London’s East End has a turbulent political history and Lutfur Rahman’s mayoralty forms the latest chapter of it. Born in Bangladesh but raised from an early age in the borough he has led since 2010 as its executive mayor, he is the most probed and denigrated local authority leader in the land.
The decision last month by communities secretary Eric Pickles to send inspectors in to the Town Hall to look at the council’s books, following a BBC Panorama programme about Rahman, is but the latest example. These auditor deliberations form the more forensic part of the backdrop to an election campaign which also features a venomous array of claims and counter claims about corruption, cronyism and covert “Islamisation” with, it often appears, everyone accusing everyone else of racial bias. It’s not a pretty sight.
Ladbrokes make Labour’s candidate John Biggs the slight favourite, but the local party has bitter experience of Rahman taking on and beating it. A former Labour leader of the council, he forced his way on to their mayoral candidate shortlist for 2010 after taking legal action and won the selection vote with ease, only to be dumped by Labour’s national executive committee. He fought the inaugural, stand-alone mayoral contest as an independent and romped to victory.
I met Rahman in his plush office at Tower Hamlets Town Hall, which is located in the wealthy Docklands part of this borough of economic extremes. We spoke for 50 minutes about housing and regeneration, education, and claims that he’s constructed a culture of self-serving patronage. As ever, he was gleamingly turned out. As usual, he was strident in his dismissal of his critics. Now read on…
Dave Hill: At the top of your manifesto list is housing and regeneration. You say you’re hoping to build 5,500 new affordable homes over four years. How much of it will be social rented of one kind or another and how much will be the intermediate kind of affordable?
Lutfur Rahman: First of all, can I say we need to deliver affordable houses because of the overcrowding in the borough and the number of people who are on the waiting list. Before my last term my commitment was for 4,000 and we have met that commitment. Ken Livingstone set out in his London Plan, and which to some extent I think Mr [Boris] Johnson has continued this, there was a 70/30 divide, so 70% will be to rent and 30% will be intermediate, shared ownership.
What about council housing specifically?
On three of our sites we will deliver 100% council housing. So, on the Poplar Baths site we’re delivering some 60 council houses there, then 40 on the Dame Collet House site, and then on Watts Grove, another site – I’m sure [my Labour challenger] Mr Biggs has thrown that in somewhere[see footnote] – again, we will get 150 council homes.
The Whitechapel Vision is, of course, a big regeneration scheme in the borough. Projects like that always upset some people and the difficulty with them is that they can end up making life more difficult for the sorts of people who most need an improved neighbourhood. Everything becomes more expensive. As a politician of the left, how are you going to avoid those unwanted consequences?
Obviously we have Canary Wharf to learn from. Although I’m a firm supporter of that financial district I believe it could have been delivered in a way that worked in partnership with the indigenous community there, the white working class community, and not forced them out – a way where they could co-exist. There’s a lesson from that that we’re taking forward. So I’ve got officers on board and I’m glad that Ken Livingstone has agreed to come on board as an adviser, with all his experience with the Olympic site.
It’s about working with the existing shop owners and stallholders of the market in Whitechapel as part of what we do, then working with the big landowners: Transport for London has land behind the Crossrail station, we have some land and there are other stakeholders such as the Royal Mail site, the London Hospital site, and a site has already been bought by London and Quadrant Housing Association. So I’m very mindful of the existing community, very mindful of those who live and trade and have offices there. But with that in mind, life needs to go on.
When we did the masterplan I said all along that the existing communities must be protected, must be looked after and supported. We had a rigorous, three-month consultation process led by officers, and the cabinet member for regeneration Rubina Khan was part and parcel of that, and we met the stakeholders and people were quite excited, but of course there was some anxiety and opposition but we made sure we heeded those apprehensions and accommodated them.
I remember asking Newham’s mayor Sir Robin Wales about Queens Market on his patch, which he had plans to revamp, and complaints that it would become too posh and unaffordable to the local people who used it. Can you reassure people who use Whitechapel market, which offers very good value, that it will stay that way?
I believe the change will be a positive change. Of course, we want gentrification, but gentrification that supports and assists the existing local community. We want to bring in jobs, housing, office space and shopping, but local shops, not big chains. We’re not here to compete with Westfield [in Stratford]. We’re here to complement Westfield, and the shopping centre in Canary Wharf. We’re five minutes away from the City. We’re in the middle of the A11 corridor. We want to complement and add to what already exists.
And can I also say this? We are in the process of relocating the Town Hall to the middle of Whitechapel, the old Royal London Hospital site, as part of a new civic hub. That’s for two reasons: one, to keep that building in public ownership, so it doesn’t become a five-star hotel, and make our Town Hall more accessible; two, we want to save the £40m a year we spend on rent on this place [the current Town Hall] and take the workforce into the heart of Whitechapel so that their buying power is used for local products. We will be the catalyst. I support inward investment, I support mobility and capitalism. But it must be managed capitalism, a managed market economy that benefits the local people.
Brick Lane, with its extraordinary history, is also part of all this. When I interviewed your main opponent John Biggs he said Brick Lane’s night time economy needed to be managed more rigorously and that if the area’s distinctive character is to be maintained the curry trade there needs to be helped and improved. He says you haven’t made a good enough job of that. What’s your vision for Brick Lane’s future?
I don’t want to have a slanging match with John Biggs, but I’ve been here for three and a half years and in that time I’ve done twice as much for the markets, and the shopping districts and for Brick Lane as Labour did in the previous 15 years. I have not seen Mr Biggs show any interest in Brick Lane since he became a London Assembly member. So with great respect to him, I don’t think he’s in any position to lecture me or my administration.
Of course, Columbia Road market, Petticoat Lane market, Bethnal Green market, and Brick Lane/Banglatown, are the heart and soul of Tower Hamlets. Brick Lane and Banglatown are very precious to me. It was home to the Jewish community, home to the Huguenot community, and now it’s home to the Bangladeshi community. It’s our identity, our fathers came here. I live in that ward and I have represented that ward. When my father came to this country in the Fifties, have a guess where he stayed? On Old Montague Street, where I stay now. So it’s the heart and soul of the Bangladeshi community, but it’s also part and parcel of Tower Hamlets.
Can I just say that the money we’ve spent and in partnership with the police – and they’ll tell you this – a lot of the resources goes on the west of the borough [where Brick Lane and Whitechapel are] and with its name going up in the entertainment world, of course there will be some unwanted elements. So I will do whatever is necessary to protect and work with the traders there, and I have done.
You talk in your manifesto about a registration scheme for private sector landlords. Are you modelling that on schemes that already exist, such as in Newham and Lewisham?
As you know, because of government benefit caps many landlords are not willing to house tenants who are on benefits or are increasing the rent excessively and many of those properties are in a poor condition. A large number of our homeless households are in private dwellings, so we want to ensure that we know who the landlords are, the number of properties they have in the borough and the condition of them so that we can do a proper survey.
So will you be giving the equivalent of a kite mark to those properties reaching the standard you expect?
Absolutely. And there will be some sanction: some civil sanction, some penalties, if they don’t comply with a minimum standard or agree to come on board with us.
Such as?
That’s the model we’re working on, and it’s being refined as we go along. As you said, it’s working I think reasonably well in Newham and one or two other authorities and we will learn from them. We’ve got some fantastic landlords in the borough, and we’re going to work with them. The ones that aren’t so good, we’ll support them with bringing them up to a good standard.
There’s a need for more school places here and in many parts of London. You’re opposed to academies. What’s your attitude to free schools?
It’s the same view. I’m a product of state schools. My kids go to state schools. And for me the state schools have worked very well in Tower Hamlets.
Well, free schools are a type of state school. They are funded by the government.
I’ll come on to that, but for us it is about schools that are fit for their purpose, that have proper playgrounds where kids can feel free at that age to be innovative and creative. We have a £380m school refurbishment programme. Some of our schools are fantastic, in beautiful buildings and the Institute of Education said only a few months ago that some of our schools are among the best urban schools in the world.
But free schools are already on their way. There are different ways for local authorities to deal with them. What’s your approach?
Well, there are groups here and there who want to set up free schools. We will not support them, as such, in their endeavour. But once it has happened we will work with those institutions to make sure that our children get the best education.
There are people and politicians who dislike the free school policy as a whole, but can see ways in which it might provide schools that meet a particular need that other schools, even if they are good schools, cannot.
Maybe in other boroughs that need may be there, but I don’t believe that in Tower Hamlets there is that kind of need. And always in our policy process we are looking for opportunities to expand our schools and create new ones.
Let’s look at some of the criticisms made of you by opponents and in the media. There have been allegations and, let’s say, mutterings about the youth service. You’ve brought that under direct Town Hall control and invested a lot of money in it. It’s been said to me that some youth service staff find themselves put under pressure to deliver votes for you. Any truth in that?
Absolutely not. Absolutely not. I have the highest respect for our staff, whether it’s the most senior staff on the council or the most junior. There’s a dividing line between politics and governance and delivery and I respect that very much as mayor.
Let me tell you why I brought the youth service in house. We spend £10m a year on youth services, and that all started when I was leader of the council [under the previous local government arrangements in Tower Hamlets] and I have continued that as mayor. We’ve had to find some £125m of cuts. There were two or three areas where I said, “no cuts” and the youth service was one of them.
Now, what I saw – and I grew up in this borough – when I spoke to people, was that the youth service was being delivered in a disjointed way. A lot of money was going into middle management, sub-contracted and so on. So I said let’s bring it in house so that we can deliver the service directly with the various stakeholders in the community, and in that way we can know who’s accountable, say I know who is delivering what.
Under no circumstances do I have any unprofessional relationship with any youth workers in this borough. That’s a lie, it’s an untruth that was peddled against me when I was leader of the council and it is being peddled against me now that I’m the mayor.
But people aren’t saying, “Lutfur says to x go and say this or that to y”. They are saying that there is a kind of culture in which the sort of behaviour I’ve described can and does go on – which is a slightly different charge, isn’t it? Are you absolutely satisfied that nothing like that is going on?
Listen, I’ve always had allegations [like that] made against me since I was leader of the council in 2008. None of it has been substantiated, none of it will be substantiated. This is dog whistle politics at play in Tower Hamlets. In any event I have no dealings with junior officers on the ground. One, I’m not allowed to. And, two, I have no time for that. All I want to see is a top class youth service being delivered across the borough, and that’s why it was brought in house.
So my predictable final question on this is, if serious evidence of that sort of thing – people working in the youth service saying to those they work with, in effect, we expect you to help Lutfur – was brought to you, what would you do?
Residents of this borough have a right to choose who they vote for in any election. And unless they are politically restricted they have a right to go and campaign for whichever candidate or party they wish to. But if someone who’s not politically restricted is campaigning for x, y or z, how can I stop that?
But the nub of the allegations is that it’s within their work with young people – that they are allowing their political campaigning to influence the way they are delivering a council service.
Well, I believe that during their work time they should not indulge in political activity. That’s wrong, whoever it is.
And you would take steps against it?
Absolutely, whether it was someone supporting me or someone supporting someone else. But if someone does something on their own time, whether it’s supporting me or my opponent, I can’t stop that.
The allegation, though, is that the boundary is getting blurred.
I don’t think they are getting blurred. The lines and the boundaries are very clear. They have always been clear and we have a strong management in this council. I have confidence in senior officers to make sure that junior officers or any officer doesn’t indulge in partisan activity during work time.
Let’s deal with the other part of the youth service allegations, and this connects up with the claims of favouritism over grant allocation made in the Panorama programme. The claim is that too much youth service provision is directed at young Bengali men in particular and that too much of that provision is…well, the term “Islamisation” is used, and the complaint is that this goes against what should be a secular ethos in the service. How do you respond to that?
That is quite new to me, but again it’s another accusation that I’m not surprised about. It just annoys me that it’s being thrown at the good staff of this council. Let me tell you something: our youth workers are some of the best in the country. Our rapid response team is fantastic.
Why didn’t we have a riot in Tower Hamlets [in 2011]? Why didn’t we have that mindless activity by the youths? It’s because of the partnership that we have with the various communities. And very importantly because of the relationship our youth service and youth workers have with the young people of this borough. During that day, our youth workers were out from three in the morning walking the streets, and so was I, making sure that the youths were not engaged in any such activities.
During the English Defence League marches our youth workers were on the front line, protecting and working with the police so there was a clear buffer between the EDL supporters and our residents so there weren’t any riots. So they should be praised.
I asked John Biggs about the grants allocation. I asked him what principles should guide this and I want to put his answer to you, because it was interesting and quite measured. He said: “In a multi-faith, multi-ethnic community everyone who gets a grant must buy into the principle of community cohesion, which doesn’t mean they have to be totally secular – I don’t agree with Robin [Wales’s] approach on this – but people do need to understand the importance of being outward-looking in a borough like Tower Hamlets and not creating inward-looking bunkers, whether they are ninth generation cockneys or fourth generation Bengalis.” He feels that you aren’t following such principles and are, in fact, favouring one community over another.
I agree with the principle of One Tower Hamlets and the principle of community cohesion. I agree with the principle that public money must be used based on need and based on a process, but I don’t accept his insinuation that I’m favouring the Bengali community. Let me say this to you: we deliver £300m of contracts and 99.9% are delivered to non-BME organisations. They are big organisations. No-one questions them. No one says, let’s look at those and how why serve the BME community.
What’s being talked about with the mainstream grants is 0.5% of the total budget of this council. That’s £8m. Mainstream grants were delivered under other leaders of the council, but no questions were raised then. Can I also say, 37% of population, including the Bengali and the Somali population, are non-white. Only 8% of our grant, as you’ve heard, goes to that community. And even then there is an officer process involving eight or nine meetings and at the end of it I said yes or I said no. The mayor has that power. In only a tiny minority of cases…I know the area, I grew up here, I understand the need, and I said, look, we need to have a look at this. It’s a tiny fraction of the overall grant process.
I think it is accepted that we’re discussing a very small part of the amount of money you have to spend. But because control of it is within your very particular power as mayor, and because a place like this has a lot of people competing for very limited resources, even the perception of unfairness or favouritism is something you really do need to avoid. That’s a point John Biggs is making.
I take offence to that remark from him that he made on the BBC that I’m favouring the Bengali community. I say to him, and to my other opponents who make those kinds of untrue and unfounded allegations, that there’s a list of some 350 organisations. Don’t be scared. Show me an example of one that shouldn’t have got public money. Come on, Mr Biggs!
He also said he thinks you’ve taken “too much of a micro-managerial interest in the grant-making decisions” and haven’t properly justified the amendments you made.
If he’s got a specific allegation, why doesn’t me put it in writing, why doesn’t he be specific? This is nothing but dog whistle politics. Listen, there are historical inequalities and they need to be balanced. For me, race is not an issue here. For me, the issue is 265,000 people live in this borough. Whatever background they come from is not important to me. What’s important to me is deprivation, is disadvantage, is equality of opportunity and community cohesion. I want my borough to go forward. And if we see disadvantage and if we see deprivation and if we see there is a need in this part of a corner of the borough then we need to address that and get people on board with us.
It’s like with education. The white working-class boys and the Somali boys are not doing so well. We have intensive interventions in the council’s education service to help them to bring their education standard up. So wherever there is need, we will work with people to support them. So, of course I want to see a fair distribution of public money, and it is fair.
John Biggs makes a more general criticism. He says you have “created a culture in which people are looking over their shoulder, wondering what they need to do to please the emperor.” The emperor being you.
Oh, my God!
He has a nice sense of humour, let’s be fair.
I see myself as a public servant. I’m grateful to have had the opportunity I’ve had to serve the people who gave me so much as a youngster, gave me a break in life and have given my children a break in life. This isn’t my job, this is my passion. As long as I have an opportunity to serve the people of this borough, I will serve them. I am part and parcel of this community, and I’m not going away anywhere. Look at what we have achieved over the past three and a half years.
For him [John Biggs] to say there’s a culture of fear here is, again, dog whistle politics. If that was the case, we wouldn’t have received some of the top accolades in the country, such as on education, or with the LGBT community.
Why did voters choose you over other candidates in 2010?
Because I am a product of the education system here. I grew up in this borough. I have a huge stake in this borough. I want to see a borough that is competing with the City of London and Westminster, you know the best in the country and in Europe. And I’m connected to the people of this borough, whether you are young, old, black or white.
Do you think some of your success might be to do with the wider political context? If I were a young Muslim man growing up here and I wasn’t too interested in the minutiae of policy, I might still look at you and think, ‘this guy is sticking up for me. He’s a bit like me’. He might see the big car you’ve been using as a sign of success, not ostentation. Are you seen by fellow Muslims in this borough and in this time as someone who sticks up for them?
Well, I’m glad if I’m a role model. But where this comes from, this idea that only Muslims voted for me, that’s a dangerous race card that some people are playing. Look, I grew up in a part of Bow in the 1970s that was full of skinheads. But you know who protected me? White kids and black kids. White kids gave me the shelter and gave me the protection.
They said to the skinheads, don’t pick on him because he’s a good lad. If it wasn’t for those white kids who gave me the support, I wouldn’t be the Lutfur Rahman I am now. And I say to my detractors, people are not voting for me because I’m a Muslim or because I might be a successful lawyer, it’s because I’m clear in my policies and I’m going to do my damned best to deliver those policies. That’s why people vote for me.
Lutfur Rahman’s manifesto can be read here. My interview with his chief rival John Biggs is here.
Footnote: The original Watts Grove Depot housing scheme, which is in Bromley-by-Bow, had to be shelved by the mayor on grounds of affordability, resulting in Labour and Conservative councillors voting for an investigation into the deal. Mayor Rahman’s administration said last November that it was looking at “alternative ways to deliver the outcome of the Watts Grove Depot scheme”.
Trial by Jeory 