze”.
It’s a long article and some of it is background that readers in other parts of the country will need to know to appreciate the rest of the article but you will all be familiar with the doings of The Dear Leader Lutfur Rahman so I will concentrate on the essence.
“Poplar Town Hall is a case in point. A large and attractive Victorian listed building, a stones throw from Canary Wharf and steps from a future Crossrail station, it is worth millions. But the Sunday Telegraph has learnt that in 2011 the council sold it for £875,000 little more than a three bed-roomed Victorian house in the neighbouring borough would cost. Polar Town Hall though is big enough for its new owners to be converting it into a 25 bedroom hotel.
Once they’d bought the place the would be hoteliers had another stroke of luck. Approval for any conversion of a listed building, especially one with with all of the transport and noise issues of a hotel, must normally be decided in public by elected councillors on the planning committee. Extraordinarily, the new owners of Poplar Town Hall got their planning permission in private, without any planning committee hearing, under ” delegated authority” from one of Mr Rahman’s officers.
So who are the new owners of of Poplar Town Hall? It was sold to a company called Dreamstar, one of whose key shareholders, Mujibul Islam, is Chief Executive of Medialink, the registered owner of Mr Rahman’s election campaign website, lutfurformayor.com. Another main shareholder, Alfaz Kabir, is director of a “regeneration” company based in the East London Mosque offices of the IFE. Mr Islam admitted last night that he “had an affiliation” with Mr Rahman and had “helped” him during the 2010 election but insisted that they were not close and that, if anything, he now regretted the association. Poplar Town Hall was”openly tendered for anyone to buy and we just tendered ( for it ) as everyone else did” Mr Islam said.
He said he did not know whether his company’s was the highest bid. The council refused to respond to questions about the deal put to it by The Sunday Telegraph.
Under Dreamstar’s ownership Poplar Town Hall has also housed an organisation called Barbican College, which is closely linked to another key Rahman ally, the London based Bengali television channel, Channel S-popular with Mr Rahman’s Bangladeshi voter base. Barbican College, under another name, was previously based in Channel S’s Walthamstow offices and the two have shared key staff including a spokesman.
No wonder Simon Wooley of Operation Black Vote is a supporter of Lutfur Raman, both of them know a thing or two about grants from the public purse.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/suspended-aide-what-the-police-are-already-investigating-6658844.html.
I’ll go and have some breakfast now and come back with more highlights of the article later.
Mr Mad Mullah of Brick Lane, London, wrote:-
I am astonished why anyone in England should be interested in this ROUTINE disposal of PUBLIC property at a CHEAP price.
I am NOT referring to the Poplar Town Hall matter, when I truthfully write
It is a long established fact that corruption is endemic in local government throughout England yet no one at Westminster tackles the issue. The police all over the country turn a blind eye to corruption in local government unless they are actually forced to intervene. Think they don’t want to upset their in community ventures and joint working groups by raising the issue. The relationship between police and local authorities is too intimate and thus conducive to the non-investigation of local authority crime especially fraud.
In my personal experience of local authorities outside London this ‘flog-off cheaply’ policy is done in Labour controlled local authorities with significant quantities of councillors from the Indian sub-continent. Sorry if this upsets some but it is my honest experience.
AND some years later all the paperwork is destroyed so its very difficult, if not impossible, to retrospective investigate – and I have tried in the instances I found. It is really surprising how quickly local government paperwork vanishes, staff memories become and and staff directly involved move to other local authorities which distances them from the ‘crime scene’.
That is why LBTH needs a strong non-political residents party, consisting of supporters from the big national parties, the non-aligned as well as members of community groups, to contest ALL local elections.
Curious Cat.
The answer to his question is in the public domain in May 2012 FC minutes:
“Response by Councillor Alibor Choudhury, Cabinet Member for Resources
Poplar Town Hall was formally declared surplus to Council requirement by Cabinet on 12 January 2011 and officers were given authority to dispose of the property in the open market.
The property was openly and widely marketed by external agents on 9 May 2011 a wide range of bids were received on 8 July 2011.
The property was sold to the highest bidder. The transaction completed on 11 November 2011.”
http://moderngov.towerhamlets.gov.uk/documents/g3744/Printed%20minutes%2016th-May-2012%2019.45%20Council.pdf?T=1
Clearly Gilligan didn’t do his research. But then he never was too careful was he – remember Dr Kelly?
You will have to do better than this Marc.
The key question is what planning permission was advertised at the point of sale or what indication was given to bidders as to the likely change of use. Had it been clear for example that the building could be converted into residential units the sale proceeds would have been larger given the great location (1 bedroom flats on Poplar High Street sell for more then £200k).
Do you honestly believe that nobody would be willing to pay more than £875000 for Poplar Town Hall? This is obviously corrupt.
I suppose some people might be daft enough to believe that £875000 is the best price they could get for Poplar Town Hall
Operation Black Vote are also heavily involved with the Mayor’s Community Champion scheme… The organisers say they’re neutral but how can a racially biased organisation like OBV be neutral in a multiracial area when their whole reson d’être is to assist black voters, not white?
There’s been complaints already by some members of the public about the racial bias OBV are adding to that initiative, which, after all, is giving out OUR money.
When can we stop paying council tax? Surely rate payers are in effect aiding and abetting a crime?
By Marc I meant Cllr Marc Francis who, I am told, is oldford1 and who, it is alleged, as been on the take from the mayor for quite a while after it was decided that it was best he didn’t jump ship and join the IFE team as the tame whitey. Comments Marc?
Oldford 1 wrote:-
Lets have, if the council will oblige:
(1) The council’s own, independent, valuation of the site.
(2) The identity of the
(3) The quantity of bids received
(4) The identity of the person who, independently and transparently, supervised or monitored the opening of the bids
(5) Whether the bids were sent to an independent organisation to ensure no bids were accidentally ‘lost’ or ‘omitted’ or some favoured more than others.
(6) Comprehensive details of the alleged campaign with full copies of the ‘For Sale’ texts and photos
Lets do the investigation properly. After all it is the PUBLIC’s money..
I bet the police find the records have been leaving nothing to assist a forensic investigation.
Never forgotten him. I’m aware of the police cover-up.
Why should Gilligan’s involvement in the Kelly affair, negate the truth of the Poplar Town Hall scandal ?
Surely you are not attempting to fool the public by pretending everything is wonderfully well in the LBTH ?
Curious Cat.
FOI request submitted
whatdotheyknow.com/request/poplar_town_hall_sale
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/poplar_town_hall_sale
CC.
Here is today’s (6 Feb 2014) answer Verbatim copy without alteration.
————————————————————————————
FOI 9850 Poplar Town Hall Sale
Question
This is about the sale of Poplar Town Hall in 2011.
Minutes of the full Council meeting held on 16 May 2012 at agenda item 8.14
on page 30 partially refer.
I would like to know:
(1) The council’s own, independent, valuation of the site.
(2) The identity of the “external agents”.
(3) The quantity of bids received.
(4) The identity of the person who, independently and transparently,
supervised or monitored the opening of the bids.
(5) Whether the bids were sent to an independent organisation to ensure no
bids were accidentally ‘lost’ or ‘omitted’ or some favoured more than others.
(6) Comprehensive details of the alleged “openly and widely marketed”
campaign with full copies of the ‘For Sale’ texts and photos
Have submitted a FOI request for an internal review of LBTH’s refusal to tell the public what has been going on.
(A) The material requested is a matter of record.
(B) Disclosing the requested material can not affect the deliberations, including enquiries, of the council or of the police or of a court of law.
(C) The Local Authority’s embarrassment and/or the political aspirations of its politicians and/or the professional reputations of its paid staff are not lawful or reasonable or proportionate reasons to conceal from the public actions collectively taken by the Local Authority on behalf of the public particularly when those actions are contentious and suggest disreputable conduct by the Local Authority.
Curious Cat
If I am reading that correctly they are claiming that the sale of a public building is not considered to be something that the public have any right to know about? Please tell me I am mistaken.
That, surely, is worthy of a complaint to the Information Commissioner. Or should it be the DCLG for having such hearings in closed session in the first place?
Disreputable behaviour indeed. Well done CC for carrying on with this one. Where do you go from here with it? Let me know if you need another any assistance.
Well said and done CC. I remember when Gilligan exposed the corruption around Lee Jasper and the missing three and a half million pounds of Londoner’s money that disappeared to various African Caribbean groups in London, the rest of the country and Europe, his detractors brought up the Dr Kelly episode time and again. What it had to do with the issue I had and have no idea.
As far as I remember Gilligan completely destroyed the reason for going into Iraq and was the darling of the left. As soon as he exposed their hero Livingstone and Jasper as well as Wooley and a whole bunch of other black freeloaders and parasites he was a racist who was in the pay of the Tory party.
The same bunch of black nationalists/ Marxists/Trots repeated the slanders when he exposed the Rahman/IFE regime in a television documentary and was, once again, proven correct. I get the feeling that this is the beginning of an onslaught on Rahman but I also feel that it might be too late as Biggs simply isn’t running a campaign. One thing you could also do CC is see if Operation Black Vote is getting any grants from Rahman, crooks of a feather, flock together.
whatdotheyknow.com/request/grants_to_ethnic_organisations
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/grants_to_ethnic_organisations/new
Even I know we went to war in Iraq, for the second time, to appease George W Bush. It was Dick Cheney’s Oil War.
Lying to the public by political leaders should become a crime punishable by 2 years imprisonment.
Is it a coincidence that the USA Poodle, a.k.a. British prime minister, is now worth over £70 million ?
Curious Cat
” Last year the broadcasting regulator, Ofcom, censured Channel S after Mr Rahman paid it thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money to run up to fifteen adverts a day promoting his policies. Political advertising is banned on television.
It was at least the ninth time that Channel S has been censured by Ofcom or te advertising watchdog, te ASA. Mr Rahman is giving, or proposing to give, Channel S at least £17,000 from council funds to stage events. He pays a further £1050 of public money to Channel S’s chief reporter Mohammed Jubair, emplyoing him as a part time ” community relations adviser” even tough Mr Jubair continues to report for Channel S. The council refused to answer questions about its relationship with Channel S.
Mr Rahman employs at public expense another ” community liaison officer”, Shazid Miah, whose job, leaked minutes from May 2012 show, is to ” lead” Mr Rahman’s re-election campaign. Vast sums are being spent on official propaganda with a weekly newspaper delivered to all households, posters of Mr Rahman across the borough and residents bombarded, again at public expense, with the thousands of personalised letters from Mr Rahman boasting of is achievements. A man who falsely accused Mr Rahman’s main opponent of wife beating was then given a council grant.
In 2012 Mr Rahman changed Tower Hamlets’ procedures so that he personally decided all council grants over £1000 with the help of his ” advisor to the third sector” Maium Miah. And it is these grants that are causing the most serious concern.
In the words of councillors on Tower Hamlets cross-party scrutiny committee ” new, untested organisations with no track record of delivering for the community” suddenly spring up, paid substantial sums for sometimes ill defined projects. One organisation that has received tens of thousands of pounds to run a “lunch club” for Bengali pensioners and a ” mother tongue” school for 72 Bangladeshi children apparently conducts these activities from a two bed-roomed council flat.
Many of the groups, it turns out, have close links to Mr Rahman and his political allies. The Island Bengali Welfare Association, based in another former council flat on the Isle of Dogs, has received no less than £91,000. Its ex chair is Maium Miah, the Rahman man who helps decide grants.
I’ll let you mull over that and come back later today with the last excerpt as well as how Livingstone aides did exactly the same ting which led to his newtness’s downfall. Let us hope the same thing happens in Tower Hamlets.
One last thing as to the relative values of similar buildings. The former Banglacity supermarket in Brick Lane is sold today for £8.4 million. This was the commercial value of the site which is pretty much the same size as the one occupied by the old Poplar Town Hall also to be a hotel. Comments oldford1?
Perhaps you should send a copy of your kind invitation to his council email address, just in case he unfortunately misses your posting here.
Curious Cat.
He’s suddenly lost for words
Further reading! Not that Lutfur and co needed any help in devising scams but I thought people might like to look at ow a former past master of the noble art Ken Livingstone and co managed to loot the tax paying public of London, and remember this went on for all his time at the GLC and then when he was was Mayor.
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/suspended-aide-what-the-police-are-already-investigating-6658844.html
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/kens-aids-and-lost-millions-6687051.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/andrewgilligan/10019819/ken-livingstone-ridiculed-as-he-tries-to-help-lutfur-raman/
They should all come up this time. You wonder what Livingstone was thinking of when he backed Lutfur.
Oldford1, If you re-read the Gilligan article, you’ll see that he’s referring to the old Poplar Town Hall and not the Limehouse Library building which the Cabinet minutes (p28) refer to.
So does that mean two buildings were sold off by the mayor?
Hoi Ria,
Keep looking. Probably buried among the dusty files (if they haven’t already be shredded) is more public property flogged-off for lower than the realistic market price.
Shocking that the council’s Internal Audit and Auditors never noticed what was going on in the public’s name by officials elected to serve the public.
Curious Cat.
Oops! And on p30 of the minutes, the sale of Poplar Town Hall is recorded. Apologies for the confusion. So the mayor sold off two beautiful buidlings in the borough? To the same group of people? What a generous mayor we have!
Marc Francis has gone very quiet about his. He should be sacked. by Labour not adopted as a candidate
Can’t blame him. He might be overloaded with other things.
Labour people hardly ever loudly condemn actions the public find abhorrent, so why should Marc be any different than the rest of his Labour Party?
Labour want power for power’s sake, not for genuinely making non-political improvements for communities.
At LBTH election time there is not much to chose between the Mayor’s Party and the Labour Party although one lot always seems to get away with it.
Curious Cat.
Whilst I am no apologist for Labour the are completely different to Lutfur’s absurdly name Tower Hamlets First, or whatever it is this week. They are at the very least a pan borough, cross racial group organisation unlike what they face. I will have dinner and give you all the last part of the Gilligan Sunday saga. I have discovered why the Telegraph links don’t come up, they are behind the pay wall.
Let me just remind you that all of the ghastly characters who have stolen from this borough over the past twenty have been Labour creations. It’s the Labour Party culture that has brought this about. Lutfur, Shelina Akhtar, Pola Uddin, Ghulam Murtoza… Need I continue?
May I remind everybody the LBTH is not unique. The dreadful malaise extends national wide.
Local Labour attracts some of the worse villains known to mankind.
Just why do they flourish so abundantly in LBTH ?
Curious Cat.
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