Muhammad Haque tells the London Daily Telegraph web site that Ken Livingstone had made an untruthful assertion about the community campaign against a directly elected executive mayor in Tower Hamlets and our demonstration on 6 February 2010
This is the first published rebuttal of the untruth that Ken Livingstone had uttered at the Brady Centre. That utterance was broadcast on Channel S satellite TV station.
In that assertion, Livingstone said that the campaign against a directly elected mayor in Tower Hamlets was being led by Michael Keith.
Muhammad Haque tells the DAILY TELEGRAPH web site this morning:
“On 6 February 2010, I was in the demonstration in the Hanbury Street, off Brick Lane London E1, against a bid to undermine the local Council’s constitution by a ploy heavily personally identified with Ken Livingstone [in the glossy propaganda confetti] who wants to have a mayor take over the powers of the Council thus paving the way for an anti-democratic take-over.
In his speech addressing the gathering collected for that purpose inside the Brady Centre [Hanbury Street], Mr Livingstone, who has never claimed to have been an East Ender, made a very untruthful claim and said that the demonstration [that I was part of and was actually fronting with a clearly visible loudhailer which I used to calm people down as part of my ordinary work for the defence of my community] had been being led by a former Tower Hamlets Councillor who neither spoke nor, to my knowledge of the event, was asked to speak at the demonstration.
I am putting it here for the records. I am opposing the bid [on the merits of the matter] to change of the constitution of Tower Hamlets Council to one where an executive mayor wields the powers. I do not believe that a directly elected executive mayor is a democratic way forward for the community in Tower Hamlets. So what is Mr Livingstone's evidence for claiming so emphatically and in effect that I and hundreds of other ordinary people in Tower Hamlets are being “led” by someone that we have neither talked to nor have any intention of talking to about anything? If that is not an irresponsible smear by Mr Livingstone, I can’t think what is.
Mr Livingstone ought to think carefully before he insults an entire community. This analysis can be extrapolated to apply to most of Mr Livingstone's stunts and claims that appear to be getting increasingly desperate. He scarcely shows real respect to the ordinary people in the communities where he stages these stunts.”
Here is the full text of Muhammad Haque’s comment posted on the DAILY TELEGRAPH website today Friday 16 April 2010
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