The tragicomedy that is Tower Hamlets council keeps on giving.
Yesterday morning the Met Police issued the following statement:
On Friday 4 April 2014 the Metropolitan Police Service received three files of material from the Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) relating to the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. These comprised of material referred to the DCLG by a member of the public and by the BBC Panorama programme.
The files have been reviewed by a team of officers over the past 6 days. In addition, officers have liaised with Pricewaterhouse Coopers LLP (PwC) who are conducting a full and wide-ranging audit of financial matters at the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.
There is no credible evidence of criminality within the files to provide reasonable grounds to suspect that fraud or any other offence has been committed at this stage. Therefore the MPS will not be investigating at this point in time and believe that it is appropriate for the material to be reviewed further by PwC and DCLG. We will continue to liaise with them should their audit uncover any evidence of criminality.
Which made Lutfur Rahman and his head of communications Takki Sulaiman crow with delight (expect ‘Mayor cleared’ headlines in East End Life and large sections of the Bengali press this week).
Takki was so bursting with joy that he turned into an eve of combat Colonel Tim Collins for the afternoon. Here’s an email he sent to fellow communications chiefs in other local London authorities:
Apologies for the mass email but as you know the battle for hearts and minds starts within the local government community itself!
A small step in restoring trust in LBTH is the announcement by the Met today that there is no credible evidence of criminality or fraud to be found in the Panorama files.
Our statement and the Met’s can be found on our (revamped) website.
Our statements on the matter over the last two weeks can be found here-
http://www.towerhamlets.gov.uk/news__events/setting_the_record_straight/panorama.aspx
This is a long journey and the auditors will be here for three months. Given the context of the elections we’ve also had to tone down the nature of our comms thus contributing to the challenge.
Regards
Takki
(Bless, he must be really worried about what they think of him.)
And here’s the statement he authorised his communications department to release to the wider world.
Council response to Met Press Bureau statement following BBC Panorama Programme
A statement was issued by the Metropolitan Police Press Bureau on Wednesday 16 April in relation to recent allegations made in the BBC Panorama programme on London Borough of Tower Hamlets.
A council spokesperson said: “The news from the Metropolitan Police is to be welcomed and Tower Hamlets will continue to work with the Auditors and DCLG.”
Let’s pick all this apart.
No allegations of criminality were “made in” the Panorama programme and Takki knows that full well. Yet he allowed his statement to mislead; this served the interests of his political master.
In his defence, however, the Met Police statement on which he was relying was also highly misleading. But Takki knew that was the case as well.
Here’s why.
In his interview with Panorama, the Communities Secretary Eric Pickles said he would be looking “very carefully” at Panorama’s evidence. So Panorama handed over two files to his civil servants who had already gathered evidence from elsewhere.
Apparently, those two Panorama files contained spreadsheet analysis and other evidence of how the Mayor overturned officer recommendations over grants in favour of Bengali and Somali third sector organisations, plus other matters.
I understand one of those other matters concerned about £11,000 of grants given to an organisation called the Brady Youth Forum.
Panorama started posing questions to Takki about this on March 7. When six days later Takki had still failed to reply (he’s a very busy man, you know), John Ware sent him a reminder with some additional questions.
At that point Interim Monitoring Officer Meic Sullivan-Gould (who was by this time convinced Lutfur was a ‘good guy’) began to take over.
Very helpfully on March 19, he told Panorama that there was an ongoing criminal investigation into the Brady issue. He told the programme makers the council had been notified about a fraud by a whistleblower in the middle of last year and that external auditors from Deloitte had reported back on the matter in January.
The Brady Youth Forum was one of several lines of inquiry which I gather Panorama felt needed more work on.
So they left it out of the programme, even though they knew a Fraud Squad investigation was under way.
So imagine our surprise when the Met said yesterday morning there was no credible evidence of fraud in the Panorama files!
I called the Scotland Yard press office for clarification. At about 5pm they called to say er, yes, there is an investigation relating to the Brady Youth Forum. Doesn’t that make your statement this morning a bit misleading, I asked? Er yes, you have a valid point, they said.
I called Andrew Gilligan to let him know. He blogged about it last night.
The police have now issued a “clarified statement”:
Here it is:
On Friday 4 April 2014 the Metropolitan Police Service received three files of material from the Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) relating to the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.
The files have been reviewed by a team of officers. In addition, officers have liaised with Pricewaterhouse Coopers LLP (PwC) who are conducting a full and wide-ranging audit of financial matters at the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.
There is no new credible evidence of criminality within the files.
Prior to this, a report was made to Tower Hamlets Police on 20 March by Tower Hamlets Council. The report concerned an irregularity with regards to money being awarded to the Brady Youth Forum, in January and April 2013, that was identified by an internal review. This investigation is being carried out by Tower Hamlets CID.
Therefore there are no new MPS investigations being carried out by the MPS as a result of information contained in the three files of material.
Spot the difference?
They’ve inserted the word “new” before “credible evidence”.
Which itself is odd.
I suspect there were two different teams in the Met examining two sets of files.
The file sent by the council regarding Brady Youth Forum was sent to Tower Hamlets CID on March 20 and I’m not sure how much work detectives there had spent on it.
And I’m guessing the files sent by DCLG were handed directly to a team based at Scotland Yard itself.
What’s not clear is whether those possible two teams actually spoke to each other, or compared notes. Had Tower Hamlets CID flagged up their file on the Brady Youth Forum?
Had a Scotland Yard team handed over information from Panorama on Brady Youth Forum to the Tower Hamlets CID team?
When I called up the Met Police press bureau yesterday, I was told they couldn’t find any reference to Brady Youth Forum on their main pan-London database.
They had to go and check at a local level.
I strongly suspect the Met as a whole was in fact in possession of credible new evidence as a result of DCLG’s actions; I suspect there was a lack of communication internally among the super sleuths.
But what’s also odd is the behaviour of the council in all this.
First of all, the Takki Sulaiman has a “setting the record straight” section on the council’s website. This is where he places rebuttals to stories he dislikes or doesn’t understand. You’d think from the title he’d at least strive for some accuracy. Yesterday morning he was very quick to publish the Met Police’s statement there.
Since then, I and others have told him and the head of paid service, Steve Halsey, that that statement has since been clarified. Has the council updated its website? Of course not (as at 5pm on April 17).
But forget for now the misleading statements because that’s just par for the course for Takki Sulaiman, but look again at the Met Police’s clarified statement.
They say they were notified by the council of the alleged Brady fraud only on March 20.
As I said above, Meic helpfully said Deloitte had reported back on the issue in January.
So why had the council waited all that time to go to the police?
It’s worth noting that some details of Panorama’s investigations into this had been contained in the ‘dossier’ taken to Lutfur’s office at the end of January by the so-called “whistleblowing” Bengali researcher.
The council presumably had sufficient evidence to go to the police, but it seems strange that they appeared to sit on it until Panorama began to hint they would be including it in the programme.
I said a couple of weeks ago that the back story to the Panorama programme might prove bigger than the broadcast itself. Watch this space.
Oh, and don’t forget…the auditors from PwC have only just started their work. This is the serious business of it all.
But you’d never have guessed from Lutfur’s latest press release.
Here:
Scotland Yard find “no credible evidence” in Tower Hamlets probe
Mayor Lutfur Rahman today welcomed the announcement by the Metropolitan Police that there was “no credible evidence” to claims of fraud at Tower Hamlets Council.
Mayor Rahman said:
“I have always maintained that there has been no wrongdoing and the Met’s decision that there is no credible evidence and not to investigate these claims is a vindication, however, the public now need to know who brought these allegations, why they were given such credence by the Secretary of State and whether the upcoming elections had any impact on the timing.”
The investigation was apparently based on documents presented to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Eric Pickles by BBC Panorama’s John Ware. Before the broadcast, a member of the programme’s own production team leaked production notes from the film and made accusations of political and racial bias on the part of the programme-makers. This evidence has been legally barred from publication by the BBC.
The dropped investigation is the latest of several inquiries into local democracy in Tower Hamlets that have returned no evidence of wrongdoing. In 2013, the Electoral Commission published a report into claims of voter fraud, investigating around 160 separate allegations and finding no evidence to support any of them.
Mayor Rahman added:
“There is a clear pattern in Tower Hamlets of opposition parties and sections of the media claiming everything from fraud to electoral malpractice to extremist takeovers in an attempt to discredit my administration. Once again, such claims have been shown to be lacking the critical factor of evidence. I hope that with these latest smears dispelled we can turn back to the issues that matter to local people’s day-to-day lives.”
For a lawyer, he does have a habit of talking conflated disingenuous bollocks, doesn’t he? Now even he’s trying to deny there’s a fraud investigation. Maybe his memory is failing him.
By the way, if anyone has any information about council contracts, grants, public money spent on PR and disposal of properties, they can write to PwC at lbth.inspectors@uk.pwc.com.
Trial by Jeory 
Ted,
Good stuff. My concern is that yours is the sharpest mind working on the matter at this point in time, and that the detail will be lost on the poor old Met, who (in my experience at least) struggle with even some very simple detective work. The fact that there seems to be mis-communication even at this early stage causes me to despair of the truth ever being finally found out.
Tim.
Usually the sharpest mind comes when there is an agenda. What are you suggesting Tim? Ted has an agenda! What nonsense!
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/apr/17/lutfur-rahman-stand-on-record
Ken playing an interesting game, wonder who does he mean by saying ‘ irresponsible local politicians seeking electoral gain in running down the borough and a breakdown in community relations’?
Not only Ken. Leon Silver I think has a rather different view in private.
Let’s shove all the S*** under the carpets and ignore the stench.
They see nothing ‘cos they have covered their eyes and hear nothing because of their extra-strong ear muffs, but me thinks they are so used to the stench, it smells so “normal” as to be perfectly acceptable to them.
Curious Cat.
[…] everyone else (even Ted Jeory) is writing about the investigation into the Brady Youth Forum that is somehow / maybe / probably […]
Remember what the Met’s John Yates repeatedly told MPs = There is NO EVIDENCE yet from NO EVIDENCE has sprung a major trial currently in progress.
Can one really trust all the police all the time ?
Curious Cat
“Prior to this, a report was made to Tower Hamlets Police on 20 March by Tower Hamlets Council.”
It was referred to the police BY THE COUNCIL?
How can that be an investigation INTO the council then? I’m genuinely asking, what is the current investigation into? The council (and therefore Lutfur’s admin) or the Youth Forum?
Ted,
It is clear that you and Gilligan have a personal agenda against Lutfur, it seems the man can never do anything right. Especially that nutcase Gilligan is just obsessed with Lutfur and he is getting really boring with his repetitive nonsense.
If the Met are saying there is no criminality then why would you not believe them, had they said there was something then I am sure you would have praised them for their investigative work. It would be fair and lot more interesting if you try and be impartial sometimes with your stories.
=> Ash
The same Met (MPS) publicly stated there was no criminality in the phone hacking material examined by the same Met. Look what is happening now at the central Criminal Court.
CC.
Yeah, Gilligan describes himself (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/journalists/andrew-gilligan/) as the ‘London Editor’ although given that he mostly seems to be writing about Birmingham nowadays, ‘Muslims Editor’ would probably be more accurate.
And strange that the Telegraph’s London editor should be paid £95k pro rata as a political appointment by the city’s mayor.
For some reason I like the title you’ve given to Mr Gilligan. However, I don’t think ‘Muslim Editor’ does proper justice! I think it should be ‘Muslim *ater’ – what do you think?
Religious doctrine should have nothing to do with it…however much of the racist, sexist, prejudiced views that many from these cultural backgrounds flag up as being righteous, hide behind a religious belief and doctrine to give their prejudices some kind of validity and credence as well as protection from scrutiny…. They describe themselves as muslims and their sexist, racist, prejudice views (they say) are supported by the Koran… Until law abiding decent, equality champion muslims shout out against these fascists religious bigots, the muslim community will continue to be tarnished with the same brush as these maffia warlords ….
Nothing personal and I was accused of a similar ‘agenda’ when Denise and Michael ran the council.
I’ve never said there’s been criminality so suggest you re-read the post.
There is an investigation into fraud.
I’ve got my knickers in a twist! Is fraud not a criminal offence?
Yes it would be
Give your’s back to your wife.. Normal underpants are usually more comfortable –
Fraud is definitely not a crime when it happens at LBTH, ask the cops, ‘cos its just an ordinary every day occurrence 🙂
The sad thing is John Biggs probably doesn’t think any of this is that bad; just that it’s bad it’s being done in Lutfur’s interests and not those of the Labour Party.
Ted, never seen you use such annimated language on this blog. Hope you’re not getting frustrated?
I’m sure people here have lots of evidence they will forward to PwC. Don’t loose hope!
It is frustration…it’s not going as Mr. Jeory had planned. I think Ted needs to call a meeting of his COBRA command, including Mr. Peter “FOI” Gould and the gormless Mr. Peck. Plan A is not working. The Met who are usually in bed with the hacks didn’t want to go to bed with this particular hack and that is very frustrating for Mr. Jeory’s narrative.
Mr dshnomborrorsassa,
Your style of writing suggests a south-Asian background.
You can smirk and jibe all you like. That does not mean within a year someone dear to you, or even you yourself, may not be charged.
The war is on and a battle may seem to be lost, for us that is, but there will be more battles before a significant defeat. Your eventful nightmare has just began.
Curious Cat
Just thought I’d pop in to see what’s going over in the land of the paranoid and true to form the paranoia is still real!! You just keep giving Mr. Jeory as do your fan boys below the line.
When I first read about the police stating that there’s no fraud or corruption to answer I thought to myself, “I bet you that the loonies over at Trial by Jeory will probably say the Met Police are somehow unfit for purpose or are in it with the Mayor” and hey presto you’ve done just that Mr.Jeory. If I openly stated all of my foresight about your line of thought and wagered on it I reckon I’d have been a very rich man by now – a takka millionaire.
Typical, typical Ted! First it was the auditors who were incompetent now it’s the police!
Also I like the way you’ve found a picture of the Mayor looking giddy with the Police…what are you trying to say Mr. Jeory Saheb? That he’s got a cosy relationship with the police? 😉 Very well done. You may as well just say what you’re thinking! Trying to paint a picture without saying it right Mr. Jeory? Clearly a sign of desperation…it’s not going to plan is it? Nothing is going your way.
Do you think that the Mayor buying additional police officers off the Met has somehow prejudiced their investigation Ted? Go on you know you’re thinking it.
Come June and the Mayor is vindicated and the Auditors find a few insignificant control issues I’m sure you’ll blow it right out of proportion. That’s what you hacks do!
First you compare the supposed failings of the Council’s auditors KPMG and Deloitte comparing it to the failings of the Maxwell Scandal now you compare the MET’s failure during the phone hacking saga to them vindicating the Mayor. Talk about being proportionate! The sense of perspective has truly been lost.
Do be as gleeful as you wish. 6 months later I wonder if your incandescent smirks survive.
CC
Seems you labour supporters are quick to admit defeat! That’s why labour cannot be trusted to run an effective anti Lutfur campaign that galvanises the English masses!
I never expected any better from labour anyway. I’ve been seeing their half assed support of their gormless-balding candidate, John Biggs, and have come to realise that it will fall on either Conservatives (worth a leader like Peter) or UKIP to do the bulwark of removing Lutfur.
I ain’t Labour and have never ever in my life voted Labour or even thought of voting Labour. If Labour was the only choice I would not vote.
I want clean, honest, transparent local government. Is that really too much to ask ??????
The cause of the problem is simply:-
(a) National Political Parties should NOT have a presence at local government.
(b) National Political Parties always ignore the local government S*** done by their party people because the National Political Parties depend on their local government supporters and constituency parties to get-out the parliamentary vote.
(c) Local government ought to be about local issues and local solutions for local problems – not about a policy that works well in Taunton or Tunbridge Wells but about Tower Hamlets.
Tories and UKIP are useless too. What is needed in TH is a local TH registered political party attracting cross-community support and wanting to clean-up the TH sewer. Tower Hamlets Residents anyone ?
It’s that simple. Serve the public and not yourselves. End the local government gravy train – paying top whack for crap sub-standard bureaucrats when often a bunch of bright school kids could do it better.
Curious Cat.
@ CC
Why you taking this so personally? Has Lutfur really destroyed your life or you just dislike him for his ethnicity? If Lutfur, you or anybody does something that is criminal then the law will punish, so let’s leave that to the legal experts. And please don’t write as if you know it all, how do you know what will happen in the six month, are you a CID?
Stop the scaremongering and start talking facts based on genuine evidence.
Ash, you do realise the auditors aren’t hunting for criminality don’t you? They’re checking for good governance, a failure of governance, maladministration, wrongdoing in process.
I’d be staggered if they fail to find that in how the mayor’s office has been run. One only has to remember how cab fares were signed off, and Robbani’s invoices, to see that.
This criminality thing is a red herring as things stand.
=> Ash
I have never been racist. I have consistently stated one can not chose one’s skin colour. My computer dictionary defines “ethnicity” as
“an ethnic quality or affiliation resulting from racial or cultural ties;”
I have brown skinned Bangladeshi friends – so it can’t be that. Besides if one is born in England they are English and not Bangladeshi or any other Foreign types.
Those born in England, because they are ENGLISH, should adopt English culture, history, language and customs – not foreign ones from half way around the globe.
I have seen so much of this imported corruption from South Asia (also known as the Indian sub-continent) where it is endemic. It has spread particularly well to local government and is especially prevalent where councils are, or have been, Labour controlled. Labour and South-Asian sleaze go well together.
Corruption is wrong. TH is not an isolated manifestation (or should that be infestation ?).
The law sometimes fails to punish. Just remember Stephen Lawrence and Hillsborough and all the others jailed wrongly not forgetting those who escaped the law when evidence disappeared or was accidentally shredded. This ain’t a perfect country.
Upon what fascinating source of enlightening wonderment do you derive your strange assertion “then the law will punish” ? Do you actually live in Europe (that includes TH, by the way) or are you presently in Utopia ?
If I was SID you know I couldn’t tell you ‘cos I’d get a bollocking which would damage my promotion prospects.
I can not give you confidential information I do not possess. Why are you so worried?
Surely there is nothing to worry about as your mate seems to have been cleared of all allegations.
I suggest you relax, chill-out as the Yanks say, and patiently wait for 6 months 😉
With everyone being “innocent” there is really no reason to worry about any accidentally discarded material inadvertently popping-up, is there ? No one is going to take the new material seriously ‘cos everyone knows everyone is “innocent”.
Curious Cat
>trialbyjeory
‘This criminality thing is a red herring as things stand’.
I suspect not. Otherwise why would the resources of the CID be assigned. this is not a fishing expedition.
dshnomborrorsassa – You obviously believe that Lutfur is whiter than white (don’t turn that into a racist expression) and that nothing will change your mind. You also obviously believe that Ted is the child of the devil. So what, exactly, has been his crime? He has published account figures that absolutely show that the Mayor has blatantly financially favoured one section of our community against another, against council officers advice. I don’t think Ted ever said that was a criminal action. Please don.t think decent people are stupid, they know the Mayor did this for electoral favouritism. Many people, including myself, voted for Lutfur, but now regret it as we believed he used his executive powers
wrongly and I don’t say illegally.
Instead of spending a huge amount of OUR money on advisors, he should have hired the best PR advisor possible. If he had, and listened and acted on that advisor, he wouldn’t have been in the mess he finds himself now.
Carry on Ted giving us the information that our council don’t want us to have!
Mr. Wright I am not a Lutfurite. I don’t believe he is squeaky clean but so isn’t any other politician who’s in power. My gripe is he is disproportionately targeted by national papers and media organisations. He probably does sort his mates out, he probably does give a bit more in grants to the groups that are likely to support him but you tell me which politician doesn’t sort out his support base? It’s his pre-election handout just like we see on a national level on budget day pre general election.
You say you know he did it for electoral favouritism? Then why are we wasting tax payers money on hiring PwC? Provide the evidence or stop behaving like a staff room gossip. Unless there’s a paper trail linking money to canvassing by the recipient of those grants then I would doubt very much anybody could prove any clear link between electoral favouritism.
Look at David Cameron, he re-instated a former Tory supporter, who worked with his father as the head of the loans board quango. He cut corporation tax recently, again, sorting out friends in big business and today he’s calling Britain a Christian country to try win over those alienated anti gay marriage Tory voters, who are probably leaning towards UKIP. Politicians of whatever leaning are all doing it.
The auditors have been appointed to find something and they will. I don’t think they’ll get another contract from Pickles if they didn’t. The audit has been politicised.
You say he didn’t take officer advice? Well, so what? As far as I am aware bureaucrats are not elected representatives. They provide options and insight for elected representatives and it is up to those elected representatives to accept or stick a middle finger up to those officers. That’s how it works. If you want to blame anything blame the system.
He’s financially favouring one section of the community over others? What’s wrong with that? Tories favour big business and the rich. Labour favour the working classes and the poor. As far as I can see Lutfor Saheb favours the working classes too. He supports free school meals , he supports more social housing, he focuses on education and allowances for education maintenance, all policies that will help the working classes. It just so happens that the working classes in Tower Hamlets are of an Asian-Bangladeshi ethnicity. Now unless you can prove that there are schools turning down children from Caucasian, African or any other ethnic group from receiving grants or free school meals, or there are no social housing tenants who are not Bengali, then this race based favouritism that this blog and those on the right accuse him of is conjecture and a smear in the guise of a desire for transparency and better governance.
No evidence of criminality? Now there’s a surprise.
Unfit to be Mayor? Vote him out!
Cronyism? Err…and?
Corruption in the Mayors Office? Is that really a revelation?
What really pisses me off is LBTH Labour Party members who are just as dishonest as Lutfur, attacking a man that was not-so-long ago heading up their party. And now we’re seeing the fallout of dirty internal labour politics, personal vendettas, and the do-anything-to-win votes approach to elections.
This isn’t new; this all started with the Labour sticking with shitty local councillors to keep a majority in LBTH.
If the Labour Party want to win control back, they will first have to start looking at their own councillors before they moan about Lutfur and his independent (previously Labour) councillors.
You forgot giving preferential treatment to minorities over traditional East End communities – yes Lutfur is doing exactly that, but he is only carrying on a legacy set in motion by Labour.
How many English groups upped and left the East End over the past 30 years because of Labour’s hatred of white English communities. This all started with labour and running back to them is a stupid as keeping Lutfur.
If Cllr Peter Golds, or someone with a backbone stood for Conservatives, it would’ve been a walk over. But no self respecting English family is going to come out to vote for Biggs and get labour back. Fool me once…
No matter how much cats fight, there always seem to be plenty of kittens.
-Abraham Lincoln: .
Honest guv, dem aren’t my kittens. The misses would kill me !
Seriously. This blog has helpfully confirmed the fact that whilst many be be concerned, most are gutless when it comes to determined action to aggressively change the status quo – I call it improve the status quo.
A TH political party run by ordinary residents could easily have captured the council and the mayor’s post but how many of you TH residents have the energy, desire, inclination or even the ability to set-up your own group and campaign for change, campaign for a better council and campaign for genuine and social improvements ?
If you want a better life in TH, then perpetually sitting on your bums isn’t the solution.
Me? I usually practise what I preach – and currently am.
Curious Cat
Cat, there is a local man standing in this election independent of national parties. Supported and funded by local people, businesses and media, campaigning on local issues. He even identifies his party as TH as you suggest. Is this not what you’re looking for?
Imran,
Please get him to appeal for volunteers to delivery his leaflets, bang on the doors asking for support – ensure the canvassers have a supply of voter registration forms and postal vote application forms – and for cash to pay for the leaflets.
Last date to register as a candidate is Thursday this week at 16:00.
A single person contesting a local election can spend £600 plus 5p per voter on the electoral roll at 1 April 2014.
What are the person’s policies ?
I’m not in TH at this moment so I can’t pop around and see him. He has just 2 weeks to make an impact. Postal voters go out on 8 May, 2 weeks before voting day, so he MUST make a big impact on voters before that date. And also after that date for polling station voters. Labour rely on postal votes. No postal votes = no Labour victory.
My suggestion is A3 leaflet (giving 4 x A4 pages, colour on white paper, folded once, probably 4,000 quantity, 1.1/2 times line spacing, minimum font size 14, although 16 is better, colour photos, simple but very clear not-muddled message and brutally expose the crap. Have some coloured and bold text to attract the voters attention The hardest part when designing leaflets is to make every single word count and annoy the public. Stirring-up the public is essential.
Which ward and how many vacancies in that ward ? Three or more joint candidates means the total spending limit is doubled.
Please let me know more.
Curious Cat.
Curious Mr. Cat,
You say I write like a South Asian. I nearly choked on my beetle nut and paan. How does a South Asian write? 😁😁😂😂 Does my writing style give off a scent of ghee or is it stained like turmeric?
Silly Mr. Cat. 😂😂😂 My sides are hurting. You’ve set off my diabetes.
It is usually easy to identify South Asians born in South Asia and who predominantly mix with other similar South Asians and who watch one of the several South Asian satellite channels. Its their usage of English including certain phases – perhaps because the language construction of their South Asian language does not translate into English precisely and in South Asia common English phases are not the English used in England today..
Children born in England of South Asian parents do not exhibit the same characterises as their parents.
Hope that helps.
Curious Cat.
It’s okay Mr. Cat. There’s no need to justify yourself.
I was born and raised in the UK. I don’t speak a fluent second language. I get that my sentence structure and grammar isn’t that great, although I have two GCSE/O Level grades at the highest possible grade achievable for English Literature and English Language, which proves I have some competency, but I suppose a dog born in a stable isn’t really a horse, right Mr. Cat?
I’m not justifying myself. I am writing what I believe to be true.
Unsure what the dog / horse / stable waffle really means BUT I have always said even to people calling themselves “Asian”, Indian, Pakistani or Bangladeshi, if you are born in England then you are not “Asian” etc. but English.
No point putting an extra chip on your shoulder. Life can be hard enough without the extra crap 🙂
Welcome to the universal brotherhood called the Human Race. Mutual respect and tolerance is an essential prerequisite.
Curious Cat.
P.S. doshnombororsassa
My efforts are not bad for the son of an immigrant, are they ? Especially when I have never ever sat an English language examination.
CC.
Check out the latest press release from the Luftur camp…… they want him to get back inside the Council building so that no doubt he can tamper with evidence…. http://lutfurrahman.com/press-release-senior-labour-figures-community-leaders-back-lutfur-rahman/
Seems to me distinctly like Electioneering
Does anybody have, or can point me in the direction of, a list of these organisations that got grants?
Is this what you are looking for Jay? If so, then choose one from the two documents. Strangely, LBTH produced two different documents to the same FOI request. One of them is omitting a fair amount of information 😉
Click to access FOI%209088%20Amount%20in%20grants%20funding%20to%20Islamic%20charities%20org%20in%20LBTH%20past%205%20years.pdf
Click to access 9087%20Grants.pdf
There is a list or two……but which one is correct (if any) is a question.
Read below…..
http://lovewapping.org/2014/04/tower-hamlets-council-grant-funding-data-story/
http://lovewapping.org/2014/04/tower-hamlets-council-funding-data-story-part-2/