Many of you would have already seen this piece I wrote for the Express on Thursday, but it needs recording here. You’ll remember last month this blog post about Mayor Lutfur Rahman providing another court character reference for a convicted criminal. As I said then, he has a habit of using his office for such good deeds.
The first to secure Lutfur’s praise in court was a minicab driver who had molested a woman in the back of his car.
Then last month it was Lutfur’s friend and admirer, Mohammed Mahee Ferdhaus, aka Mahee Jalil, aka the most influential man in British Bangladeshi TV.
Mahee is the founder Channel S, a rogue satellite TV company based in Walthamstow. And until he was sentenced to his second stretch in jail last month (he previously did a couple of years for insurance fraud; this time it was for money laundering £500k from a motor insurance fraud), he was the channel’s main anchorman.
Politicians fell at his feet and he in turn gave them favourable coverage…which meant that when Ofcom wasn’t actually asleep on the job, the channel was in breach of broadcasting rules.
In fact, Channel S has been a repeat offender with Ofcom. In 2012, the regulator said this of biased coverage towards Lutfur:
We are concerned that the breach in this case comes after three previous contraventions of the Code rules covering due impartiality and elections recorded against Channel S: in Ofcom Broadcast Bulletin 1773; Ofcom Broadcast Bulletin 1884; and Ofcom Broadcast Bulletin 2035. We therefore put the Licensee on notice that further breaches of the Code of a similar or related nature will be considered for statutory sanction.
Yet when Ofcom came to sanction the broadcaster for its next breach the following year, it said it was powerless to take a stronger line. As the Evening Standard reported in March 2013, Channel S had recreated itself under a new management structure and with new directors registered at Companies House. How convenient. Here’s what Channel S told the Standard back then:
Channel S Television Ltd in its present form has only been trading since the end of June 2012. Everything that you mention was prior to June 2012 and I cannot comment on it as it was under different management at that time.
The council, too, seems to have hidden behind this line because it has continued to pay the channels tens of thousands of pounds in public money via advertising deals and via grants for “award ceremonies”.
Lutfur also employed the channel’s main reporter, Mohammed Jubair, as a £50k a year part-time mayoral adviser on “community media”.
Now, wouldn’t it be a scandal if the council was fully aware that Channel S, throughout all this time, was being still being controlled by a convicted fraudster and that the new management structure was something of a con?
Which brings me back to my article for the Express on Thursday. After we discovered last month that Lutfur had provided a glowing character reference for Mahee, we wrote to the judge to see a copy of the Mayor’s letter.
The court wrote back to decline our request on the grounds the letter had been provided in confidence as part of Mahee’s mitigation. So we pursued the case and in a hearing before Judge Anthony Pitts at Southwark Crown Court on Thursday (Judge Pitts had presided over Mahee’s case), we argued that what an elected public official was saying in mitigation for a known criminal was a matter of strong public interest.
We argued that I had a long and acknowledged record investigating Tower Hamlets council and we insisted that Lutfur’s letter did not fall within the category of a confidential note to the court, such as a mitigating victim statement.
So impressed was Judge Pitts with our arguments, he not only made his court officials go to extra special efforts to find the original reference (at one stage he feared it was no longer in the court files), but he also revealed that Lutfur’s deputy mayor, Cllr Ohid Ahmed, had provided a reference as well. He asked us if we’d like that one, too.
Intriguingly, he added that some other “well known….extremely well known people” had also given letters of support, but because we had made no application on that score, those names remain anonymous. I wonder who they were.
Judge Pitts agreed that the matter was “important” for the rights of the press to investigate and also for criminal procedure rules in sentencing. Essentially, we have set a precedent for journalists. So let’s have a look at these obsequious references.
Do they sound like they thought Mahee was just some mere presenter? What about Ohid’s comment that Mahee “sent his camera crew” to a news event?
Now remember this: at the time Lutfur and Ohid wrote these letters on official council notepaper, they knew Mahee Ferdhaus was a twice convicted criminal, a massive fraudster. He was a man who through his no doubt inflated motor insurance premiums, fleeced Bengali residents in Tower Hamlets.
Lutfur and Ohid also knew that Mahee’s not-so-squeaky-clean personal life led to his kidnapping, torture and beating by business associates and gangsters.
In short, to pretty much any reasonable individual, he’s a rotten egg.
So don’t these character references say something about the characters of the men who gave them? Ohid Ahmed is the the cabinet member for “community safety” but here he is praising a Class A criminal.
And Lutfur Rahman is among other things in charge of a multimillion pound discretionary grants programme and is responsible for ensuring there is no fraud.
Yet here he is fulsome in his praise for a fraudster. Maybe he’s not that bothered about “white collar crime”. What shining examples they are.
Anyway, here’s the Express article in full. (And I’m going to write a separate post later about some new breaches of the Ofcom code by other Bengali TV stations in favour of Lutfur.)
EXPRESS Newspapers today scored an important victory for the rights of the press to view court documents by persuading a judge to release a glowing character reference from a London mayor for a convicted fraudster.
Judge Anthony Pitts at Southwark Crown Court agreed to release the reference from Tower Hamlets Mayor Lutfur Rahman in support of millionaire Mohammed Mahee Ferdhaus, an influential TV mogul and presenter who was sentenced last month to three years in jail for laundering £500,000 of proceeds from an insurance fraud.
The judge was so impressed with the arguments put forward by Express barrister Joseph Lewis and its journalist Ted Jeory that he revealed Mr Rahman’s deputy, Councillor Ohid Ahmed, had also provided a reference that praised Ferdhaus’s attempts on TV to reduce crime.
“You may as well have that too,” the judge volunteered. The judge said the case had been an important matter for criminal sentencing procedures.
Both letters, which were used by Ferdhaus to try and secure a lower sentence, were written on Tower Hamlets council headed notepaper. While the deputy mayor added a postscript to his reference that he was writing in a “personal capacity”, no such note was on Mr Rahman’s letter.
Judge Pitts in earlier correspondence with the Express had declined an application to disclose the reference, saying it had been handed to him in the sentencing hearing “in confidence as part of the mitigation”.
However, after listening to arguments at a hearing in open court today, he said he had “changed his mind”.
He said: “I think that the press are entitled to know these two particular documents. “They could easily have been read out and they could have been called as witnesses. “For that reason, I am going to disclose both of them.”
He said he had found arguments “extremely interesting” and had ordered his court officials to look “extensively” to see if the references remained in the building. Officials had only found them 10 minutes before today’s hearing, he said.
In his arguments, Mr Lewis said Mr Jeory had a long and acclaimed record of investigating Tower Hamlets and the links between the mayor and Bangladeshi television stations.
Mr Lewis told the judge Channel S had previously been “repeatedly reprimanded” by Ofcom for biased coverage in favour of Mr Rahman. He said Ferdhaus’s influence “held great sway” within the Bangladeshi community of east London.
He said Mr Jeory was investigating the nature of the links between the mayor, who was elected to office in 2010, and Channel S. He added a BBC Panorama programme due to air “in the not too distant future” was also probing the relationships.
Mr Lewis said while he accepted the principle that certain references supplied to the court should remain confidential, for example victim statements in domestic violence cases, a letter from an elected public official on council paper was “a different matter”.
“This was a political ally effectively providing assistance to his friend or ally,” Mr Lewis told the judge.
At the sentencing hearing last month, the court had been told Mr Rahman had provided a reference, but the details of the letter had not been read out in full. Mr Lewis said the public had a right to know what had been said.
He said court guidelines recognised the “special position of the press’s role as a public watchdog” and that Mr Jeory’s application as an accredited journalist should be accepted.
Judge Pitts also revealed a number of “very well known” other personalities had supplied references for Ferdhaus but their names remain anonymous.
Ferdhaus’s case was reported by Express.co.uk last month. He had admitted his part in a £1.9million “crash for cash” insurance scam between 2006 and 2008. Gangs had rammed expensive cars such as BMWs into each other at drinking parties and Ferdhaus, 40, had a “background” role in the crime.
Until the day of his trail he had tried to pin the blame on his innocent brother Abdul. He had been jailed for 18 months in 2008 for conspiracy to defraud in respect of an almost identical earlier insurance scam between 2002 and 2003.
The businessman was on bail awaiting trial at the time he became embroiled in the later fraud. Ferdhaus had suffered post-traumatic stress disorder after being kidnapped at gunpoint outside his TV station offices in Walthamstow, east London and issued with a £250,000 ransom demand.
When he refused to pay his assailants they tortured him, hanging him upside down and pouring boiling water on his head, before threatening to rape his daughter.
In his reference for Mr Ferdhaus, Mr Rahman wrote: “Mr Ferdhaus has played an instrumental role in promoting British Bangladeshis across the globe through Channel S.
“His contribution to the British Bangladeshi community especially in the fields of media and culture is widely recognised and commendable. Under Mr Ferdhaus’s leadership Channel S was one of the first satellite BME channels to initiate free viewing, connecting the Bangladeshi diaspora across Britain and the world. He has played a critical role in philanthropy, supporting charity and humanitarian organisations following natural disasters.
“As a prominent media personality, I have always known him to be constructive, critical but impartial as an anchor on community and current affairs.”
In his reference, Deputy Mayor Councillor Ahmed said Ferdhaus influenced his thinking on policies. He said Ferdhaus’s ‘Reality with Mahee’ Tv programme was “particularly useful”.
He wrote: “His programme helped the community enormously as his show always talk about real issues and problems (sic). I often watch his programme and find it very useful particularly his suggestions and recommendations to solve these problems.
“As founder of Channel S (Number one Bangladeshi TV channel in UK) he has always helped us promoting the good initiatives particularly the community safety issues, recent example was that when Tower Hamlets facilitated the biggest police operation in the country, he sent his camera crew in the middle of the night with reporters which was broadcast in the channel extensively (sic).
“As TV presenter and Founder of TV channel he has his own community intelligence which he often share with us in order to resolve problems in our community particularly drugs, prostitution and antisocial behaviour related problems.”
Trial by Jeory 
Well done Ted.
Parts of it made me laugh.
(1) Its unlikely to set a binding precedence, although it will be a pervasive precedence, because it happened at a Crown Court rather than at a higher court.
(2) Both letters were not, in my amateur judgement, written by their signatories. I wonder if the paid full-time staff at LBTH helped compose them.
(3) Have you got copies of the letters for public viewing ?
LBTH strikes again.
Curious Cat.
The letters are on the blog post aren’t they? I thought I’d linked to them.
Too small to read with clarity. I am going to do a FOI for copies and a complaint to the LBTH monitoring officer (interim Graham White?)
If you could scan the letters using OCR (optical character recognition) software, the resulting plain text – which occupies little space – could be exhibited 🙂
Have tried clicking on the images? They’re full size.
And while you may be right about the authorship of Lutfur’s letter, Ohid’s is unmistakably his work. The many grammatical errors give it away.
correction
(1) Its unlikely to set a binding precedence, although it will be a persuasive precedence, because it happened at a Crown Court rather than at a higher court.
How can Ohid write “in a personal capacity” on LBTH stationary?
I agree. I love the fact the judge made a point of revealing he’d also written one….and added with emphasis that it was on council stationery.
As GM said – a letter on council stationery but in a ‘personal capacity’?
The tone of your post suggests that you went to Judge Pitts to ask for a copy of the Rahman letter and he volunteered a copy of the Ahmed one, but wouldn’t tell you who else had written in support of this shameful character. Was the fact that the Ahmed one was written on headed paper the reason this was volunteered?
Keep up the good work Ted. I am aware of the impending election and the need to get The Despicable Rahman out of seat. Your efforts will be instrumental in this.
Tim.
We had no idea Ohid had sent one and that the judge volunteered this says much about his view of our arguments. We argued the public interest was served by transparency between the mayor’s links with a fraudster and TV mogul. The judge agreed.
Indeed, and bravo to Judge Pitts for this clear thinking. My question is why did he volunteer Ahmed’s letter (when you heretofore had no idea it even existed) but nothing more about the other supporters’ inputs?
Tim.
Because the anonymous others weren’t in the elected public official category and none apart from Lutfur were even mentioned in the sentencing hearing. That’s why the disclosure about Ohid was remarkable.
Ah, thanks. That makes sense.
Two other questions;
– What effect did these letters have on the trial of Ferdhaus? Did they succeed in reducing his sentence?
– The Panorama programme is mentioned in the Express piece. Any more news on this and when it will air? I’m sincerely hoping the date will be before the council elections …
Tim.
I think legal experts were surprised Ferdhaus received only six years. Let’s put it that way.
Good work Ted, you should be commended. I’ve said it before, didn’t the council promise to hold a public viewable record of all reference letters written since the mini-cab molester affair?
But how many other LBTH persons also wrote ?
I suspect no other politicians did as I think judge would have volunteered their names as well. However, I do think there were some well known media figures, businessmen and perhaps faith people in the pot.
So why would references which might influence sentencing ever be withheld from the public domain?
Surely the point is if you are prepared to stand up for someone you should do that IN PUBLIC and be held accountable for the quality of your reference?
Employers are accountable for the references they give so why not character witnesses?
A good friend of mine has just written to LBTH. May I share it with you?
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
For the attention of the Monitoring Officer of LBTH
1. I wish to complain about the seemingly unlawful misuse of the local authority’s stationery and possible other resources for personal and private use by Messrs Lutfur Rahman and Ohid Ahmed.
2. Also misused was the local authority’s reputation, status and authority.
3. Messrs Rahman and Ahmed deliberately, it does appear, attempted to mislead a Court of Law for the personal benefit of a convicted criminal in an attempt to reduce the criminal’s term of imprisonment.
4. By writing personal letters of support on local authority stationery Messrs Rahman and Ahmed were wilfully, in the legal definition, attempting to persuade the court their letters of support were formally endorsed by the local authority.
5. Local authority resources, including stationery, must be used only for the official business of that local authority. They should not, for example, be used to reserve a private holiday or to imply that the writer of the letters is officially supported by the local authority in his endeavours to effect a reduced prison sentence for the letter writer’s friend.
6. The Monitoring Officer will be aware of the Model Code of Conduct and its revised versions. So too will Messrs Rahman and Ahmed. The Code of Conduct prohibits the use of council facilities, in whatever form, for the personal benefit of elected local government officials including councillors and mayors. Equivalent provisions extend to all the local authority’s staff.
7. In the recent case of The Queen v Ferdhaus heard at Southwark Crown Court before Judge Pitts, Mr Rahman wrote in his official capacity of executive mayor of the LBTH a character reference for use at a sentencing hearing.
(a) Whilst Mr Rahman, in his legal personality as a private citizen may offer a court his opinion of a person, Mr Rahman knows, having signed the Code of Conduct, is not entitled, in his legal personality as an elected executive official of the LBTH to use local authority resources and status for that private business objective.
(b) Mr Rahman knew and had good cause to know, or was recklessly indifferent to knowing, that his usage of the local authority’s stationery would inevitable convey an impression to anyone reading the letter, Mr Rahman’s comments were endorsed, supported, approved or agreed-with by the local authority formally and officially.
(c) Persons in a position of public authority, such as Mr Rahman as mayor, know their public actions made on behalf of the authority must be impeccably proper and not create an impression that the incumbent has used, or has attempted to use, his or her public position for personal gain or for the personal benefit of family, friends and/or associates.
(d) Mr Rahman appears to have decided to deliberately flout the Code of Conduct and use his personal position and status of mayor to influence a court of law for the personal and private benefit of a friend or associate
(e) Mr Rahman’s letter dated 11 July 2013 refers.
8. In the same case, Mr Ahmed wrote a similar letter.
(a) Mr Ahmed’s letter, dated 5 November 2013, is suffixed with these words “Note: This Reference letter is in my personal capacity”.
(b) Mr Ahmed is aware, like Mr Rahman, of the Code of Conduct including the provisions of not using local authority resources, of any description, for private purposes.
(c) Mr Ahmed knew, and was fully aware, that his letter was written in a private capacity. He also knew he could have used a plain sheet of A4 paper to convey to the court his support for the convicted person.
(d) In using the local authority’s stationery Mr Ahmed was attempting to convey to the court that his personal endorsement of the convicted person was supported or authorised or agreed by the decision makers of the local authority.
9. Messrs Rahman and Ahmed could have afforded to purchase 500 sheets of plain white paper. Prices range from circa £3 to £5. Messrs Rahman and Ahmed could have discreetly used a sheet of plain paper from the photocopiers and computer printers belonging to the local authority without detection. Instead both decided to make their personal letters of endorsement appear to be public pronouncements made with the approval, tacit or otherwise, of their local authority. Both letters show the writers’ names as public officials – thus neither letter can be truly considered to be private and personal correspondence.
10. I am lead to believe that other local authority individuals similarly used council stationery to provide letters of personal support for the convicted person. Will you conduct your own investigation into this allegation ? Judge Pitts will most likely assist with document provision.
12. This matter is in the public domain at
https://trialbyjeory.wordpress.com/2014/03/23/attitudes-to-fraud-ohid-ahmed-cabinet-member-for-crime-gives-court-reference-for-convicted-conman-as-does-boss-lutfur
where additional information is available including a contact address for the journalist who exposed the matter.
Bravo. Peter Golds has made a similar complaint to the Head of Paid Service and the cavalier interim monitoring officer Meic Sullivan-Gould, who thinks the sun shines from Lutfur’s backside.
How about copying this to Eric Pickles?
I’m also wondering whether Lutfur has just breached Law Society Rules re Code of Conduct as well. Or maybe he doesn’t maintain his membership?
Only one law Society entry for Lutfur Rahman
Lutfur Mohammad Rahman
Admitted as a solicitor 01/10/07
Employee at:
Amber Training & Advisory Services
Unit 1, Red Lion Court, Alexandra Road, Hounslow, Middlesex, TW3 1JS, England
Not an SRA-regulated law practice
*** SRA = Solicitors Regulation Authority = watchdog/regulator) ***
1 person in this organisation
1 solicitor in this organisation
1 office in this organisation
1 person at this office
1 solicitor
Could this is a BINGO discovery ?
——————————————————-
Amber Training Advisory & Support Services Ltd – Secretarial Services in TW3 1JS
Unit 1 1St Floor
Alexandra Road
Hounslow
Middlesex
TW3 1JS
020 8572 7433
Fax: 0560 153 7068 ***** 056 is an expensive INTERNET telephone number *****
Interesting that you should form that view of Meic. As you will recall, his fans include Luke Akehurst, hardly from the same political tradition as Lutfur…
I’m not talking about politics or political views and I should probably have a chat with him.
While you’re here, what’s your view if these references?
I think I made my view known before. The letter is in fairly measured terms and I presume it is factually accurate. That said, if I were Lutfur I wouldn’t have written it.
And what do you think about the cabinet member responsible for crime reduction writing such a fulsome letter?
What do you think the two letters say about their attitudes to fraudsters?
Para 3.4 of the Councillor’s Code of Conduct states
“You must not conduct yourself in a manner which could reasonably be regarded as bringing your office or the authority into disrepute.”
Para 3.5 states
“You:
(a) must not use or attempt to use your position as a Member improperly to confer on or secure for yourself or any other person, an advantage or disadvantage;
(b) must, when using or authorising the use by others of the resources of the authority:
(i) act in accordance with the authority’s reasonable requirements;
(ii) ensure that such resources are not used improperly for political purposes (including party political purposes);”
Anyone got the inclination to see how many of these relate to His Excellency the Mayor ?
LUTFUR RAHMAN
AL ABER LIMITED
THE SPITALFIELDS MARKET COMMUNITY TRUST
WHITECHAPEL COMMUNITY TRUST CIC
AKASH LONDON LIMITED
DLNR LIMITED
INTERMOUNT VENTURES LTD
FORTS OF INDIA [WHITEFIELD] LIMITED
BD TEL UK LTD
CHERRYFELL LTD
SPICE CITY (SOUTH EAST) LIMITED
GREATER LAMAKAZI WELFARE ASSOCIATION (UK) LIMITED
AL-MADINA CURRY HOUSE LIMITED
UPMARKET RESTAURANTS LIMITED
ALLBURNER LTD
X-PRESS LINK LTD
PRESTIGE PROPERTY MAINTENANCE LIMITED
SPARMAIN LTD
SPICE GALLERY LIMITED
EASTERN PRIDE CATERING LIMITED
BRAVECHILD LIMITED
SPICES (INTL) LIMITED
MANCHESTER YOUNG PEOPLE’S THEATRE LIMITED (THE)
FAST GLOBAL MOVE LTD
TRAINEM LIMITED
WOK INN CATERING LIMITED
ROCAFELLA LIMITED
CURRY ASIA (UK) LTD
SPICES (INTL) LIMITED
STAR OF INDIA TANDOORI RESTAURANT LTD
RAHMAN BROTHERS (RAMSGATE) LIMITED
AZMAN STORES LIMITED
RAHMAN BROTHERS (MARGATE) LIMITED
EASTERN PRIDE CATERING LIMITED
LUKA PVT LTD
FAST GLOBAL MOVE LTD
SPARMAIN LTD
BAYLEAF EXPRESS LTD
LAVENHAM RESTAURANT LIMITED
NUHA APPARELS LTD
INTERMOUNT VENTURES LTD
BRITISH RAJ (WOT) LIMITED
WHITECHAPEL COMMUNITY TRUST CIC
UPMARKET RESTAURANTS LIMITED
DLNR LIMITED
UNIVERSAL LEGAL CENTRE LTD
FORTS OF INDIA [WHITEFIELD] LIMITED
MOHAMMED LUTFUR RAHMAN
AD WORX MEDIA LIMITED
POPLAR YOUTH ASSOCIATION LIMITED
THE ARCHERS 42 LIMITED
THE MADANI ACADEMY PORTSMOUTH LTD
COUNCILLOR LUTHFUR RAHMAN
MANCHESTER YOUNG PEOPLE’S THEATRE LIMITED (THE)
Curious Cat.
How did you identify these organisations?
Are you saying these are organisations he’s given references for?
Did he get six years? I thought it was three.
I had a lovely dream last night……..A SWAT team burst into a full council meeting and arrested all but a very few, Ted became Mayor and we all lived happily ever after….Shit, then I woke up. Oh well.
That really was a nightmayor
The 31st of this month for the Panorama programme apparently.
Article in yesterday’s Evening Standard by Robin de Peyer. “Bogus officials canvassed before east end ballot” It seems the police are now involved in the allegations that people posing as Tower Hamlets Homes staff canvassed on behalf of Rahman and gave out his literature.
Coupled with the Panorama programme I get the feeling that the powers that be have had enough of Lutfur and his band of crooks and there will now be major moves to get rid of him.
I still can’t understand why Milliband hasn’t got in on the act yet. If he is hoping that Lutfur’s former membership of Labour will be an embarrassment and is trying to ignore the whole think he will be disappointed. Time to take the bull by the horns and get involved. If Labour can’t take the part of London that was the birthplace of the party it isn’t going to take the country.
I sincerely hope you are right there MM. But I’m not counting my chickens yet.
Tim.
Let’s ask ourselves if this had been an MP or a Minister who had given this sort of reference:
1) How would they have had to account to their constituency party?
2) How would they have had to account for their actions to Parliament?
3) Would they still have had a job?
Why do the Code of Conduct Standards put in place to protect the public from those who have no concept of standards of behaviour in public life apparently have no force in Tower Hamlets Council?
Well, it’s happened with MPs so you can see for yourself
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/8585033/MP-gave-character-reference-used-in-multi-million-pound-fraud.html
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london-mp-writes-letter-to-court-for-her-drug-smuggling-cousin-6758377.html
Are you really trying to make an equivalence between that and Lutfur’s references?? V desperate.
Why not just keep quiet on the matter rather than muddy the waters with disingenuous comments like this?
Someone else asked what would be the result if it were an MP who had written the character reference for Ferdhaus, so I thought it would be relevant to point to accounts of (1) an MP unwittingly – like, ostensibly, the Minicab case – providing a character reference used in a multi-million pound fraud case and (2) an MP knowingly – like in this case – providing a reference for a cousin who had tried to smuggle £62m worth of drugs into Britain.
Why disingenuous? Why desperate? Someone thought MPs might be an interesting comparison – and I responded in good faith.
If you want me to ‘keep quiet’ then don’t accept my comments on your blog – that’s your prerogative – but I don’t see why I deserved a mouthful of abuse.
Surely the point about character references is:-
• They should be based on personal knowledge not on general knowledge and not deliberately phrased in words to impress the recipient of that reference;
• Character references should never be written on business stationary unless the subject of that reference is directly connected to that business.
One of the issues before us is whether the mayor and deputy mayor should have used business stationary for their PERSONAL references.
MPs, drug busts etc. etc. are not directly related to this London Borough of Tower Hamlets issue.
Curious Cat.
I see Ken Livingstone’s back in town…
Paid adviser?
I suppose we will have all of the other financial scammers on board. Lee Jasper, Kumar Murshid, Simon Woolley and quite a few others. I understand that Linda Bellos and the old Socialist Action crowd need a few quid so expect them to turn up. Milliband has to sack Livingstone now or is Marc Francis making this up?
Like this you mean?
http://mwebberukip.wordpress.com/2014/03/28/keeping-tower-hamlets-clean/
Don’t quite see the relevance of that link Mark. It is difficult to imagine why Livingstone should get involved in this at all. He has failed on the Labour NEC to get Rahman readmitted to the party and stunts like this only undermine whatever credibility he has left.
When even former Lutfur supporters like Jon Lansman have got their heads down why Livingstone pulls stunts like this is anyone’s guess. Is it because he is at the end of the line and he just wants to get up everybody’s nose?
Have you guys seen this?!?!
https://vimeo.com/m/90422433
What the hell is labour planning to do to counter this video? It’s literally gone viral, filling up my whole fb feed?!?
I’m not a fan of this type of politics but this sure has the potential to bring out the ‘anti racist’ voters.
It keeps stopping and starting. Is anyone having a problem with it? I don’t think it will affect the vote, those who are going to vote Lutfur will do so anyway. We are in a Livingstone/Johnson situation where you either hate one or the other and the issues are a sideline.
It seems on the Isle of Dogs Kathy MacTasny is claiming she is running as an independent and not for Lutfur.