Feeds:
Posts
Comments

The Tommy Robinson move: a view from the Tower Hamlets faith forum

October 8, 2013 by trialbyjeory

He is a reader of this blog (I’m told), so I don’t know if it was my last post on Lutfur’s declaration of love for the Islamic Forum of Europe that prompted today’s decision, but the EDL’s Tommy Robinson claims he’s had enough.

Thanks to a tip from the Quilliam Foundation, I broke the story on Twitter this morning then on the Express website a bit later. The full piece is here.

It includes some interesting comments from the Reverend Alan Green, the rector at St John on Bethnal Green and the chair of the Tower Hamlets Interfaith Forum.

alan_green_edl_tower_hamlets

Alan is one of the main organisers of the anti-EDL rallies in the borough. I asked him for his thoughts on Tommy Robinson’s decision and whether he (and the East London Mosque through the faith forum) would be prepared to meet him.

Here’s the extract from the Express piece:

The Reverend Alan Green chairs the Tower Hamlets Inter Faith Forum, which has been at the forefront of organising protests against the EDL’s marches in the borough.

Its members include the East London Mosque, which has been a main target in Robinson’s speeches.

Mr Green said today that while he welcomed Robinson’s decision he wanted to know more about “what is going on”.

He said: “On the face of it, it seems a real victory for places like Tower Hamlets for the way we have represented our diverse communities in the face of what amounted to extremism with a covering of respectability.

“If that extremism has now been stripped away, then that’s a really good victory for us.

“He now needs to show he is clearly separating himself from not only the violence of the extreme members of the EDL but also from the level of rhetoric that he himself has espoused.

“If he is learning that you can’t just accuse all Muslims of the extremism that he has accused them of, then that’s a real step forward.

“It’s not just bout physical violence, it’s about physical abuse as well.

Asked if he and the East London Mosque would meet Robinson as part of the Inter Faith Forum, he said: “There could be a time when we could do that, but I would want to see far more progress from him than just the statement today.

“As a Christian minister, I’m always happy to meet anyone but I would not want to fragment the unity we have here in Tower Hamlets, so we’d need to see further steps first.”

 With some justification, Mayor Lutfur Rahman can rightly say he has helped defeat the EDL. He’s led well in this regard, especially from a political perspective.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | 19 Comments »

Lutfur launches a political party and declares his love for the IFE

October 4, 2013 by trialbyjeory

Tower Hamlets has a brand new political party to vote for.

Lucky us. It’s called Tower Hamlets First.

electoral commission
As opposed to Tower Hamlets Last, which is the usual strategy of the people behind this new venture….the dear Mayor of Tower Hamlets and his group.

It was registered with the Electoral Commission on September 19, with Lutfur Rahman as party leader (missed that party election vote), and Cllr Alibor Choudhury nominated as Treasurer and nominating officer.

They’ve also registered a few catchy tag lines to use alongside Tower Hamlets First.

Thus we have ‘Mayor Lutfur Rahman’s Team’, ‘Lutfur Rahman’s Team’, Lutfur Rahman’s Progressive Alliance’, ‘The Mayor’s Team’, “Mayor Lutfur Rahman’s Independents’, ‘Mayor Lutfur Rahman’s Community Alliance’ [note the use of the word ‘community’], and ‘East End Independents’.

I’m not sure he’ll be able to use the word Mayor in any official tag line during an election, but let’s see.

But what’s also interesting about this is that he’s now on an official footing as as far as declaring donations go. Until now, there’s been no trace of how he’s been funded, or who his backers have been.

For example, I asked his people who funded his huge iftar party to celebrate Eid in August, but answer there came none. Ditto the various leaflets and newsletters he sends out en masse.

I suppose the truth is that ever since he was elected that dark night in October 2010, he’s been gearing up for re-election. And why not?

We’ve already seen his (ab)use of the Localism Act to dish out grants to friends at the borough’s many mosques and monocultural community groups. Today, another £242,000  was handed out. It includes another £18,000 to the Osmani Trust.

The Osmani Trust is a major “youth” organisation in Whitechapel with links to the IFE. And it was a large group of mainly excitable young men from that organisation who turned up at the town hall for the last full council meeting in September when they spent the evening whooping, hollering and hurling insults in Bengali at Labour and Tory councillors.

That was also the same evening Tory councillor Gloria Thienel was insulted as “Susan Boyle” by an angry, glaring man sitting next to me.

And it was also the same meeting that at long last the cameras were allowed to roll during the debate.

You can watch it all for free here. At 50 minutes in you can even watch the single time the Mayor spoke throughout the entire three hour meeting.

Momentously forgettable.

Lutfur

But was memorable was the laying on the table of Lutfur’s IFE card. (The Islamic Forum of Europe is based at the East London Mosque and is considered a Jamaat e Islami group which favours an Islamic Republic of Bangladesh. It was this group which was the focus of the Channel 4 Dispatches programme in 2010 when accusations were made by Jim Fitzpatrick and others – I appeared in to substantiate claims made to me to this effectby serving councillors – that they had infiltrated the council and the Labour party. Ultimately these claims led Lutfur’s expulsion from Labour.)

At 1hr 25mins in, you’ll see during a motion on the recent trip to the Tower Hamlets border by the English Defence League, Lutfur’s main man Alibor rise to speak.

Alibor

He proposes an amendment to the main motion, thus:

I propose that we accept the IFE as a progressive organisation that we will aim to engage.

Well, Labour weren’t expecting that.

Deputy Mayor Ohid Ahmed then spoke:

We praise the East London Mosque stewards and we know that their organisation is the IFE.

Labour’s Rachael Saunders is a little taken aback. She can see the elephant-trap, so she says she has “no idea whether the IFE is progressive” (when she clearly believes they’re not).

Lutfurite Kabir Ahmed adds his tuppence, saying “it’s important that we thank the IFE”. He then blames Jim Fitzpatrick for portraying them as anti-Tower Hamlets Islamists. He adds:

The EDL have picked up on this and they repeatedly reference it so it’s important to state such messages were incorrect and the council hasn’t been taken over and infiltrated.

Hmm. Let’s rewind.

In 2009, I interviewed Habibur Rahman, the then president of the IFE. He confirmed Alibor was an IFE member/activist.

But Alibor failed to mention or declare that when setting out his amendment. You see, the IFE already have a man at the top of the council. We now have conformation that Dispatches and JIm were right. thanks, guys.

And then at 1hour 35mins, the wonderfully colourful Lutfa Begum (another Lutfurite) jumps out of her seat to give us more revelations:

IFE do lots of jobs for Tower Hamlets local people. They are working with local GPs, local NHS, local schools. They are working with teachers.

Working with Tower Hamlets school teachers, are they?

Remind yourself of what Andrew Gilligan wrote after his Channel 4 Dispatches:

In fact, our reporters found, the IFE is a secretive, fundamentalist political network, dedicated, in its own words, to changing the “very infrastructure of society, its institutions, its culture, its political order and its creed … from ignorance to Islam.”

Back to Alibor. A bit later on, after some goading from Labour, he also said the SWP and Unite Against Fascism were “progressive organisations that we should aim to engage”.

Respect to him. He’s come out and said what we all knew.

But they’ve now shown their election strategy. This is what they are saying repeatedly to the Bengali press and TV channels: Labour and Jim Fitzpatrick brought the EDL to Tower Hamlets and it is only the Mayor Lutfur the Martyr who is standing up to them, with much thanks to the dear IFE.

They are trying to shift the goalposts and make the IFE appear mainstream.

And it’s a strategy that’s currently working among the Bengali population.

Labour, which managed to water down the amendment to thank all groups who helped block the EDL (including the police: in Lutfur’s version they weren’t mentioned – it was if they believed the IFE stewards were the police) and John Biggs need to shape up.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 21 Comments »

Scotland Yard’s ‘diversity gap’ problem: police want to downgrade recruits’ English tests to help non-English speakers

September 15, 2013 by trialbyjeory

I’ve written this piece for today’s Sunday Express which has relevance to Tower Hamlets.

The Met has a real problem attracting enough frontline officers from BME communities. Managers at the Yard are acutely aware of this diversity gap, which is much wider in Tower Hamlets than any other borough.

Here’s a page from the Met’s Diversity Health Check report that shows that while 42.9 per cent of the borough’s population is from a BME background (black and minority ethnic), BME officers represent only 14.7 per cent of the borough’s police force.

 

Screen shot 2013-09-15 at 15.16.14

That’s a serious problem.

But as Keith Vaz MP says in the below piece, I’m not sure downgrading the written English test is the solution.

Instead of accepting what many think is a problem in some migrant communities, the Met would be better off using its evidence there is a relative failure of BME candidates to perform well in these tests to lobby policymakers for change in broader education policies.

For we know in Tower Hamlets that Mayor Lutfur Rahman is continuing to chuck hundreds of thousands of pounds of our tax money into FREE Bengali mother tongue classes–when he knows full well kids are struggling with English.

Scotland Yard, though, doesn’t have a good track record in getting things right in this area.

Here’s the piece:

SCOTLAND Yard wants to downgrade the importance of written English tests at police recruitment centres to make it easier for candidates from ethnic minorities to join the Met.

Bosses believe people who do not have English as their first language are being discriminated against under current assessment rules.

They have recommended the weighting placed on the “Written Communication” section of the Metropolitan Police’s tough entrance exam is lowered.

However, they fear a “white backlash” among rank and file officers who feel they have already been passed over for promotion.

Home Affairs Committee chairman, MP Keith Vaz, said last night any move to drop standards would be “insulting” to ethnic minority candidates themselves, and would risk losing public cofidence.

The details are contained in an internal Met report marked “restricted” but which has been obtained by the Sunday Express under the Freedom of Information Act.

The Diversity Health Check document highlights a growing concern about race relations at the Yard, 11 years after the publication of the Macpherson Report into allegations of “institutionalised racism” surrounding the death of Stephen Lawrence in 1998.

The diversity report paints a picture of an agonised management acutely aware their workforce is not representative of the wider London community but at the same time concerned not to damage the moral of existing staff.

However, Met managers are determined to press ahead on filling the diversity gap.

The report, written by the Diversity and Citizen Focus Directorate in June last year—and still being discussed with Met Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe—recommends the Yard lobby for a law change that would allow “positive discrimination” in recruitment.

At the end of April last year, just 16 per cent of the Met’s 53,000 strong workforce was from an ethnic minority background, whereas non-whites comprise 41 per cent of the capital’s population.

To bridge the gap, the Met, instead of direct external entry, is now recruiting an increasing number of constables from the ranks of Police Community Support Officers where the pool of non-whites is far greater.

However, all constables must still pass the Met’s entrance test, known as Search (Structured Entrance Assessment for Recruiting Constables Holistically)—and this has been identified as part of the problem.

A statistical analysis of past exam results concluded that white candidates were more than twice as likely to pass.

This was “statistically significant” and not “random error”, the report’s authors stated.

They added: “The analysis also revealed that factors including increased levels of academic attainment, English as a first language and experience within the PCSO or Special Constable roles, impacted significantly upon Search outcomes, substantially improving the odds of success.

“However, the Written Communication competency area is an area of particular concern due to the weighting it is given in terms of the overall outcome of Search, considering it contributes a very small amount to the overall percentage.

“The data showed that substantial numbers of candidates achieved the overall pass threshold level – in the current case 55 per cent – often performing superbly in the majority of competency areas, but failed Search on the basis of the Written Communication competency.

“The competency appeared to have a disproportionately adverse impact upon Black and Minority Ethnic candidates, with candidates from this group nearly two times more likely to fail Search on the basis of Written Communication than white candidates.

“Paradoxically, Search was designed to measure potential to perform the role yet allows a single factor, which is very much a product of education and socialisation…to significantly influence the outcome of selection.”

It recommends Deputy Commissioner Craig Mackey reconsider a previous proposal to raise the Search pass mark from 55 per cent to 70 per cent because “it would adversely affect black and minority ethnic recruitment”.

However, Labour MP Keith Vaz said: “We need more ethnic minority recruits to the police service.

“But it would be insulting to the black and minority ethnic applicant if standards were reduced, and to the public who would not respect the process. “There is a huge pool of talent within the ethnic minorities we need to ensure it is properly and fairly tapped.”

A spokeswoman for the Met said the force was making “excellent progress” on the recruitment issues but added: “We continue to review recruitment processes to ensure we recruit a workforce representative of London.

“We are not complacent and will continue to enhance our recruitment processes within the boundaries set by equality legislation to build upon this success.”

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 56 Comments »

Lutfur Rahman remembers 9/11…with a political attack on Boris Johnson

September 11, 2013 by trialbyjeory

Unless I missed it, Tower Hamlets Mayor Lutfur Rahman made no comment on his blog of the 10th anniversary of 9/11 two years ago.

Last year, again nothing.

This year, today, he (or a minion) has written this:

Remembering 9/11

The names of the three thousand victims of the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center in New York, are being read out today to mark the twelfth anniversary.

It is worth recalling that the victims included people from all walks of life, many nationalities and many faiths. The attack on the World Trade Center changed history; the war in Iraq and the continuing conflict in Afghanistan can trace their beginnings to that one terrible event. So today is also the day when we should remember the casualties of all wars and hope that the terrible civil war raging in Syria can be ended through diplomacy and through yet more war and destruction (sic).

In recalling the innocent people who lost their lives on 9/11, we should never forget the role played by the emergency services, the fire-fighters and the New York Police Department on that terrible day. Their often heroic role reminds me why it is so important to continue to fight attempts to cut back vital public services here and why we need to re-double our efforts to tell Mayor Boris Johnson that cuts cost lives.

Politics should be about sound judgement.

Lutfur just can’t help himself, can he.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 17 Comments »

The EDL march: a victory for Lutfur, preening politics and rally fascism

September 8, 2013 by trialbyjeory

About this time two years ago, I wrote this:

My own view, as outlined here, is that the EDL should be banned as an organisation. I’ve seen them for myself on marches and they’re little more than a bunch of football hooligans who give both football and free speech a bad name. They go out to provoke and they glory in trying to outwit the likes of Anjem Choudary and the police when it comes to the former’s demonstrations.

So the Met’s decision yesterday to ask Theresa May to ban the EDL marching through Tower Hamlets last week is a good thing. Well done to Mayor Lutfur Rahman and all the other politicians and grass roots activists who helped persuade Scotland Yard. It was an easy win-win for Lutfur, but he grabbed the opportunity.

Plus ca change.

Pic credit: East London Advertiser

Pic credit: East London Advertiser

Credit must again go to Mayor Lutfur and his advisers for seizing yet another gift on a plate from the thickies of the EDL. How he must secretly love them.

And how his people must be laughing at Labour on this: he’s run rings around them.

Last year, Labour’s then group leader Josh Peck and many of his councillors decided to abstain from attending the counter-EDL rally. Josh’s view was that the UAF (Unite Against Fascism) was staging a demo as a precursor to a punch-up with the EDL. As it happens, he was right on that point of fact. But politically, even some of his allies think that was a mistake.

I’m told John Biggs thinks it was an error, which is why he was there in Altab Ali Park yesterday. Yet even under his leadership, Labour has allowed itself to be the object of ridicule and on the back foot. Their long-planned summer barbecue scheduled for yesterday was unfortunate timing, but how anyone failed to spot much earlier that it would be politically problematic is really quite odd.

If they are to beat Lutfur next May, they need to sharpen up their PR act big time…and quickly.

But let’s look at Lutfur’s tactics. His strategy for more than three years now has been to present himself to the Bengali community (via the press, satellite Bangladeshi TV channels and The Guardian) as the martyred Muslim victim of an evil racist plot by the Right-wing media, the institutionally racist decision-making bodies of Labour’s NEC and the anti-Muslim Peter Golds-led Tower Hamlets Tory party.

So when the English Defence League threaten to march this way, he becomes not just the martyr but also the hero leader: a modern-day Boudicca of the East End (in a Mercedes, not a chariot). He’s been telling his friendly uncritical TV channels (including the ones he now so generously helps to fund with council money) that it’s all Labour’s fault the EDL are coming.

He tells them that Andrew Gilligan’s Channel 4 Dispatches programme in March 2010 (disclosure: I appeared in it) was the main inspiration for the EDL. He says because Labour also played a part in that documentary (Jim Fitzpatrick was another interviewee), and because the accusations he was linked to Islamic fundamentalism were a big factor in his expulsion from Labour in summer 2010), Labour is thus responsible for the arrival of Stella-swigging monsters on the borough’s doorstep.

He then gleefully adds: “Look at what Labour are doing to stop them coming: they’re having a barbecue!” He has skewered them.

A classier group of politicians would then have let their actions do the talking; if you have the moral high ground, keep quiet and stay there. But Lutfur’s people can’t help themselves: they say any political leader not at yesterday’s rally cannot be in favour of Lutfur’s One Tower Hamlets mantra. The irony of this rally fascism is undoubtedly lost on them.

So where were the borough’s two MPs yesterday, they ask? Where was Peter Golds? I had a Twitter conversation about this with Lutfurite councillor Kabir Ahmed this morning.

There seemed to be some underlying implication that Peter is not as opposed to the EDL and fascism as Kabir is. Which given the sufferings of Peter’s family in the Holocaust is more than unfortunate. I then asked Kabir if he condemned the homophobic and anti-Semitic abuse that I’ve witnessed aimed at Peter by Lutfur’s supporters in the council chamber.

He was among the first Tower Hamlets councillors to sign the Hope not Hate pledge, he told me; he was a Hope not Hate champion…but repeatedly, Kabir refused to condemn those specific incidents by his own supporters. Such leadership.

There were probably other factors in the decision by some to stay away yesterday. They probably didn’t want to be associated with two of the rally’s predominant contingents: those strange bed-fellows, the Socialist Workers’ Party and the Islamic Forum of Europe.

I’m told the IFE had a 1,000 stewards out on the streets of Whitechapel yesterday. They were everywhere, even guarding the main stage in Altab Ali Park where speakers couldn’t help talking about the need not to strike Syria (the EDL would have applauded that). It was also the same stage onto which John Biggs was apparently initially declined entry.

I also saw a couple of IFE stewards standing guard opposite the Yummy Yummy sweet shop in New Road. I thought that might have been a coincidence, but it probably wasn’t. That sweet shop was no doubt highlighted as a potential EDL target…because, as I revealed earlier this year, it’s run by Anjem Choudary and his crowd.

You see, although the East London Mosque hasn’t exactly helped itself by failing to prevent homophobic and hate-fuelled sermons from the likes of Anwar al-Awlaki in the past, Anjem is the EDL’s biggest enemy. They follow him and his helpers everywhere. They’re on the same intellectual level.

Wouldn’t it be nice to see the United East End umbrella group of community groups etc etc take a stance on Anjem’s presence in the borough? Perhaps Lutfur and Kabir should organise a rally against him and his gang of terror groupies. I doubt we’d ever see the EDL again if he did that.

(And by the way, I hear that the Black Bloc anti-fascist group, many of whose members were arrested trying to attack the EDL yesterday, have started taking an interest in the Islamofascist tendencies of some Jamaat e Islami groups in the borough: that could be very interesting…).

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 31 Comments »

Bye bye Isabella Freeman – she’s off to Quangoland

August 29, 2013 by trialbyjeory

isabella_freemanIt is with great sadness that I must report the impending departure from Tower Hamlets council of Isabella Freeman, the town hall’s esteemed head of legal services and monitoring officer.

In an official announcement at 3.41pm today, a senior press officer at the Homes and Communities Agency confirmed she had been successful in her pursuit of the soon-to-be vacant ‘head of legal services’ section there (the current incumbent is retiring). She will also be its ‘company secretary’.

What a fine addition to their team she will make (one of them, Richard Ennis, the head of corporate services, is, like Isabella, an alumni of Slough council).

Among the few who have been in the know about this, there’s been a mixture of delight and astonishment. The HCA is the regulatory body for housing associations and it’s an important government quango.

As such, the most senior appointments at least used to need approval from the Department for Communities and Local Government. And given what the current and recent crop of ministers there think of Ms Freeman, it’s difficult to see how they would have given their blessing.

But – and some might add ‘alas’ – the HCA tells me DCLG approval is not needed. They say they’ve had approval to recruit to “business critical” posts…and head of legal services for a regulatory body is deemed pretty critical.

What her new salary will is yet to be revealed: she’s currently on £115k.

So off Isabella goes. She’s resigned, so no payoff and no more of her threats and badly spelt emails of legal intimidation. I’ll miss them. And so will a few senior councillors.

And it’s also probably case that she’s deprived us all of what would have been the most fascinating employment tribunal the council has ever defended. You’ll recall she was suing her own employer – for what, we don’t know. And we may never know because it’s probable, though not definite, she’ll let that one quietly drop.

If I were the boss of the HCA, I think I’d have had a quiet word with her about it. It’s interesting that a law firm called Pinsent Mason, which has previously acted as a solicitor for the HCA, has been conducting research about her on the web. Whether that was connected to the appointment, I don’t know.

But who next for Tower Hamlets council? An interim appointment beckons while the search for a long term successor begins.

Mayor Lutfur Rahman would love to have his own person in the job, but given the debacle and failure in getting Aman Dalvi into the chief executive’s post (a fiasco in which Isabella played a significant part), he will have a battle on his hands.

The monitoring officer role must be agreed by the full council. And getting them to agree on anything has been pretty much impossible since 2010.

Anyway, to those reading at the HCA…..good luck!

 

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | 25 Comments »

The £64,000 question: Why has Lutfur Rahman given that much tax money to Len McCluskey’s Unite?

August 27, 2013 by trialbyjeory

I changed the photo at the top of this blog a few weeks ago, and it wasn’t just because Len McCluskey and his Unite union were then hot news nationally. I was also intrigued about what he was up to in Tower Hamlets.

Just why was he beginning to hang about with Mayor Lutfur Rahman (and the lovely champagne prosecco socialist/millionaire housing association tenant/champion of workers’ rights Shiraj Haque)?

Yes, I’m sure Len was 100 per cent sincere when he felt compelled to visit the East London Mosque to express solidarity with the Tower Hamlets community in the wake of the Lee Rigby murder, but once a deal-maker, always a deal maker.

Perhaps Lutfur had the answer.

In February, a Lutfurite cabinet member Oli Rahman proposed an amendment to the budget that would divert funds from council reserves to a new community centre in Shadwell.

Here’s the text of that amendment:

This Council Resolves:

1. To allocate the one-off funding in the following areas allocated from funding already set aside in the budget for third sector grants :

This Council Resolves:

1. To extend provision in the borough for those without formal qualifications and effected (sic) by welfare cuts by committing £65,000 to the establishment the new Unite Community Centre in St George’s Town Hall.

2. This is a partnership between the council, Unite – Europe’s largest trade union and Barclay’s (sic) Bank.

3. The Unite Community Centre will offer:

• Education courses, employment and welfare advice services and community events.

• It will run three Skills for Life courses a week, and each will hold three sessions a week.

• Over the course of the year it aims to have 300 learners take Skills for Life courses.

• Based on this, and the provision of non-accredited ESOL, art and photography courses, and cultural events, the centre expects 50 unique visitors a week.

The minutes of that meeting show that Lutfur accepted this amendment and that it formed part of the overall deal between Labour and the Independents. The minutes also show that no councillor declared any interests. Presumably, this means that no councillor is a member of Europe’s largest trade union…

And the next we hear of this little proposal is on April 30. Hidden away in the murky and unsearchable section of the council website that details the mayor’s executive decisions (isn’t it interesting that Lutfur uploads only scanned documents there, unreadable by Google…), we are told that £64,000 of our tax money has indeed been given to Unite, a political organisation that is overtly campaigning to bring down the Coalition government, and, as some would have it, covertly manoeuvring against Ed Miliband as well.

But it surely can’t be legal to transfer public money to political outfits, I hear you cry. Well, Tower Hamlets council insists it’s all entirely acceptable.

The full details of the background to this decision are here.

We learn that it is for a new “community centre” in the basement of council-owned St George’s Town Hall in Cable Street, Shadwell. We’re also told that the money is part of a matched-funding deal between Unite, Barclays and the council. Unite is contributing £140,000, the council £64,000 and the public-spirited bank £60,000.

The benefits the money will generate for the local community justify the arrangement, the council says. The document explains: “Residents from all communities will be encouraged to use the centre, as its principle (sic) aim is to reduce unemployment across all sections of the borough… . This project is of particular interest to the borough…given Unite’s experience in running entry-level courses, integration of employability skills into educational courses and given its wide relationships with employers.”

Helpfully, the report adds:

Screen shot

And the justification from legal chief Isabella Freeman:

Screen shot 2

The document says anyone needing advice can get it. And as well as advice on how to get a job, you also get advice on how to sign up to Unite.

The Unite Community Centre is also a Unite recruiting office. The staff are all very friendly, but also very enthusiastic about their employer. The office is stuffed full of leaflets on the negative effects of Coalition cuts and how to join and fight these.

Unite 1

Unite 3

One man who’s been in there said he was encouraged to join during a discussion on how the centre could help him. A “Unite community membership scheme” offers membership for those not in paid work for 50p a week.

unite 4

There’s no such thing as a free lunch is there?

I’m sure the training is great and beneficial, but why should tax money be used to subsidise a recruiting office? Perhaps the TaxPayers’ Alliance should put in a bid to train council officers how to save cash.

A second Unite Community Centre opened in Barnsley in June, but I can’t trace any use of public money for that. I understand more are on the way.

Unite gets to expand its membership and that expanded membership increases the size of its bloc vote within the Labour party.

But in London, does Unite have a different agenda? There’s been some talk of George Galloway running for London mayor and we know that Lutfur is close to Respect.

I wonder if this deal between Len and Lutfur is part of some pro-Galloway plan.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | 8 Comments »

Hira Islam and the IFE get their sexist payback from Lutfur

August 3, 2013 by trialbyjeory

It is surely a coincidence of almighty proportions that within months of bagging a £10,000 grant from the “Mayor’s Community Chest” fund, the Tower Hamlets Council of Mosques has been able to produce its first ever newsletter in which praise and thanks are offered to our Great and Dear Leader.

[A warning: what you’re about to read will never be reported in the Bangladeshi press because they’re also the lucky prize-winners from the Mayor’s pot of monopoly money (the London Bangla Press Club has been given a £9,000 prize to produce a “business plan”).]

The Council of Mosques has a website here and for some reason it seems to have permission from the town hall to use the Tower Hamlets Council logo. This isn’t surprising: they’re very close.

Screen shot 2013-08-04 at 20.35.33They’re also very grateful to Lutfur Rahman.

Here’s the newsletter:

p1

p1

p2

p2

p3

p3

p4

p4

Two quotes in particular on p1 stand out:

“I am extremely pleased to announce that 24 mosques and Islamic centres have benefitted from the first round of the Mayor’s Faith Building Fund. I’m sure all faith organisations appreciate the hard work of Mayor Lutfur Rahman in securing the funding for this scheme that will improve the facilities which serve tens of thousands of residents.”

“..special funding is given to the recent funding boost from Tower Hamlets council through the Mayor’s Funding scheme to support faith institutions.”

 The second quote is from Hira Islam, secretary general of the Council of Mosques.

Sound familiar? Well, Hira is, as I disclosed here a few years ago, also a heavy-hitter in the Islamic Forum of Europe.

The IFE, you’ll recall, featured heavily in Andrew Gilligan’s Channel 4 Dispatches documentary three years ago when the principal claim was that the group was trying to infiltrate Tower Hamlets Council and to influence Lutfur Rahman into directing town hall grants to its pet projects.

And Hira Islam was the “Mr A” mentioned in that Dispatches documentary, the serving council officer said to be a key figure in Lutfur’s mayoral campaign.

Both claims were mocked by the borough’s large flock of ostriches.

Yet, yet, yet…
It seems Hira and his friends in the IFE have been pretty successful at lobbying Lutfur.

As I detailed here in June, 24 mosques have been given £383,000 out of a total of £600,000 awarded in the first round of the Mayor’s three-year £3million programme to renovate faith buildings with taxpayers’ money. The wealthy East London Mosque has been given £10,000, none of which is going to the needy among its worshippers but instead to polish its sign and to repaint its dome and minaret.

The IFE and the CoM were instrumental in this, holding a large meeting in March to discuss how the funds could be distributed. Helpfully, the Mayor was on hand to explain the process. All above board. See here:

mayor1

Here are some more of their photos showing how the men at the Council of Mosques decide things:

Did you spot any women in any of those photos? (Maybe that’s why Tower Hamlets Borough Commander Dave Stringer policeman looked a bit miffed in one of those pictures.)

Here’s the Equalities Impact carried out by the council before the awarded the grants:

Community Faith Buildings Support Scheme 2012-2015 - Round 1

A “neutral” effect on gender in the borough apparently.

And here are the two councillors appointed by Lutfur to his Corporate Grants Programme Board, the body which “advises” which groups receive the money.

Lutfurites Alibor Choudhury and Maium Miah.

Seems they don’t much trust women when it comes to making decisions about money for religious buildings.

Surely if Lutfur truly was committed to equality (as he says he is), he’d have made it a strict condition of these grants that more women have to be involved in running the buildings?

Has he even raised these concerns during his regular meetings of the Council of the Mosques? Maybe he’s not even noticed the lack of women there.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | 76 Comments »

Olympic Stadium wrap: chopped up by Dow for flooring (and how this blog starred in Wikileaks)

July 21, 2013 by trialbyjeory

Longer term readers of this blog will remember that I spent quite a bit if time in 2011 and at the start of last year investigating and reporting on Dow Chemical’s sponsorship of the Olympic Games.

In what even senior members of the 2012 Games Board later acknowledged was a shocking decision, Lord Coe’s Locog awarded Dow the right to sponsor the Olympic Stadium by funding the decorative fabric wrap.

A series of articles in the Sunday Express and on this blog highlighted some serious questions about the procurement process around that decision. MP Barry Gardiner brilliantly led the charge in the Commons and it eventually became a major frontbench row between then Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt and his Labour opposite, Tessa Jowell.

A dossier of emails I obtained under the FoI Act revealed the idea to withdraw public funds from the wrap and to bring in a private sponsor had actually been Mr Hunt’s own idea.

The row went global and even triggered talk of a Games boycott by India due to Dow’s links to the Bhopal gas disaster.

For Dow, this must have been a worrying time. So worrying, in fact, that it hired Stratfor, a global intelligence consultancy, to spy on me monitor my work. We know this because this humble blog features in the GI Files obtained and published by Wikileaks last year.

Here’s a flavour:

Blog: T Jeory on political opposition to Dow sponsorship 

11/23 Ted Jeory, Express on Sunday’s Whitehall editor, posted on his blog (attached) the stadium wrap sponsorship issue “is starting to enter pretty serious political 
territory” and listed three new developments: 

“1. Lib Dem deputy leader Simon Hughes has today signed up to the cross-[arty [sic] campaign to force Locog to reconsider its decision. he has added his name to a letter that has been sent to Lord Coe, which I’ll detail below. Tory MP Priti Patel is also on board.

“2. Shadow Olympics Minister (& Olympics Board member) Tessa Jowell has stepped up her own rhetoric, a) by writing to the Chair of the Commission for a Sustainable 
London 2012 to demand disclosure of important tender documents around the deal; and b) asking for a meeting with Dow themselves.

“3. Locally, Olympic host borough Tower Hamlets Council is expected to lodge a formal objection with Locog about the deal after a vote next week.”

– Hughes and Patel signed on to the BMA/Amnesty/Friends of Labour letter, not Keith Vaz’ Early Day Motion. Jeory included the text of the letter and the lists of MPs 
and Indian Olympians who have signed it.

– Jeory provided the text of the Tower Hamlets Council’s resolution to “lodge a formal objection with Locog” about the Dow sponsorship, and to join and assist the 
campaign calling for LOCOG to “reverse its decision” about the sponsorship. The council plans to write to Lord Coe, Secretary of State for Culture, Jeremy Hunt MP and 
LOCOG CEO Paul Deighton.

– Jeory promised “There will be further political developments by the end of this week, watch this space.”

– Jeory also included the text of Tessa Jowell’s press release reported below. 

What fun. Here are a couple of other entries.

So I thought I’d be kind and pass more work Stratfor’s way.

Almost a year on from the Opening Ceremony, I wondered what had become of the wrap. A rejected bid by another company in the original tender process had proposed sending thousands of little pieces to schools throughout Britain as a memento of the Games–a great idea.

But at the end of the Games, Dow announced here it would be working with UK aid charity Article 25 to send panels to Rio and Uganda for development projects. It added in that same press release that Manchester company Axion Recycling would “implement additional projects for reuse or recycling of the wrap within the UK”.

Maybe it was just me, but my inference was that all this would be benevolent…

Not so.

The corporate monster that is Dow couldn’t resist seeing its product converted for commercial purposes. After weeks of refusing to answer my questions and banning Article 25 and Axion from talking to the press, Dow finally admitted this week that only half (at most) of the wrap has been earmarked for Uganda and Rio.

The rest has been converted by Axion into flooring, packaging and building products…..Inspire a Generation? Yeah, right.

Dow remains, remember, a Top Tier sponsorship partner of the International Olympic Committee, so they’ll also be spinning their rubbish in Rio.

Here’s the piece I wrote for the Sunday Express today:

MORE than half the controversial fabric wrap which adorned Britain’s Olympic stadium last year has been sold off as flooring and packaging products for the private sector, an investigation has found.
 
Dow Chemical, the US giant brought in by Lord Coe to sponsor London’s 2012 Games, has admitted most of the wrap it funded last summer has since been chopped up into smaller pieces and “recycled” for commercial use by a Manchester-based business partner.
 
The remaining panels, made from a form of plastic, have been given to UK aid charity Article 25 and converted into shelters for vulnerable children in Uganda and Rio de Janeiro.
 
Dow refused to say why not all panels had been donated to charities but insisted its decisions were consistent with Lord Coe’s “sustainability” demands.
 
However, campaigners in Bhopal, India, where there were large protests last year over Dow’s involvement with the Games, said the findings were a “slap on the face” to those who believed the legacy commitments would be entirely benevolent.
 
The decision by Lord Coe’s Locog organising team in 2011 to make Dow a sponsor of the Games brought the Indian Olympic team to the brink of boycott last year.
 
Their fury stemmed from the Bhopal gas disaster in 1984 when thousands were killed and many more were maimed after a toxic cloud of chemicals leaked from a Union Carbide pesticide plant near the city centre.
 
Although Union Carbide agreed a “final” compensation package of $470million with the Indian government in 1989, campaigners say that underestimated the long-term scale of the disaster.
 
Dow never owned nor operated the plant but because it bought Union Carbide in 2001, campaigners and the Indian government argue it is now responsible for further legal claims and for remediating the site, which continues to pollute the city’s groundwater.
 
Dow strongly denies any liability.
 
However, the company’s controversial background caused many to wonder why they were allowed to sponsor the 2012 stadium.
 
Locog always insisted it ran a fair and rigorous tender process for the wrap but some MPs believed it had been influenced by the International Olympic Committee’s decision to sign a lucrative partnership agreement with Dow earlier in 2011.
 
Within months of the sponsorship award, the Sunday Express discovered another bid by a British consortium had been rejected on the grounds its proposed material was inappropriate.
 
That bid had included a legacy proposal to distribute small pieces of the £1.5million wrap to thousands of British schools as a memento of the Games and to inspire children into sport.
 
However, organisers said Dow’s offer was by far the best choice and at the end of the Games last August, the company announced its own legacy plans for the wrap.
 
It said Article 25 would work on two charity initiatives, while Axion would “implement additional projects for reuse or recycling of the wrap within the UK”.
 
The Sunday Express asked both organisations for an update on the projects last month, but they said Dow had barred them from talking to the media.
 
With the anniversary of the Opening Ceremony only days away, Dow decided to issue a press release on its projects last week.
 
It said some panels are now being used at Rio’s Bola Pra Frente Institute, a social project for teenagers founded by ex-Brazilian football star Jorginho in 2000.
 
The panels act as shades at the institute’s headquarters and help increase the space available for outdoor activities.
 
The project was chosen to create a link between London and Rio, which will be the next Olympic host city in 2016.
 
Other panels will be sent to Uganda later this year.
 
The press release continued: “The remaining panels have been allocated for recycling and reuse by British company Axion Recycling.
 
“The recycled material will be used as material for packaging, flooring and building applications.
 
“These programmes successful fulfil Dow’s commitment to Locog on the post-Games usage of the innovative stadium wrap.
 
“[They] emphasise the company’s commitment to sustainable development.”
 
When asked how much of the wrap had been earmarked for charitable use, Dow declined to give an exact figure, but a spokeswoman said: “Axion has already recycled approximately 50 per cent and the resulting material was converted by their customers into a range of applications.
 
“After the announced re-purposing projects will have been completed the remaining balance will go to Axion for recycling.”
 
Dow declined to say whether it had had a commercial relationship with Axion before the Games, but denied it had sold the wrap to them.
 
“Axion is a service provider to Dow, so we would be paying them,” the spokeswoman said.
 
Sathyu Sarangi, a leading figure in campaign for justice in Bhopal, said the wrap would have made a useful shelter in his city, but no offer had been made.
 
He said: “Giving it to Axion Recycling is a slap on the face of those who believed the wrap was a symbol of benevolent sustainability.
 
“It is a rude awakening. The kids in Brazil and Uganda are getting the crumbs off the table.”

Posted in Uncategorized | 10 Comments »

Lutfur v Sir Robin Wales: attitudes to filming councils

July 17, 2013 by trialbyjeory

There’s a great piece today on the Newham Recorder wesbite, which is so good in fact, I’m going to nick it and post it here.

It builds on the debate started on this blog about the filming of Tower Hamlets council meetings.

I’ve noted before the hugely different styles of the two mayors of Tower Hamlets and Newham. I don’t know Robin Wales well enough to make any full judgments but he does seem to be just a little more transparent than Lutfur. Of course, that may well be an illusion as Robin does have the advantage of an all Labour council.

So well done to the Newham Recorder for asking the pair to discuss their thinking on allowing in cameras to council meetings.

Last week, the East London Advertiser ran a piece in which Lutfur’s pitbull, Cllr Alibor Choudhury, criticised Communities Secretary Eric Pickles as a hypocrite. Alibor said it was double-standards of the minister to demand council cabinets be filmed when cabinets in Downing Street are held behind closed doors.

When I read that article I tweeted to ask whether he was a bit thick.

Lutfur repeats the line in his piece in the Newham Recorder. Maybe he thinks we’re the ones who are thick. Council cabinets are, of course, already open to the public. No one is seriously suggesting that should be the case in Downing Street – or are they?

He also says Jim Fitzpatrick is a hypocrite for not allowing cameras into Labour’s Parliamentary party meetings. Again, thick. A clue for Lutfur: those meetings you attend are part of the open democratic process. That’s why the public are allowed in. Which is why the public should be allowed to film.

Anyway, here’s the debate:

Mayor of Newham Sir Robin Wales

Newham Council has voted to allow filming of all future meetings of our council – including its committees – from our public gallery.

The public have placed their trust in us, to spend their money on services that matter to them.

There is a very good reason why they are called “public” meetings. How could we therefore possibly argue that the public does not have the right to see democracy in action?

Our decision, to open up our democracy and engage further with our residents, is the opposite of what is going on at Tower Hamlets.

I watched – on the internet – appalled as Cabinet members and officers of Tower Hamlets council tried to silence an elderly community campaigner as he argued passionately for his right to film, and for others to be able to see the result.

What do the Mayor and Cabinet of Tower Hamlets have to hide? How can they possibly justify banning filming, Tweeting and live blogging of public meetings in the 21st century?

And what does it do to build public trust in politics more widely when a clique seeks to shut the public out from decisions made on their behalf?

Of course there should be sensible safeguards. Residents should be able to protect their privacy from those who seek to film.

Commercial negotiations and decisions cannot always be made in public.

But with common sense, the vast majority of our discussions and decisions can be opened to wider public scrutiny.

Labour leader Ed Miliband was right when he argued passionately for a new kind of politics to rebuild public confidence.

That has to based on values of openness, engagement and accountability.

A well-run and accountable council should have nothing to hide.

That is why Newham has made these changes.

In the 21st century it is not enough for democracy to simply happen. It has to be seen to happen.

 

Mayor of Tower Hamlets Lutfur Rahman

I am grateful to be asked where I stand on the filming of council cabinet meetings. For the record, and as a believer in open government, I am in favour of it—as long as it is governed by the same rules that govern the filming of Parliament.

As a believer in open government, I’m in favour of it – as long as it is governed by the same rules that govern the filming of Parliament. I’m also in favour of the filming of our full council meetings, providing they conform to standards set by Parliament, respecting the public who may not wish to appear on film, and filming only those speaking.

Our MP, Jim Fitzpatrick (Labour, Poplar and Limehouse), and his political ally Cllr Peter Golds (Conservative, Blackwall and Cubitt Town), have not asked me where I stand. This has not stopped them from trying to create a storm in a teacup, going to the press and Parliament with tales that do not represent my position.

Mr Fitzpatrick asked local government secretary Eric Pickles his opinion in Parliament, while taking a side-swipe at the council.

Sadly for him, Mr Pickles didn’t appear to know what his own policy was. It’s not compulsory for local authorities to allow filming, whatever the secretary of state may think. He seems to think that Cabinet meetings should be filmed while full council meetings should not. What logic is there in this?

That’s why, when we do it, we must get it right and at a cost that residents are prepared to pay.

The issue has come to prominence after a member of the public produced a camera phone at a meeting and was asked not to film.

This is because the council has yet to have a system in place for filming meetings and the public may not have wished to be filmed.

These concerns are those of Parliamentary authorities which is why the same individual would have been prevented from doing the same in the Commons.

I know Mr Pickles likes to be filmed eating burgers. But will he argue with David Cameron to allow cameras into Downing Street to film his Cabinet meetings? Or will Mr Fitzpatrick allow cameras in to film his parliamentary Labour Party meetings? Somehow I doubt it.

Posted in Uncategorized | 8 Comments »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »