In the days before Panorama broadcast on March 31, Lutfur Rahman and his camp looked into their crystal ball and confidently warned the world the programme would be “racist” and “Islamophobic”.
The Mayor himself (a lawyer, remember) went further and took to Twitter to say this:
A few days later he repeated the charge on his blog:
Criminal investigation underway as BBC Panorama whistle-blower reveals racist and Islamophobic programme on Tower Hamlets
You may be aware that BBC Panorama is due to air a programme about Tower Hamlets next week.
I believe the programme is being used for political campaigning and electioneering purposes just weeks before local and Mayoral elections in May.
A dossier passed to us by a BBC whistle-blower has revealed it to be in total breach of the BBC’s editorial guidelines as a public broadcaster.
It has clear racist and Islamophobic overtones targeting the Bangladeshi Muslim community in Tower Hamlets.
The BBC and the undercover production company, Films of Record, have also been referred to the Information Commissioner and there is now a criminal investigation underway.
He was referring, of course, to the so-called “whistleblower” who was hired by the Panorama team to work as a journalist/researcher.
I wrote about her here. She lasted four days before the team waved her goodbye. She took a very important dossier she’d “obtained” from the Panorama team and handed it to the Mayor’s office. She then claimed “whistleblower” status.
She claimed the programme was biased and that she’d witnessed racism among the producers and reporting team.
This was all gleefully exploited by Lutfur and his aides as yet more evidence of an Establishment stitch-up. He even wrote to the BBC’s Director General to demand the programme be pulled, he told us on his blog.
The so-called “whistleblower” herself started a blog and opened an anonymous Twitter account where she detailed her experiences.
Here’s some examples of her Tweets:
(sic)
Well, I don’t think any reasonable person thinks that. Even the Guardian’s Dave Hill, who takes a more measured tone than most on these issues (to the point of glossing over Lutfur’s character sometimes) said, “the Panorama show was pretty measured, sketched in relevant context and acknowledged some of the borough’s achievements. The questions it asked were reasonable. It didn’t recycle that pernicious glory-seeking back catalogue of Tower Hamlets’ Islamist conspiracy that so excites the far Right, and well done for that”.
Trial by Jeory 
All pretty crazy in my view – the politics of race and division continue to damage all the peoples that make up the “community” of Tower Hamlets. I think we deserve better than this after so many years of this micro political hatred.
Are we permit to ask the name of the “whistle blower” or the girl who nicked files (data) from the TV company’s computer (theft?) ?
Curious Cat
It is strange why she cannot be named. Ted – is there any legal reason why she is not being named?
Do we know the timescale between the “whistleblower” leaving her post and the time/day when the Mayor’s Office was in receipt of the “stolen” documents? Was it hours/days/weeks or months? She claims to have wrestled with her conscious about what to do with the papers. I’d like to know how long the wrestling lasted.
My understanding of the migration of Bangladeshi immigrants to the UK is that the vast majority come from a small area of Sylhet. Miss “Whistleblower” (or should that be Miss Spy) claims to have not known or heard of Tower Hamlets and the Mayor before she was hired. I find this hard to believe. If she was hired for her translation skills then surely it would have been to translate Sylheti Bengali, and where is the largest Sylheti population outside of Bangladesh – Tower Hamlets.
Come on Ted put me straight if I have the wrong end of the stick on this.
I think I covered some of these points in my March 30 post.
She certainly wasn’t hired for her command of English spelling. I wonder if, like Shelina Ahktar, she has jumped the housing queue for ” services rendered!
With the large number of anti Lutfur Sylheti speaker in the borough how come they found her?
Leaving aside the possibility of an offence under the Computer Misuse Act (for which a maximum penalty of 2 years in the slammer could be applied), the maximum fine under the Data Protection Act 1998 is £5000. Maybe she could get a grant to pay it…
Or what we could find Robert is that if convicted, or even charged, she does a deal and starts to talk. That would be interesting.
Let’s please be careful about what’s said here and any speculative allusions. Let’s see what the investigation finds.
Ted, good digging but there is nothing new in the meta-narrative here; lies and smears being used to accuse critics of lies and smears.
The sooner The Despicable Rahman is shown the door the better. His breed of politics and deceit have no place in LBTH or any other part of the UK. Can anyone spot the irony of the state of LBTH politics when compared with the recent general election farce in Bangladesh? (Google ‘bangladesh general election’ if you need to – it hasn’t been covered in the UK press.) There is a common factor here, and it’s not racism.
Tim.
Tim. You really need to do your homework about Bangladeshi elections especially the recent one. No one can force the opposition to take part in an election and in this last they pretty much boycotted it on the grounds, largely, that they weren’t going to win. They were also protesting that the Awami League government which won the election were prosecuting and executing war criminals from the Liberation War of 1971.
One of the people they wish to extradite for his complicity in hundreds of thousands of murders is a leading light in the East London Mosque and Muslim Centre, The Islamic Forum Europe and is a backer of Lutfur Rahman. I can’t see any connection between the last Bangladeshi general election and what is happening in Tower Hamlets. If you can do let us know.
Ted, I think you are being too kind to Dave Hill. I have just been browsing his articles over the last few years and he always gets it wrong. He is, as Gilligan described him, a poodle, always looking for a master to bring him to heel and feed him.
I like to be kind.
MMBL,
You are, of course, right in your analysis of the detail. The connection I was drawing was that of dubious electoral practice, violence and questions about the legitimacy of office.
Seeing as you raise the point, for a party to boycott an election on the basis that they aren’t going to win raises numerous questions about the reasons for and purposes of an election.
You raised Mueen-Uddin – another somewhat smelly connection that The Despicable Rahman uses to his advantage. Thanks for mentioning it; issues such as this need to have a higher profile within LBTH.
Tim.
I wasn’t going to name Moin Uddin as Ted might have censored it but yes, a mass murderer is one of Rahman’s biggest supporters.
……. birds of a feature, flock together ?
As they used to say in The Likely Lads, “It’s nice to be nice”.
I have just gone over her statement in detail on her blog and there is something about this whole thing that just isn’t right. Either she writes that way naturally, in which case why was she employed in the first place as I can name ten young Bangladeshi women I know whose English is perfect.
Or it has been deliberately written in such a way as to make it look as if a a naive and well meaning young Bangladeshi woman has been used and abused by a corrupt, racist and Islamophobic BBC?
There is something about all of this that smell, I can’t put my finger on but something smells.
Mr Mullah wrote
And you are still not married ? 🙂
Did you try reading the other statement on her blog?
There are some interesting issues re comparisons and discontinuities in use language which would be interesting to investigate.
Only one author? Maybe – and maybe not……..
Twice, one Tamil and one Indian but no Bangladeshis as yet.