BHANGEELAAR! Campaign against an elected mayor in Tower Hamlets organiser Muhammad Haque told the 'Docklands24' on 9 September 2010
"John Biggs should also state whether he was for the change to the Tower Hamlets Constitution or not.
I remember at least three of the so-called candidates to be the Labour Party's candidate for the so-called position of elected mayor as opposing the change.
They are all behaving as if they had not opposed the change.
I also recall that those who did say they opposed a directly elected mayor system said that it was undemocratic, that it gave too much power to one person, that a serious risk existed of lowering whatever standards of accountability and transparency existed under the current system of the local Council. How is it that all those serious reservations have vanished without anyone showing the basic concerns that they all had been VERY loud about during the months of January through to the end of April 2010?
The “No to a directly elected mayor campaign” is currently challenging the role of the Returning Officer over the conduct of the campaign in the called Referendum.
The story of the so-called overwhelming result is far from definitely legally concluded.
And Mr Biggs and others now overdoing their Partisan bid 'for an elected mayor' system should not utter as if it is.
The quality of life – including the standard of accountability, the use and abuse of Council money and other resources, which are significant as compared to ordinary people and families in the East End - for people in the borough, is being threatened by the irresponsible careerism that we have witnessed over the promotion.
One of the highly promoted holders of an elected mayor post, Lewisham’s Steve Bullock, has been hitting the local news headlines across the river for his contemptuous attitude to local campaigners and ordinary people opposing cuts to vital services.
Is that what Ken Livingstone and his ‘mates’ meant on 6 February 2010 at the Brady Centre in Hanbury Street off Brick Lane London E1 where they had favourably cited Lewisham as one of the ‘models’ that Tower Hamlets people should follow by electing a mayor?
And the questions do not end with Lewisham’s Bullock. In next-door Newham, the elected mayor was exposed as having failed to ensure that the chief executive did a proper job for the people of Newham.
The postholder turned out to be a part-time visitor to Newham but was also exposed as being on a salary that was the highest sum being claimed by any of his counterparts anywhere else in the country! Given that there has been evidence of serious abuse of Tower Hamlets Council by or through those inside it, shouldn’t ordinary people in the Borough have been given a better service by the Council personnel and bureaucracy put in charge of ‘overseeing’ the allegedly decisive ‘referendum’?
The evidence points to a future that will be worse for ordinary people in Tower Hamlets than under the current system."
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