BHANGEELAAR! Continuing the causes of the malaise that a ‘directly elected mayor’ will bring to the embattled people in Tower Hamlets.

2210 [2155] [2135] Hrs GMT

London

Sunday

12 September 2010

Editor © Muhammad Haque

BHANGEELAAR! Continuing the causes of the malaise that a ‘directly elected mayor’ will bring to the embattled people in Tower Hamlets.

The ‘process’ of putting Tower Hamlets community on a downward spiral of deprivation – and depravity, more about THAT soon here – has been given a most unwanted ‘boost’ or at least an appearance of one by the former MP for Bethnal Green and Bow who associated with elements that would not be consistent with his publicly committed aims of fighting all manner of wrongful goings on inside the bureaucracy of the Tower Hamlets Borough Council.

George Galloway had made two statements in our context here about the ‘standards’ [What?!] of Tower Hamlets Council.

In the first one, which was broadcast on television and radio as he spoke in 2005, categorically condemning the role of Christine Gilbert the Borough’s then chief executive who also acted as the Returning Officer [=the town clerk that has been, after a few stages, successfully! succeeded by none other than “Dr” Kevan Collins] and just under a year after that in his second statement Galloway told a relatively smaller gathering, in April 2006, of his firm belief that Tower Hamlets Council was the most corrupt Council that he had come across in all the years of his active life in politics.

Where WAS ‘Dr’ Kevan Collins in May 2005 and April 2006 when George Galloway was expressing unmistakable outrage at the evidence of corruption in Tower Hamlets Council as he [George Galloway] had found?

According to “Dr” Kevan Collins’ boastful slot on the Channel 4 TV’s advertorial programme and its associated confections, he had been in Tower Hamlets already FOR YEARS and was comfortably installed in strategic positions adding [we can logically evidentially assume on the facts of his boasts!] serious plus points to his now gloriously publicized CV.

Campaigning for standards against an entrenched clique of self-servers bent on petty aggrandizement while doing down the people in whose name they claim their grand emoluments [!!!!] and those who had been so openly condemned by the then MP for Bethnal Green and Bow AND adding plus points to a gloriously publishable CV cannot go hand in hand.

Perhaps that is why “Dr” Kevan Collins overlooked [! NOT] the den of defrauders operating via and in the name of the local Council at the expense of the ordinary people in the area known as the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.

Had “Dr” Collins been a rigorous student of ethics, morality and had he perhaps acquired a semblance of respect for democracy in the universal sense of that term, he would have made a stand in 2005 and said where he stood on corruption in Tower Hamlets Council.

When the alleged result of the referendum dated 06 May 2010 was ‘officially published’, ALL ‘publicly commenting’ quarters EXCEPT the BHANGEELAAR! Campaign claimed that the ‘result’ was conclusive, definitive and similar words to complete the positive gloss.

We asked the Returning Officer to SHOW that he had done his job of auditing the conduct of the TWO ‘sides’ of the issue at the centre of the referendum.

Kevan Collins failed to answer a single one of our communications on the matter.

Why did he do that?

We asked his office this question too.

There has been no reply to this question.

So what kind of description would any party affected by and having a public interest, nay, constitutional law right in the conduct of the whole thing by actions, omissions and the commissions of the campaigners and by the Returning Officer and by all others involved in the processes and procedures and steps in between.

Only when and after that audit has been done can any logical, evidential, factual basis be said to obtain for anyone to make any claim about a commendable standard in the behaviour of Tower Hamlets Council

- Be it as the local Council or be it as the agency administratively entrusted to carry out one of the most sacred tasks to uphold democratic standards: the conduct of elections and referenda.

That entrusting is not done in a vacuum. It is done in the expressly stated and understood context of the organisational nature of the local Council. That nature is founded in the constitutional legitimacy that it is assumed to enjoy by the FACT of its composstion, its make up and its own subset-constitutuobn as a locally elected Council.

The failures we are here reporting and attributing to “Dr” Kevan Collins is very serious.

An elicited mayor in the name of the community

And these – and associated and resulting – failures within the Tower Hamlets Council form part of the evidence that compel the continuation by all lawful, legal and constitutional means of the demand that Tower Hamlets community MUST not be hoodwinked, misled and irresponsibly pushed down the alley of undemocracy and deeper corruption that will mire and engulf Tower Hamlets under a elected mayor.

“Dr” Kevan Collins must not stay in that sate of complacent fantasy about ‘standards’ that he must have entered in the excitements brought on by his “starring” in that Channel 4 vanity show.

[To be continued]

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Lewisham Budget Cuts Protest – Supine Labour Council

Categories: Film, Kodak HC-110, Kodak Tri-X, Nikkor 80-200/2.8 AFD, Nikon, Politics, Protest, SLR, Unions Tags: catford, demonstrations, Lewisham, megaphones, Protest, Sir Steve Bullock show hide 5 comments

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Different town hall, nearly three decades later, same old shit.

Back in the day (early 1980′s) I spent (quite a lot of) time protesting outside Lambeth Town Hall supporting a Labour council who fought Thatcher’s cuts tooth and nail.

Here we are, nearly thirty years later, outside another Town Hall, outraged that a Labour council is rolling over on its back to implement the Tory cuts as painlessly as possible for the coalition government. Fuckers. This isn’t why Lewisham council got the Labour vote in the recent elections.

Megaphone photos are obligatory…

I turned up with the vintage Nikon F4, which seemed appropriate somehow for such a back-to-the-future protest. And it wasn’t working as it should. The winding mechanism in the old warhorse is obviously feeling its age and slipping. Like me really.

Bemused of Lewisham

Not happy people

For such short notice there was a decent turnout with several unions represented. The NUT organised the rally, and I saw GMB, Unison, Unite, PCS and others represented (and NUJ if I include myself as a [non-]partial observer), plus the Green Party, SWP (quelle surprise) and Labour Party. Goldmiths too.

I knew the winder on the F4 was fucked when I looked at the counter and somehow had only shot 15 frames. I knew I had pressed the shutter release more times than that! However, the results could have been worse. Sometimes double/triple/quadruple/quintuple exposures are lucky accidents:

This my personal take on the protest. It is hard to be objective in your own back yard.

Update from the mayor's office

The mayor shares his thoughts about the protest

Sir Steve Bullock, the elected mayor calls the protesters “Fucking idiots”: Foul-mouthed mayor tells protestors to ‘get real’ (From the News Shopper)

I think Sir Steve needs some time on the naughty step for a spot of quiet reflection…

Perhaps any of you fucking idiots out there would like to email him at steve.bullock@lewisham.gov.uk or write to him at the Town Hall – Mayor’s Office, Lewisham Town Hall, Catford, London, SE6 4RU