Trial by Jeory

The Lib Dems have just issued the following press release.

The Liberal Democrat candidate for Mayor of Tower Hamlets, John Griffiths, today called the Respect Party’s decision not to stand in the mayoral election, but instead back the controversial Labour candidate as “contemptible.”

“There has clearly been a stitch up between Respect and Lutfur Rahman’s Labour Party.  This pre-election deal shows complete disrespect for the people of Tower Hamlets.”

“Voters in the borough, including many members of the Labour Party, were already nervous at the prospect of Lutfur Rahman taking the Mayoralty and command of the Council’s £1.3bn a year budget.  They will be terrified at the prospect now, given the deal that has clearly been done.”

“It was Respect which organized the petition for the mayoral referendum and campaigned for the yes vote on 6^th May.  Not to contest the election they wanted is the strongest indication yet that, following George Galloway’s defeat and Respect’s disastrous showing in the Council Elections, the Party is in terminal decline.”

The Lib Dems have repeatedly warned of the danger of an elected mayor leading to a one-Party state in the Borough with power concentrated in one individual.

“In the wrong hands, an all-powerful Mayor, heavily backed by one section of the community, would exaggerate the worst of the Council’s recent tendencies – centralising power and removing accountability of local Councillors for the allocation of public funds.”

“As Mayor, I would build a consensus and encourage cross-community involvement in the political process.  This means devolving resources and responsibility to those bodies and  communities best placed to make use of them, including community councils, health boards, local schools, as well as tenants/residents’ associations – citizen-run organisations which can provide a check and balance on Mayoral power.”

“This election is an opportunity to reestablish Tower Hamlets as a borough of many neighbourhoods and communities – each one different, but each one contributing to the common wealth, and at the same time providing a necessary check on the power of an executive Mayor.”

As expected, it seems that the idea for for a single “Coalition Unity” candidate for mayor has been vetoed by Tory and Lib Dem HQs, which, according to one Lib Dem “says a lot about the coalition”.

It would have been seen as a stitch-up, rather like the Respect announcement today that, after years of bitterly opposing Labour and Lutfur Rahman, including when he was council leader, George Galloway’s party is now backing him for Mayor. This is exactly what many predicted all along. Disturbingly, but entirely predictably, Respect are trying to paint ALL scrutiny of Lutfur as a “thinly-veiled anti-Muslim racist witch-hunt”. More on that later.

In the meantime, I’m inviting all party candidates to outline why they want to be Mayor.

So, first off is John Griffiths, the Lib Dem candidate.

Why am I standing for Mayor? by John Griffiths

I have lived in Tower Hamlets for the last 15 years – more than a third of my lifetime.  I love this borough – its vibrancy; its diversity; its history. You only had to be here last Friday to feel the excitement as we celebrated Eid. In the same week we remembered the 70th anniversary of the Blitz when the people of this part of London showed remarkable courage to overcome the bombardment and threat of a fascist invasion.

I am proud to call myself a Liberal.  The Party has a distinguished record of social reform.  A hundred years before New Labour, it was the New Liberals of Asquith and Lloyd George who, shocked at the poverty of the East End, introduced social housing, the state pension and school meals. We have since developed a track record for protecting the individual (particularly the vulnerable), and a healthy scepticism of big government. This is the inspiration for my campaign for Mayor.

It was a Liberal Council, way ahead of its time, which first empowered local residents, giving “power to the neighbourhoods”.  As councillor for Bethnal Green North, I followed this approach, chairing my Local Area Partnership, which supported grassroots projects and enabled community organisations to take control of services – whether youth projects run out of Oxford House, or the regeneration of Arnold Circus by the friends’ group.

I led the campaign to stop the Labour council’s plans to demolish York Hall, and am proud that this remains a well-used leisure facility at the heart of our community.  As spokesman on regeneration, I helped to expose a level of fraud in the council that led to criminal prosecutions of officers and Labour councillors. These experiences taught me the dangers of unchecked power getting into the wrong hands.

The person we elect on October 21st will be responsible for a budget of £1.3billion per year and directly influence the lives of more than 200,000 people. An unchecked Mayor, heavily backed by one section of the community, would exaggerate the worst of the Council’s recent tendencies – further centralising power and weakening the accountability of your councillors for decisions over allocating hard-pressed resources.

Given the referendum in favour of a Mayoral system, the Lib Dems want to make it work (as we have already in places like Watford and Bedford), but in ways that complement Liberal values.  As a Lib Dem Mayor, I would build consensus and encourage cross-community involvement in the political process.

This means devolving responsibility and resources to those bodies and  communities best placed to use them, including community or neighbourhood councils, health boards, local schools, as well as tenants and residents’ associations; citizen organisations which can provide a check and balance on Mayoral power. It also means appointing a cabinet that brings together a representative group of the most talented of our councillors.

This election is a unique opportunity for Tower Hamlets to live up to its name, a borough of many neighbourhoods and communities – each one special; each one different, but each one contributing to the common wealth, and at the same time providing a vital check on the power of an autocratic Mayor.

A little birdie has whispered to me that, should he be elected, Lutfur Rahman is considering scrapping East End Life – Tower Hamlets council’s hated £1m-a-year propaganda paper.

I’d imagine that there would be a cheaper and less frequent replacement, perhaps a fortnightly or monthly paper.

It would be a clever, sure-fire vote winner and it would undoubtedly please my former employers at the East London Advertiser.

Watch this space…

UPDATE – 9.40pm

I’m hearing that East End Life is highly likely to be pared back considerably. It is considered by those likely to be in power come October that is “outrageous” that East End Life has such a heavy pagination and that it carries restaurant reviews and TV listings. All the elements of the paper which effectively means it competes with the East London Advertiser and other local papers are likely to go. It will be a much thinner paper, but it is likely to remain weekly for the time being.

Just a quick update to this post on Lutfur Rahman’s campaign manager, Ohid Ahmed.

According to the switchboard at Camden Council, Ohid’s job title is Interim Camden Working Contracts and Performance Manager in the Culture and Environment department. His responsibilities are likely to include assessing and recommending any bids for contract work within that directorate, which covers highways, environmental health, planning and regeneration.

Posts classified as “interim” are temporary and can command higher salaries. Recruitment is often done through agencies and not through public advertisements.

According to this biography of him (you need to search his name), Ohid holds an MBA, but he is only a junior part-qualified Certified Accountant (the ACCA body). I’d imagine that he has experience to do the job, but did he have more than anybody else who went for it?

UPDATE  – 4.30pm

I’ve just spoken to Ohid, who tells me that when he left the council cabinet in May 2010, he lost the annual allowance of £14,000 that he’d been used to for a few years as a lead councillor. “I needed to find some work, so I signed on with Badenoch and Clark recruitment consultancy. They suggested the job with the council and I went for the interview. I didn’t even tell Nasim [Ali, the leader of Camden Council] about it. He didn’t even know that I got the job.”

As for the Eurostar ticket, he said it was former Tower Hamlets Assistant Chief Executive Sara Williams who approached him with the tickets because some had become available to the council. He said a few others also took them.

I’m happy to set the record straight.

The selection of Lutfur Rahman as Labour’s candidate for mayor has sent his opponents into a tailspin of despair. And not just among Labour members.

Politicians in all parties are trying to work out how he can be stopped. Those in Labour cling to the belief that Labour’s NEC will be so horrified by his selection that they will refuse to confirm his candidacy and instead impose their own choice before nominations for the election close on September 24.

There are others within Labour, especially those concerned about the people with whom Lutfur is surrounding himself, who are quietly encouraging another possibility – one which would underline the seriousness with which they view the situation. They are suggesting an anti-Lutfur candidate from the other main national parties, ie a single Coalition candidate for both the Tories and Lib Dems. And this idea is winning cross-party support.

This afternoon, the Lib Dem candidate, John Griffiths, held his launch party for the press at a restaurant in Brick Lane. Some fifteen party activists turned up, as did a cameraman from Channel S and a couple of photographers, but apart from that I was the only reporter there. Oddly for a press conference, no time was allotted for questions. It summed up the state of the once mighty Lib Dems in the borough.

Which is a shame, because in Griffiths they have a good candidate whose track record as a councillor until he lost his seat in 2006 was excellent. If you’ve been to York Hall in Bethnal Green recently, thank John: he was the man who initiated and led the campaign to save it from closure six years ago.

The party retains good ideas, including a thought-provoking pledge to devolve power from Tower Hamlets HQ in Mulberry Place to the various districts that comprise the borough. How many people say they live in Tower Hamlets, the Lib Dems ask. Rather, residents prefer to say they live in Bow, for example, or on the Isle of Dogs, or in Spitalfields, Wapping, Whitechapel, Stepney, or Shadwell. The Lib Dems therefore argue that these areas should have the chance to run some of their own affairs, along the lines of town councils. Moves are already afoot in Wapping to make this happen.

However, even Lib Dems quietly agree that they have little chance of seeing these ideas put into practice on their own. So their brightest minds are actively considering talks with Tory counterparts to run just one candidate. Such a deal would of course require either John to stand down, or Neil King from the Tories to do so – or both. Or they could run as a mayor and deputy mayor joint ticket. Or, more likely, given that this is Tower Hamlets, where race counts, a ticket that includes candidates from both the Bangladeshi and non-Bangladeshi “communities”.

Would Tory and Lib Dem HQs accept such a proposition? In normal circumstances, undoubtedly no. But Tower Hamlets politicians are arguing that these are exceptional circumstances. They say they would tell their superiors that, given the controversy of Labour’s selection process, they are acting in the interests of democracy and that it is a good opportunity to take control of a £1.2billion Olympic borough.

Crucially, they also argue that the ramifications of such a move would ensure national press attention, which would help boost what is otherwise expected to be a terrible turnout of about 25% next month.

In other words, strategists hope the move would create its own momentum. They have about 10 days in which to decide…

In the YouTube video I posted of Lutfur Rahman’s acceptance speech last Saturday, here, you’ll see that he gives specific thanks to a Cllr Ohid Ahmed. Appropriately, given that he’s Lutfur’s campaign manager, he’s standing directly behind his right shoulder and cheering with all the theatrical passion of Peter Mandelson circa 1997.

No one has been able to work it out, but Ohid’s career has really taken off in the last few years. Officers who have dealt with him cringe at the mention of his name. They say he has a slightly aggressive style and that he becomes frustrated when he can’t make himself understood.

Yet, come October 21 he could well be one of the most powerful men in Tower Hamlets: a victorious Lutfur is bound to reward him with a top job, possibly even as deputy mayor. So, let’s take a closer look at him.

His declaration of interests can be seen here. You’ll notice that he owns two properties in the borough. Land Registry records show that he bought the flat in Aberfeldy Street from Poplar Harca housing association in 2003 for £87,000. What a good deal that was! And according to the electoral roll, he actually lives in the townhouse in Oban Street. I can’t find any Land Registry documents for that purchase.

You’ll also see that he likes his jollies.

17.11.07: Hospitality received from Eurostar (free tickets to Paris (return)) for Cllr Ahmed and Son to mark the re-opening of St. Pancras Station.

15th Jan – 26th Feb 2010, Guest of Labour Friends of Bangladesh (LFB) Private fact-finding trip to Bangladesh- Economy return flights, hotel, transport etc approx £1,200 partly sponsored by Canary Wharf Group PLC

27th May – Guest (Box Ticket) for Cricket Match between Bangladesh and England approx £100.

A month in Bangladesh?? Shurely shome mishtake….

Free tickets for Eurostar for the opening of that well known Tower Hamlets terminus, St Pancras International….

A corporate box for the cricket…., but as a guest of whom?? I think we should be told!

But the most intriguing fact of all is his new job at Camden Council, which is led by fellow Labour Friends of Bangladesh supporter, Nasim Ali – who, according to his own declarations, also attended the same Lord’s test match in a corporate box. Funnily enough, Nasim and Ohid were also on the same “fact finding” trip to Bangladesh in February: see here.

If anyone knows what job Ohid does at Camden, where and when the job was advertised, and how he was selected, can you please drop me a line….?

Following my post last night about the role of Shiraj Haque, it’s time to raise a couple of points with Lutfur Rahman and his two closest lieutenants, Cllr Marc Francis and Cllr Ohid Ahmed.

(By way of background, Marc has spent his professional and political life working for and with the likes of Shelter to tackle the issues of housing and overcrowding. Ohid, a “regeneration specialist”, has spent his professional and political life working with big developers…)

In this article for the Tower Hamlets freesheet, East End Life, last October, both Lutfur and Marc are quoted as follows:

The green light has been given for 17 new council homes to be built in the borough.

Tower Hamlets Council has been awarded £1.7 million from the Government to build the affordable homes as part of the biggest council house building programme in almost two decades.

It was one of 49 local authorities that successfully bid for a portion of the £127 million fund – and the council will match the Government’s investment in order to fund the project.

Most of the homes will be three or more bedrooms to help meet the demand for larger properties, and will be completed by March 2011.

Lead councillor for housing and development Marc Francis welcomed the funding: ”Tackling the desperate shortage of affordable homes is right at the top of this council’s priorities.

”Overcrowding is undermining our children’s health, education and life chances. And the shortage of affordable homes has forced far too many of our young East Enders to leave the borough.”

He said local housing associations had done a great job building thousands of new homes in recent years. But council leader Cllr Lutfur Rahman and he believed that local councils should play their part too.

”That is why the council has developed an Overcrowding Reduction Strategy,” he said.

Here’s an extract from that strategy:

The strategy aims to tackle overcrowding by:

• Reduce overcrowding in existing housing stock, and put in place preventative measures to reduce future overcrowding.
• Increase the overall supply of housing for local people including a range of affordable, family housing.
• Prevent overcrowding and homelessness by providing access to the right housing options at the right time

Tower Hamlets has invested in pilots to determine how the Council with partners might best support not just overcrowded families but also under-occupiers in order to make best use of stock.

One of the reasons why overcrowding exists is because some large family-sized homes provided by the council and housing associations are occupied by people who could very easily afford to live elsewhere. I suspect the four-storey home in Pritchard’s Road, which millionaire Shiraj Haque rents from the Peabody Trust, is one such case.

I’ve no idea how long Shiraj has lived in the modern-looking property, but according to the Land Registry, the freehold for the land was transferred, presumably for development, by Tower Hamlets council to Peabody in 1998. Electoral roll records show that Shiraj has been registered there at least seven years, (ie from 2003), while one member of his family – I think it is his wife – has been registered there for nine years, ie from 2001.

Again, I don’t know whether their home is classified as social renting or whether they rent it from Peabody on the open market; if it is the former, however, it is worth looking at Peabody’s own requirements here:

How to apply for a home
To apply for social housing, you must initially apply and complete the application form at your local council. They will assess your housing need and may house you in their own property, refer you to Peabody or to another housing association.

You can only apply direct to Peabody if you are looking for supported living for older people.

Choice-based lettings
Some local authorities operate a choice-based lettings scheme. Instead of simply waiting until you reach the top of the list and taking the property that you are offered, choice-based lettings allows applicants to bid for those properties they are interested in.

If more than one person bids, then the property is given to the person with the greatest housing need.

We are committed to ensuring that social housing residents (those in general housing needs) have more choice and control over where they live and we run our own choice-based lettings scheme, selections.

If your council runs a choice-based lettings scheme, then you can choose to view our homes which are advertised locally.

You can also view the full range of homes available on the selections website and bid for any home for which you are matched.

So, I’m intending to send the following questions to Lutfur on this issue.

1. Do you welcome the support of Shiraj Haque?

2. Has he or any company in which he has a control provided any cash or non-cash support to your mayoral campaign? If so, please detail.

3. Were you aware that Shiraj Haque owns, through his company Renegade Investment Properties Ltd, £2.4million of property assets, and through Redstar Assets Ltd, in which he has a 50% share, a further £0.75million?

4. Given that issues of overcrowding, lengthy housing waiting lists and the lack of family-sized accommodation are central to your campaign, do you think it is morally right for wealthy individuals to live in large homes provided by housing associations?

5. Have you visited Shiraj Haque’s four-storey home in Pritchard’s Road, which is owned by the Peabody Trust and where, according to the electoral roll, he has lived for at least seven years?

6. Were you aware that it was owned by a housing association and have you asked him why he does not vacate it in favour of a family more in need?

7. Have you asked him, or will you ask him, when he or his family applied to Peabody Trust to live in the property, who made the application, what proof of need they provided and whether he made his fortune since moving in?

If anybody has any more questions you’d like me to pose, let me know.

The picture on the left is taken from a story we printed in the East London Advertiser in 2008. It is of Shiraj Haque, King of the Brick Lane curry kings. Anyone with more than a passing involvement in Tower Hamlets politics would have come across him. He boasts about his influence with politicians – and for good reason. As owner of the Clifton Group, he owns the Clifton curry houses in Brick Lane and on the Isle of Dogs, where he also runs a supermarket. He also owns property and investment companies (more on that later). At the age of 53, he is said to be a millionaire and the most powerful man in Brick Lane.

He also says he’s a Labour supporter, but he’s also in the past said to have offered funds to the Tories, Respect and even the Lib Dems. He’s a man for all seasons is our Shiraj. But he’s certainly no saint.

Over the three years or so I worked at the East London Advertiser, he was a regular in the paper, popping up to receive some restaurant award, or to deny accusations by the BBC that his restaurant was a filthy disgrace, or to deny allegations that he had assaulted a fellow Brick Lane businessman, or to deny suggestions that Bethnal Green’s huge Baishakhi Mela festival was being used as a front for a human trafficking racket, here and here. [He was never charged with any of those offences and it must be said that dirty trick allegations in the Brick Lane business community are commonplace.]

His involvement in the running of the annual Mela in Weavers Fields is worthy of particular note. As chair of the Baishakhi Mela Trust, he developed May’s three-day event into a huge success, regularly attracting crowds of 100,000. Curiously for a businessman so intent on making money, Haque insisted he made no profit from the festival and that he donated his enormous energies purely as an act of philanthropic goodwill. Whether that was the case, we’ll never really know: in 2007, Tower Hamlets council, which subsidised the celebrations, decided to sever relations with him. Why? Because following concerns over the Trust’s finances, the council sent in auditors from Deloitte, who could:

‘provide no assurance that the financial practices and controls adopted by the BMT are sufficiently adequate and effective to enable robust financial management of the trust’s funds’.

That is, both the council and independent auditors were aghast at the lack of financial control in the Trust. The council then invited other groups to run the event. To Shiraj, that was an act of war. Ever since, it has been his aim to regain control over his beloved Mela.

Was this one of the reasons why he backed Lutfur Rahman’s bid to become the first directly elected mayor of Tower Hamlets? Time will tell. What is certain is that he’s pulling out all the stops for Lutfur.

Here he is quoted on Andrew Gilligan’s Telegraph blog:

“The campaign for a directly elected mayor was my initiative. Whatever expenses were required, I had to pay for it. Tower Hamlets politics was corrupt. I needed someone to fix it, so I thought let’s try him [Lutfur].”

Mr Haque denied bankrolling Lutfur’s personal campaign – which has been notably better-resourced than that of any of the other candidates – even though Lutfur’s election leaflets are exactly identical in design and typeface to those produced by the campaign for a directly-elected mayor. “Many things look the same in the world,” said Mr Haque. “It’s the computer age.”

And here he is, even inviting members of the Tower Hamlets Tory party to a massive fundraising/campaign event at the Troxy on Tuesday.

You are cordially invited to attend the grand community endorsement &  ‘Lutfur for Mayor’ campaign launch and dinner on Tuesday 14th September  at the Troxy on Commercial Road at 6pm. Special guest speakers, fabulous  dinner followed by live entertainment – an event not to be missed! Be part of something amazing, be part of history in the making! Please register online to attend at www.lutfurrahman.com thank you, shiraj haque

Now, for someone so passionate about the future of Tower Hamlets, isn’t it good to see that he actually lives in the borough…? According to the electoral roll and documents at Companies House, he lives in the Bethnal Green/Haggerston area, right on the border with Hackney along Pritchard’s Road. And not only that, Land Registry records show that the canny millionaire rents his house from the Peabody Trust, one of Britain’s oldest pioneers in social housing. (I knocked on his door earlier today; there was no answer, but a neighbour said he lived there.)

And all the time he writes out rent cheques to Peabody each month, he is acting as landlord to his own tenants. His Renegade Investment Properties is a branch of Clifton Properties, whose marketing blurb can be seen in this link:

The popularity of the property market has not escaped the grasp of Clifton Properties.  Established before the millennium, Clifton Properties experts understand the ins and outs of a dreadfully complicated and daunting property market.

The latest accounts for Renegade, which is wholly owned by Shiraj Haque, show it has a property portfolio worth £2.4million, while his Redstar Assets Ltd controls £1.5million. (His Clifton Group of restaurants are more complicated. More on those later.)

How fortunate Labour and Lutfur are to have such support. Incidentally, I can’t trace any donations made by Shiraj to the Labour Party on the registers kept by the Electoral Commission. If anyone knows under which names those donations were made, do please let me know.

Apologies for the lack of posts. I fled the country for a few days following the Labour selection on Saturday night.

(It was a coincidence, Lutfur.)

Just catching up on a couple of developments.

Here’s comedy moment number 1. (Before you watch it, here’s what I wrote on September 1: “It’s now four days until Labour’s grand day when they will vote for their candidate, then unite behind him or her and say what a wonderfully “rigorous” contest it was”. The man introducing Lutfur is Labour regional party director Ken Clark, who, I understand was a prime mover in trying to prevent Lutfur’s candidacy).

More comedy gold later.

Well, well, well…there’s something at least to take from tonight’s result: it will keep the writers of Private Eye amused for the months and years to come.

As I type, I understand that right now in the corridors of the Labour party office in Bethnal Green, there is little celebrating, but much shouting and arguing. The man the party hierarchy tried so hard to block is now its candidate-elect for next month’s mayoral election. If the party confirms his victory and confirms it is willing to let the result stand, it is 95 per cent certain that in about six weeks’ time Lutfur Rahman will be one of the most powerful local politicians in Britain. The man who has been mired in so much controversy, the man who struggles to command an audience, the man who trembles under questioning (and, yes, the man who, to his credit, was also good enough to bow to grass roots pressure and save the Bancroft History Library and archives), will be in charge of a £1billion budget.

I’m told that Lutfur’s campaign was executed like a well-funded “military operation” and he seems to have benefited from what a Bengali councillor told me was a “real absence of the white vote”. This is how it works in Tower Hamlets. There will be close scrutiny over his campaign funds and who has financed him…and who might expect favours in return. His enemies tell me to watch this space for the award of communications/publishing contracts and who might run the lucrative Baishakhi Mela festival.

If Lutfur beats the Lib Dems’ John Griffiths, Tory Neil King and whoever Respect decide to pick, Marc Francis, who six weeks ago probably thought his political career was over, will likely be deputy mayor.

More later, probably.

UPDATE:

You can see how the votes unfolded on this link here.