BHANGEELAAR! first response to latest report by the "East London Advertiser" about Tory Cllrs leader Peter Golds -1

2355 Hrs GMT
London
Wednesday
29 September 2010

Editor © Muhammad Haque

The BHANGEELAAR! Campaign against an elected mayor in Tower Hamlets notes your report that the Tower Hamlets Council Conservative Party group leader is asserting that “[A]ll election expenses need to be declared so we know who’s paying for his campaign—that includes his High Court action against Labour which he lost.”

We question the Party’s Tower Hamlets councillors’ leader about this assertion on the following grounds: [1] So far we have not seen or heard any similar expression of concern by that group about the allegation that we have made to the Returning officer about the expenses incurred in the referendum itself. By ANY measure, the actual sums spent during the referendum campaign – by either the backers of the [then still proposed] change to the Council’s constitution and by the Opponents of the referendum Question – exceeded any sums that anyone else as a later candidate for the post could conceivably have done. We have evidence from across the Borough that thousands of copies of significantly expensively printed multi paged materials were pushed through peoples’ doors and otherwise distributed over a period of several weeks if not months. The majority of knowledgeable people have confirmed that in their observation those alone cost a great deal more than the permitted spending limit [cap] of under £12,000 for a side in the campaign on that referendum. That sum is being cited here as based on the confirmation to us on behalf of the Returning Officer Kevan Collins. A relevant fact here is that Peter Golds himself spoke at a meeting held in support of the “NO” campaign at which he heard several speakers make that same allegation of over the limit expenditure by certain parties on the referendum. So why has he not made anything of those? Has he followed up the concerns that he had heard? Or has he simply ignored those? If he has ignored them, why? Or does Mr Golds say nothing about that because he is now supporting a constitutional change, which he had previously claimed, would be the wrong way for the Borough to go? If he is in fact doing so, how can he justify that in light of even the allegations which he is still showing concern about? [2] Shouldn’t the Conservative Group on the Council be seen to be being consistent with their alleged concern about referendum expenses? We believe they and others should be. [3] Our campaign is about accountability, which includes the requirement that universal criteria of constitutionality, legality and transparency should be upheld. This is the most democratic way in this context that we can establish in the East End an alternative standard of democratic representation to the current status quo that is so dominated by unresolved allegations of abuses, rigging and blatant manipulation and brazen misrepresentation of the people in the Borough.

[To be continued]