AADHIKAR bringing breaking news about directly elected mayor Steve Bullock's latest insensitivity, this time to the East End -

2355 Hrs GMT

London

Tuesday

14 September 2010

Editor © Muhammad Haque

AADHIKARonline 'Breaking news' about Lewisham's 'directly elected mayor' Steve Bullock! He made it to the Troxy in Commercial Road. Livingstone didn't…

Not only did Steve Bullock make it, he also performed yet another verbal act of outrage that had, until that moment this evening [Tuesday 14 September 2010], exposed him as an unacceptable face of a directly elected mayor with so much power over the local Council.

Steve Bullock appeared at the Troxy stage following superlative praise lavished on his fellow ‘panellists’ stated by two Tower Hamlets councillors taking part in the ‘launch’ of ‘Lutfur Rahman for mayor’ ‘campaign’ event.

To observers sent reeling by Steve Bullock’s post 6 May 2010 assault with undisguised insult upon “xxxxxxx idiots”, the two words he used describe campaigners in Lewisham against the CONDEM cuts, his straight-faced utterance of the need to complete a ‘Gang of Four’ ‘directly elected Labour mayors’ in London would bring no reassurance at all.

For a start, the Gang of Four that had undone the post 1979 Labour Party had conducted their many plots at a location in ‘Limehouse’ NOT so far from the Commercial Road.

And all of the Gang members remained unrepentant over the role that they had played in the unravelling of the Labour Party to the point of it being kept out of office for almost two decades.

The Gang of Four is still known, on the facts, as four traitors to the Labour Party. And in the long run to the values and the causes of the ordinary people whom the historic Labour Party and movement belonged to.

As if there were any doubts this evening in the Commercial Road London E1 venue about the divide still existing between the values of the Gang of Four – [originally consisting of] David Owen, Bill Rodgers, Shirley Williams and Roy Jenkins – a fellow ‘panel member’ who also spoke at the do, dispelled such doubts.

He was introduced as the secretary of the local Tower Hamlets Labour Party. His name: Stephen Beckett.

In what looked like a prepared speech, Stephen Beckett spoke passionately about the divide that was prevalent between parts of Tower Hamlets at the present time.

Beckett outlined a divide between the haves now occupying Canary Wharf and the have-nots in the other parts of Tower Hamlets.

A picture emerged in Becketts’ oration of the Rich associated with the New City that Heseltine brought about and the Poor that the Old City [of London] has been encroaching on for years.

Just to make sure that he was hitting the targets accurately, Beckett spoke of the current Government cuts and he sided with the people on benefits whom he

evidently identified with as being involuntarily in that state.

This double divide in policy and outlook and language that were typified in the two utterances of the two Steves may not be resolved soon.

Not when Graham Taylor, described in tones suggesting him to be a part of the Establishment of the local Tower Hamlets based Labour Party local bureaucracy, was said to be absent from the event owing to unavoidable reasons! Those reasons were not spelt out.

And not too surprisingly either.

It soon transpired that Jim Fitzpatrick, one of the two constituency MPs from the two seats made up of eligible voters in Tower Hamlets, was attempting to show his face on the big screen.

His face was a mass of flickers and his voice very hard to hear.

It was not long before the oversized image of the face of Jim Fitzpatrick was terminated without explanation.

There then followed a pause much longer than promised by one of the two councillors doing the conducting.

We shall come to publishing an up-to-date and apposite description of that councillor in later parts of this series of reports.

It was minutes before Jim Fitzpatrick appeared in digital images in motion, delivering the same standard of Seelotee intro that he had done in 2006 when campaigning in Shadwell for the election of Michael Keith to Tower Hamlets Council.

As must have been designed by the strategists behind Jim Fitzpatrick’s feigning to speak Seelotee, even the primary stage attempt brought forth an apparently spontaneous applause from the addressed audience.

Beyond that, not much substance. In fact most of what Jim Fitzpatrick then said in English could have been left off stage. It was mundane and did not justify the wait or the laboured attention.

As if that was not the end of the digital display, on came the moving images of Ken Livingstone, once again delivering a strange collection of words about Tower Hamlets and the local Council

He said that the directly elected mayor system would bring an end to the bickering and the problems that Tower Hamlets Council [he meant internally] had had!

Livingstone was followed by an longer digital display containing the images of Keith Vaz.

[To be continued]