Trial by Jeory

This is an email sent to party colleagues by Labour London Assembly and Tower Hamlets mayoral hopeful John Biggs. It was sent following Lutfur Rahman’s legal challenge to the selection process, which I broke here on Sunday evening.

The email and its angry and disappointed tone speaks for itself.

Dear Friend

Yesterday, following a complaint,the selection procedure for the Labour candidate for the first directly elected mayor of Tower Hamlets, was suspended by the National Executive of the Labour Party. The NEC will re-interview all the long-listed candidates this Saturday, the 17th July, and construct a new shortlist. I have been invited for re-interview, and informed that the all-member ballot will now take place on Saturday, 31st July. All members will receive a formal notice of this.

Over the past few weeks I have been deeply honoured by the number of people who have offered their help and support. It has been a humbling experience. I want you to know that I remain passionately committed to Tower Hamlets, my home for nearly 30 years, and remain keen to serve as its first directly elected Mayor and, if I win, to become the unifying force Tower Hamlets Labour Party and the wider community needs. Once the new shortlist has been published I will be able to make a decision about how to proceed.

We were just five days from polling day after several weeks of entirely comradely campaigning. I am very proud of all three candidates, myself included, at the way we have conducted ourselves and feel strongly that to re-start the process at such a late stage is puzzling and obviously very disappointing. I am disappointed that, as appears to be the case, a person or group of people with access to enough money to threaten the Party with legal action it cannot afford if they do not get their way, can hold the party to ransom. However, I am happy to stand for selection against any member who is shortlisted, and simply hope for the privilege to be able to do this.

I hope that the process may be resolved satisfactorily but in the meantime I wanted to let you know the situation. If you have any queries, please contact me at this email address or, for a quicker reply, atjohn.biggs@london.gov.uk or by calling or texting me on xxxxx.

Finally, for your information, the press statement issued by the Labour Party on Monday evening reads:

“Following a complaint regarding the procedure to select Labour’s candidate in this autumn’s elections for the first directly elected Mayor of Tower Hamlets, the Labour Party’s National Executive Committee has this evening agreed to re-run the shortlisting process.

“The complaint has been looked at carefully. While the Labour Party does not accept that it has any substance, to ensure transparency and fairness to all potential candidates, all long-listed candidates will be re-interviewed by a different panel to be appointed by the NEC.

“A new time-table will be announced in the coming days.”

Yours

Shamelessly and ever so scandalously, I’m going to use this site to highlight some of the pieces I do for the Sunday Express. Sorry. Here’s the first:

And here it is copied below:

BRITAIN’S new Olympic site was once a prisoner of war camp for captured Germans including members of the SS and Nazi U-Boat crews, the Sunday Express has discovered.

Confidential documents held at the National Archives reveal that hundreds of German PoWs were held at the east London site during and after the Second World War. They were detained in huts in Carpenters Road, Stratford, just a few hundred yards from where competitors will bed down in the Athletes’ Village in two years’ time.

It was known as Camp 30 and was operational until 1948, when most German prisoners were deemed safe to return home.

The file seen by the Sunday Express at the Public Record Office in Kew, southwest London, details a series of inspection reports carried out by Foreign Office officials from 1945-48. The inspectors had been ordered to assess the mood, morale and the “re-education” of the Nazi captives before deciding whether they could be repatriated back to their homeland.

The documents show that despite being held in the heart of the Blitz-ravaged East End, the prisoners were warmly welcomed by local civilians. Their orchestra was invited to play in nearby Leyton public gardens, they played football against local club sides and were welcomed at council meetings in nearby Chingford.

During December 1947, many were even drafted in to work at local post offices to help with the Christmas rush. The camp was one of more than 600 in Britain. Prior to D-Day in 1944, Sir Winston Churchill had been reluctant to accept PoWs on British soil and most of those captured were instead shipped to huge camps in America.

However, by 1946, a year after the war, the numbers detained in Britain swelled to more than 400,000. Most hardcore Nazis were held in the remoter parts of Britain, but many ended up at Camp 30, including members of Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Corps Panzer brigades, who had been transferred from the US camps.

At its peak, Camp 30, whose main barracks were close to the now under-construction Aquatics Centre, housed more than 1,500 PoWs. They were made to work on nearby farms and help clear the devastation the Luftwaffe had wreaked on London.

However, such forced labour angered the PoWs, documents show. In August 1947, an inspector noted: “In one quarter, the view was expressed that the latest emergency measures taken by the British Government to secure maximum output in England smack somewhat of totalitarianism.”

Six months later, another quoted a prisoner as saying: “Who could like the British after they have retained us as slave workers for three years after the end of a war?”

However, most were said to be relieved to be in the hands of the British and not held by Stalin’s Soviet Union. The prisoners were kept under constant surveillance.

One inspector reported back to the Foreign Office that a group had been overheard plotting “sabotage in Germany and to work up an underground movement in Germany against the occupying powers”. One prisoner caused particular concern—the camp doctor, Hansen Silvester.

“A most unsatisfactory personality,” the inspector wrote. “Born in Copenhagen, he is half Danish and only took up German nationality in 1936. Though ostensibly non-political, he is impregnated with Nazi racial doctrines and is a great believer in the superiority of the Nordic race. He believes in euthanasia and sterilisation. He is a bad influence in camp.”

As well as working, the prisoners had to demonstrate they had shed any Nazi beliefs, which often involved learning English and taking an interest in democracy. Each PoW was graded A, B or C for their political views while huts were classified as white, grey or black.

The barracks in nearby Victoria Park, which will be used as an Olympic training ground, were designated category C and black, which was usually reserved for the SS. While the English lessons were not considered a success because the classes were held close to a fish manure factory —“ the stench of the environs may have had much to do with poor attendance,” an inspector observed—the interest in democracy was greater.

As well as being given radios and German and English newspapers, including the Express, to help learn about the outside world, and they were also taken to meet councillors in Leyton and Chingford, and members of the Methodist Youth Club in East Ham.

In what appears to be the final inspection report, in March 1948, the inspector, a Mr Hamilton, concluded: “With a few exceptions these men will return to Germany balanced in outlook and in the fullest realisation that a Third World War between Britain and Germany in unthinkable. The most important factor in their re-education has been the excellent civilian contacts and this in spite of the fact that the majority of the men have been stationed in the heart of the East End of London.”

Nick Hewitt, a historian at the Imperial War Museum, said: “It is a reasonable supposition that prisoners retained for a long period after the war were considered high-risk.”

That nothing has appeared on this blog during the last week or so does not mean, of course, that nothing has been going in the unpredictable world of Tower Hamlets politics. Far from it.

Tonight, as Labour members turned up to a hustings in their wacky race to choose a candidate to run for directly elected mayor, instead of enjoying the honour of listening to three of the East End’s greatest orators (er, Sirajul Islam, John Biggs and Shiria Khatun) they were treated to a boring old leaflet. However, by Labour standards, this leaflet was actually rather interesting.

It said that the selection process, which was due to conclude with a one-member one-vote ballot this Sunday, had been suspended…due to a “legal challenge”.

Unsurprisingly, this challenge came from Cllr Lutfur Rahman, the former council leader whom Labour was so keen to keep off the slate. As I wrote here last month, the selection process did have the whiff of a stitch-up…largely over worries that the party had been infiltrated by supporters of one particular man.

I understand that Lutfur’s challenge means that all applicants are now likely to be re-interviewed by a new panel of the party’s great and the good–a process which will draw up another shortlist. This is serious stuff: the last panel included some extremely high ranking figures.

The selection process, largely believed to have been designed to suit London Assembly member Biggs, is now in chaos. As one senior party member told me tonight: “We always manage to screw these things up. just let the membership decide these things. Why not let every applicant be put to the ballot.”

Last night’s poorly attended Labour group meeting was a 1-1 draw for former Tower Hamlets council leader Lutfur Rahman, it seems. I hear that several councillors, including mayoral hopefuls Shiria Khatun and Siraj Islam, failed to turn up, so missing out on the chance to vote for how much they could be earning over the next few years.

Whereas Lutfur’s motion to limit the number of terms a directly elected Labour mayor can serve to two was rejected, elements of his proposals to cut councillors’ allowances in these austere times were nodded through. They will be put to the council’s cabinet on July 7 and then to a vote of the full council a week later. If councillors do vote to cut their pay (and subsequently the number of positions which attract take-home cash – see this story about patronage in neighbouring Newham for how the system is used elsewhere), then they will be applauded.

In other developments, the fall-out from the Great Labour Stitch-Up continues. Current council Helal Abbas is understandably upset, but there is not much he can do. His friends are urging him to declare for John Biggs and so put down a marker for the deputy mayor position, but he’s resisting that, preferring instead to keep his options open. Such prevarication could prove costly, but if the mood music coming from the John Biggs camp is anything to go by, he could be right. Sources close to John tell me that a feature of a Mayor Biggs regime would be meritocracy and not patronage: if you’re good and you can demonstrate you’ve been good and will be good, you’ll be rewarded with work. This would be a revolution in Tower Hamlets politics. Which means it’s unlikely to happen, of course.

Meanwhile, the grapevine is abuzz with a new potential spanner in the Labour works. Following the “anti-fascist” mark in the East End two weeks ago (reported in different styles by the Guardian here and the Evening Standard here), I hear that the organisers, London Citizens and United East End, are thinking of fielding their own candidate. (Some are wondering whether Lutfur might be tempted.) There’s a good chance this would be backed by Respect who would be able to dress up the campaign as a grass roots movement against the Labour machine.

In all likelihood, if Biggs is chosen for Labour, the United East End candidate would be someone from the British-Bangladeshi community and be supported by people keen on highlighting racial lines.

The irony would be beyond despair.

Well, you have to admire his mischievous sense of humour. And his appetite for revenge.

On Monday, just a few days after Labour bosses told him to forget becoming a directly elected mayor, former Tower Hamlets council leader Lutfur Rahman will ask his comrade councillors to vote on a motion that they’ll find difficult to reject.

He not only wants them to limit the number of terms the mayor can serve to two (ie eight years), but also to cut the salary she or he will receive. He and his ally, Cllr Marc Francis, also want to limit the number of advisers the new mayor will be able to appoint.

Here’s the context. As town hall leader a couple of years ago, Lutfur, a partner in a law firm, voluntarily slashed his own council pay by around 25 per cent, from about £40,000 a year to something like £31,000. To show that community leaders are sharing the burden of public spending cuts, he wants the salary of the new mayor, who will be elected in October, to be five per cent even lower at just less than £30,000.

Over at neighbouring Newham, Labour’s Sir Robin Wales, who has just begun his third term as directly elected mayor, pays himself £81,029–approaching three times Lutfur’s allowance. As you can read in tomorrow’s Sunday Express, Sir Robin has also fostered much loyalty among his councillors by creating well-paid jobs for them. Lutfur says that practice should not be adopted in Tower Hamlets.

His proposals are partly designed to irritate mayor frontrunner John Biggs, who earns £53,000 as a London Assembly member, but there is much logic them. However, whatever one thinks of the role of directly elected mayor, it is a full-time job with far more responsibilities than a council leader.

And you can’t help feeling they would carry more weight if Lutfur hadn’t wasted £500,000 of our money by forcing out former council chief executive Martin Smith with a £300k pay-off, and, in 2008, hiring the obviously dodgy Lutfur Ali, who was eventually sacked from his £125,000-a-year post because he was caught moonlighting elsewhere.

I suspect the turkeys among Lutfur’s colleagues will decline to vote for Christmas and insist instead on having pay determined by an “independent” panel.

For your own amusement, I’ve copied below the email and motion Lutfur has sent out.

Dear colleague

As you will have seen from the agenda for Monday’s Labour Group meeting, i am bringing a motion introducing term limits on any Labour directly-elected Mayor and reducing the Special Responsibility Allowance for that post and other Cabinet positions.

This motion is itself fairly self-explanatory, but i will explain my reasoning in a little more detail on Monday.  I would obviously welcome your support for this motion, so please don’t hesitate to let me know if you any queries before then.

Yours

Lutfur

Motion – Directly-Elected Mayor

Proposed:            Cllr Lutfur Rahman

Seconded:            Cllr Marc Francis

This Labour Group notes:

• The referendum result in support of a Directly-Elected Mayor and the election for this position will be held on 21^st October;
• That in other local authorities the introduction of an Executive Mayor in place of the Council Leader has resulted in an increase in the Special Responsibility Allowance (SRA) for that position;
• That, as well as an Executive Mayor, Newham has 16 Cabinet Members and Mayoral Advisers, each in receipt of an SRA;
• That some directly-elected Mayors are now beginning their third consecutive Term of Office;
• The new Conservative / Lib Dem Coalition Government is expected to require around £10 million in “in-year” cuts from the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, as well as significant additional savings thereafter.

This Labour Group believes:

• That it is important for the Labour Party and its elected representatives to take on the burden of any necessary savings before considering imposing cuts in frontline services;
• A Mayor, Deputy Mayor and eight Cabinet members is a sufficient Executive body for the London Borough of Tower Hamlets;
• George Washington and Thomas Jefferson had it right in establishing the convention of a two-term limit for the President of the United States, now enshrined in law by the 22^nd Amendment.

This Labour Group therefore resolves:

• To peg the SRA of the Directly-Elected Mayor for 2010/11 and 2011/12 at the current level of the SRA to the Council Leader less 5 per cent;
• To peg the SRA for the Deputy Mayor for 2010/11 and 2011/12 at the current level of the SRA to the Deputy Leader less 5 per cent;
• To peg the SRA for Cabinet Members for 2010/11 and 2011/12 at the current level of the SRA to Cabinet Members less 5 per cent;
• To require that the Mayor appoint no more than one Deputy Mayor and eight Cabinet Members to serve on the Executive;
• That no Labour Mayor should seek a 3^rd Term of Office.

Among the Labour people I’ve spoken to about their party’s shortlist for the Tower Hamlets mayoral selection, two sentiments stand out: amazement and stitch-up. That the shortlist of three, which I blogged on last night here, includes neither the current council leader Helal Abbas, nor his immediate predecessor Lutfur Rahman, is striking. It really is a statement of intent from Labour HQ: they want to clean and control.

They realise any controversy over an all-powerful directly elected Mayor in an Olympic host borough would attract national headlines. Having the crony-loving Sir Robin Wales (read more about him soon in the Sunday Express) as Mayor of Newham is one thing, but to have two controversial figures in neighbouring boroughs would be too much. It’s clear that London Labour (for which read national Labour) want London Assembly member John Biggs as mayor.

Sirajul Islam and Shiria Khatun are in the race, in most people’s eyes (although anything’s possible), to provide the semblance of a contest. In their own ways, both are engaging politicians. In the meetings I covered at Tower Hamlets council, Siraj always struck me as someone who had a heavy dose of common sense: he was both thoughtful and practical. But he was not necessarily keen to speak his mind in public. He was a supporter of Lutfur Rahman in 2008, but a year later (a year in which although he was Lutfur’s deputy, he was regularly sidelined), he changed his mind and switched to the Abbas camp. (Correction: as Rachael points out in a comment below, Siraj supported Denise Jones in 2008, but there is a question mark over who he supported in 2009.)

Abbas-supporting Shiria, on the other hand, rarely suffered, or suffers, such afflictions. She is charismatic and media savvy to the core. Sadly, her outspoken and secular outlook also attracts unwanted attention. In the run-up to the council elections in May, she went public on the odd case of stalking phone calls: I reported it in the Sunday Express here.

Whatever their credentials, neither can really boast of genuinely concrete achievements in office. John Biggs, who has spent much of his political career either in opposition or scrutinising politicians more senior to him, is going to have a similar problems. And this is why former council leader Professor Michael Keith is said to be so deeply hurt and insulted that he failed his interview, so much so that he is considering an appeal.

That’s not the case with either Lutfur or Abbas as I understand it. Abbas is said to have accepted the decision, possibly with the promise that he will become a £60,000 a year deputy mayor. Lutfur, meanwhile, has, I can confirm, been approached by Respect, but his close friends in Labour have warned him they will perform painful below-the-waist surgery if he defects.

Tower Hamlets Labour members will submit their votes in about three weeks’ time. The Lib Dems, Respect and the Tories will then follow suit. As far as the Tories are concerned, we are likely to see someone new introduced. Neither opposition leader Cllr Peter Golds nor his deputy, Cllr Tim Archer, will stand. And neither will Zak Khan, the party’s defeated parliamentary candidate for Bethnal Green and Bow.

Over the next three weeks, I’m inviting all the candidates to explain on this blog why they would like to be mayor. Shiria Khatun has promised the first contribution, which I hope to post here over the weekend.

There’s a golden rule in journalism that you don’t run with single source stories. But at the risk of having a load of nasty eggs stuck on my face I’m going to take a punt on this one.

I’ve just been told by one senior Labour figure that today’s interviews for the party’s mayoral selection process in Tower Hamlets has resulted in a shortlist of three.

I’ve heard that 14 people applied for the contest, including council leader Helal Abbas, his predecessors Lutfur Rahman and Michael Keith, John Biggs, David Edgar, Shiria Khatun, Sirajul Islam and Rosna Mortuza.

While there seemed to be some doubt whether the party’s panel of NEC and London region leaders would select Lutfur Rahman, who was accused of being linked to the Islamic Forum of Europe, it appeared certain that Abbas would make the final cut.

Well, my source tells me that the shortlist to go forward to a ‘one member one vote’ ballot of Tower Hamlets party members next month numbers just three…and it is….Cllr Shiria Khatun (the only woman), London Assembly member John Biggs and Cllr Sirajul Islam.

A month ago, I wrote here that the London regional party would try to find a way of keeping Lutfur off the ticket, and if my source is right, that’s proved correct.

Two things: John Biggs now has to be favourite to win Labour’s choice, and therefore be Mayor come October. And secondly, we now have two mightily cheesed off Labour councillors in Abbas and Lutfur. If Labour’s interviewing panel has failed to back its two most recent council leaders, not only is that a huge embarrassment to them personally, but also a real vote of no confidence in the current cabinet system of local government that they strived so hard to promote.

Who Respect, which forced the mayoral contest, now picks will be fascinating. Previously, George Galloway, who his close friends once told me was desperate to leave the Bengali politics of the East End for the more “sophisticated” Pakistani politics of Jack Straw’s Blackburn constituency, had hinted he would back Lutfur if he were Labour’s pick.  Now Lutfur seems to have been sidelined, one does wonder whether Respect will try to tickle his fancy with a place on its unpredictable ticket.

Just a reminder…there’s a £1bn borough at stake here….

For something that’s being heralded as a unifying event in Tower Hamlets, today’s “anti-fascist” march from Stepney to Altab Ali park near Brick Lane does seem to be creating a fair degree of division. Several senior political figures have now privately complained that the protest is actually little more than an exercise in fascist-style emotional blackmail: that if you don’t march, you’re not with us.

Part of the problem, they say, is that what seemed to be a wholly noble initiative is being sullied by a series of press releases from Respect that want to whip things up to boost their directly elected mayor campaign. Respect has always been good at this: they spot someone else’s initiative then shout loudly to try and try to mark it with their own brand. Of course, this is how politics works, but in this particular case their rhetoric has somewhat spoiled things.

The idea for the march came as a direct result of an Islamic conference at The Troxy that was eventually called off, directly because of grass roots pressure. It was called off for one main reason: because it was to feature two controversial Islamic clerics who are banned in other countries. When the English Defence League got wind of this, they threatened to turn up, en masse, in their usual charming way and thus attract a crowd from Unite Against Fascism.

Watching all this was Glyn Robbins, a former chair of Tower Hamlets Respect. Glyn has been in political retirement for a few years now, ever since, in fact, he fell out with George Galloway and his team over the direction the party was heading. That direction was headlong into a split.

Among other issues, Glyn was concerned about the influence of the Islamic Forum of Europe within the party he had helped build up. The split demoralised Glyn, who is a born and bred East Ender with deeply held socialist beliefs. The unpleasant briefings against him from Galloway’s circle didn’t exactly help.

But when he saw that the EDL wanted to target Tower Hamlets, the activist instincts spurred him once more. He spoke to various faith leaders and set up a new group called United East End, which he hopes will nip racist feeling in the bud.

However, he knows the problems in Tower Hamlets are neither one-way nor black and white. As well as attacking the EDL in his speech this afternoon, he will also rail against the homophobia and hate peddled by Islamofascists—the kind of bile espoused by those who would have attended The Troxy, in fact.

Contrast this with Respect. They say everything is the Labour run council’s fault. By putting pressure on the Troxy management to cancel the conference, Respect says Labour has emboldened the EDL.

They then go further: they say the real reason why the EDL is targeting Tower Hamlets is the Channel 4 Dispatches documentary that contained allegations about party bigwig Abjol Miah and the activities of the IFE. The IFE have been involved in drumming up support for tomorrow’s march and they’re the reason why many sane people, including Jim Fitzpatrick and Ansar Ahmed Ullah are declining to take part.

Now, I may be living in cloud cuckoo land, but it is Bow. And I just don’t hear anyone saying that the EDL would be welcome in any guise. Wouldn’t they be here by now if so?

Abjol, of course, wants to be mayor. You can’t help but wonder whether it suits the like of Respect, Abjol and the IFE to stir this up. Glyn, who recognised much of what was in the Dispatches documentary (but disagreed with more), I know, is aware of that danger.

Slightly off-topic from the world of east London politics, but this needs getting out there….

A PANEL of 13 “faith advisers” appointed by former Labour Communities Secretary John Denham is to be scrapped by the new coalition Government. His Tory successor Eric Pickles wants to move away from a “cronies-based” approach to faith issues and instead tackle problems by direct “face-to-face” contact with ordinary people themselves.

Within days of becoming minister, Mr Pickles ordered a review of the panel which was set up by Labour in January. I’ve been told by a senior Government source that the unpaid panel is “highly unlikely” to meet again.

The panel has met twice, the last time in March. Although a spokesman for the Department of Communities and Local Government (CLG) said its membership and remit was “under review”, sources close to Mr Pickles said: “It’s unlikely to meet again. We’re going to end this habit of Labour appointing its mates and then kicking issues into the long grass. We very much want to engage with faith groups, but we’re going to do it face to face and not through panels.”

Panel members included Canon Dr Alan Billings, a former director of the Centre for Ethics and Religion at Lancaster University, and Rosalind Preston, the president of the Jewish Volunteer Network.

The panel also included Cheshire dentist Wakkas Khan, who was president of the Federation of Student Islamic Societies from 2004-2006. The Department of Communities and Local Government press release at the time of the announcement gave a misleading impression of his background. Specifically, it stated that as well as being a founder member of the Government-backed Radical Middle Way, he was director of the Exploring Islam Foundation.

I learn from Carter Ruck libel lawyers (who contacted me when I was researching a possible story on this last week) that, contrary to widespread belief, this is NOT the same Exploring Islam Foundation that last week launched an advertising campaign on the side of London cabs. Here’s the Times report detailing that. Instead, Mr Khan’s lawyer at Carter Ruck tells me that “at university, and subsequently while he was from 2004-6 President of the Federation of Student Islamic Societies in the UK and Ireland, ‘Exploring Islam Foundation’ was one of the concepts Wakkas Khan initiated and sought to develop as a discussion forum”.

Carter Ruck tell me that he submitted his CV to CLG in September 2009 and listed the directorship under “past positions…2006…”. He has never had any connection with the current campaign group.

It was therefore the Government and Mr Denham who misled the public into believing that Mr Khan was a current director of something called the Exploring Islam Foundation. It’s not the first error CLG has made in this area.

On Saturday, I wrote this post suggesting that Tower Hamlets council leaders deliver an ultimatum to the owners of The Troxy in Commercial Road. I said that if The Troxy allows its venue to be used on June 20 for a conference featuring controversial Muslim clerics (an event that is likely to attract violence involving the English Defence League), then the council should refuse to put any of its (ie our) money their way for future bookings.

Well, good for council deputy leader, Cllr Josh Peck, who reads this blog. Here he is quoted in today’s East London Advertiser:

“This Islamic conference is not supported by the council and we call on the Troxy to call it off in the interests of public safety and social cohesion. If necessary, we will review our working relationship with the Troxy.”

As mentioned in my last post on this, The Troxy has signed up to the council’s No Place For Hate campaign. Here’s Will Poole, the venue’s operations manager, quoted in the latest edition of the council paper East End Life:

“To strengthen the Troxy’s commitment to the campaign we have added additional clauses to our venue hire contracts, with specific reference to hate crime.”

I’m trying to contact Mr Poole now for their latest position.

UPDATE – EVENT SCRAPPED

Will Poole tells me the event has been scrapped. He said: “We have cancelled the booking because we had signed up to the No Place For Hate campaign and we felt that some of the speakers did not fit in with that. We have lost the booking so we lose some money, but this was the right thing to do.”

Persuasion does indeed work.