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London
Thursday
30 September 2010
Editor © Muhammad Haque
[To be continued]
The Guardian blog ['DAVE HILL's LONDON BLOG'] below that contains the BHANGEELAAR! Rebuttal to Tower Hamlets Council Tories over their claims surrounding the 'mayor' thing that has been preoccupying some sections of the 'mainstream' 'media' in the UK.
"
I met Neil King and Peter Golds on Monday evening at a small, tasteful wine bar in Wapping. King is the Conservative candidate to be Tower Hamlets's Mayor, Golds is the leader of the party's Opposition group on the Council. Corduroy trousers were in evidence, but let's not overstate their significance. The two Tories had other priorities.
"We've got a real coalition of people here prepared to vote Conservative, most of whom - I'll be candid about this - wouldn't have done a few years ago," said King. He claimed that "many, many members of the Bengali community," are recognising that their values - "pro-business, pro right-to-buy and pro-family" - are aligned with Tory ones, especially when they've been served by a Tory Councillor. The party currently has eight.
"Then there's the white community," continued King, which he characterised as comprising "what one might describe as the old, white working-class, what remains of the dockers' families," plus incomers attracted by the private rental sector and its convenience for work. He stresses that having no history of running Tower Hamlets helps: "We haven't made the mistakes the Liberals made [between 1986-94], and we're not the Labour Party. A lot of people are deeply unhappy with the way Labour runs this borough."
I wondered if King thought any such unhappiness among white voters was partly caused by a perception that Labour in Tower Hamlets is dominated by, and essentially for, the Bengali community. I asked this because some Labour people have expressed such a view to me, not only with regard to white voters but also to residents from ethnic minorities other than Bengali ones.
King's opinion was that some unhappiness with Labour, "is about the fact that the Labour Party have been very happy to try and crudely pay off the Bengali community to keep them within the tent." He thinks it would be "unfair" to say that this has created resentment of the Bengali community. However: "I think some people have real concerns over how housing operates, they have real concerns about how, particularly under Lutfur Rahman's leadership, pensioners clubs that were predominantly attended by whites were being cut, and yet funding for groups like the Jagonari Women's Centre, which is for women from the Bengali community, was being increased.
"It was that sort of thing. It may have been being done with the best of intentions, but some people weren't happy about the way it was being done. I think with a lot of our white vote it's not that they feel the Labour Party's for Bengalis, it's just that they don't feel the Labour Party's for them. That's the subtle difference. They don't feel that they've been stuck up for."
We moved on to housing. Tower Hamlets is notorious for overcrowding and like many parts of London is suffering a shortage of housing supply. King recognised the social damage caused by the housing crisis - "it's a real cancer" - but he added, "I'm equally clear that we can't build our way out of it. We don't have the room for 23,000 new units within Tower Hamlets." Nonetheless he said, "We need to be building more, and at the moment I don't think it's helpful necessarily to have a squabble over what percentile of newbuilds are for social housing. At the moment, in the current market, where we've got many schemes that are on hold, I just want people building anything to try and free it up, because if we hold off until we reach a fifty percent social margin, that could mean five, ten years of some developments not being built. That's five or ten years of people remaining without anywhere to go."
But is the government's approach going to help increase supply? It seems the public funding tap will be turned off. "I think there are other ways we can deliver housing, particularly within Tower Hamlets," King said. "If developers are more happy to talk to us about shared ownership schemes than outright social housing, that's something I'm prepared to keep an open mind about. If developers are able to deliver more one and two bed flats than five and seven bed houses within the social rented market, that's a conversation I'm prepared to have. After all, the largest number of people on our housing waiting list are actually waiting for one and two-bed units."
What about the Coalition's plans to cap and cut housing benefit? Tower Hamlets is a largely poor borough, where many people appear sure to be affected. I pointed out that even Boris Johnson is concerned. "I'm not delighted by any of the austerity agenda," King replied, "but we're not a borough that pays housing benefit for a lot of people to live in very expensive properties." He and Golds agreed that the cap was unlikely to affect many in the borough because local rents are relatively low. Golds said, "I'm confident that men of goodwill will make sure that those in need will not be affected."
They then digressed to mention a resident who lives in subsidised housing that poorer people would be very pleased to move in to: the Labour peer Baroness Uddin of Bethnal Green, who was among those who spoke in support of Rahman at the party celebrating his short-lived adoption as Labour's candidate. Her place was just round the corner, they explained. Ouch.
In the end, King argued, the only way to solve the housing crisis in Tower Hamlets is to focus instead on education and employment: "Without that people aren't going to have the motivation to move themselves voluntarily." He is a keen supporter of academies, believing they foster excellence and that excellent schools encourage people to stay in the borough, improving social stability: "If I were to list one thing in my decade of living in the borough that I think the Labour Party did out of spite and political malice, it was when Goldman Sachs offered to build them a city academy that would have come with work placements and mentoring schemes, and they turned it down on ideological grounds. And that was at a time when the Conservative Party was sceptical about academies."
We turned to the fractious recent history of Labour administrations in the borough and Golds's opinion of their leaders. "It became very inward-looking, particularly under Lutfur Rahman and his close coterie of friends. Denise Jones [Rahman's predecessor], ran "a fairly reasonable ship, I had a lot of disagreements with her but at least officers were appointed on merit."
But if Rahman was so bad, how did he become leader in the first place? "He managed to unite enough people to get rid of Denise Jones," said King. "In the local Labour Party it's not necessarily who you like the most, it's who you hate the least. A lot of people hated [the previous Labour leader] Michael Keith, who was seen as being the puppet-master of Denise Jones. I'm not sure how fair that is, but there was certainly that perception."
I asked each to sum up Rahman in a few words.
"It's entirely about Lutfur Rahman. It's all about Lutfur," said King.
"He's an empty vessel," said Golds.
"He wasn't political when he moved to this country," continued King. "Helal Abbas [Rahman's replacement as Labour's mayoral candidate] recruited him and took him under his wing as a protege in Spitalfields and Banglatown." He describes their bitter rivalry now as, "Shakespearean, almost. As Lutfur Rahman described it to me, he [Abbas] was like an older brother, shepherding him and mentoring him."
"They were at one time very close," Golds went on. "I mean, Abbas is a very different person. He is deeply steeped in what I would call traditional Labour politics. He's Labour through and through. He's done the whole lot: I mean the trade unions, the community campaigning. He's been in the running to be a Labour MP. He's probably a good candidate in that context. You might disagree with him politically, but you can see where he's coming from. Dealing with Lutfur is like clutching a piece of mercury. He flies off in all different directions." King added: "But it's difficult to find a cigarette paper between them on policy."
Rahman is portrayed by other critics as far too beholden to a curious constellation of local business people, religious conservatives and the far left. Is that how they see him too? "Lutfur Rahman didn't pay for his repeated legal actions off his own back," said King. "Clearly he has fairly forceful people who back him - forceful in that they are both influential and wealthy and or are able to tap into wealth." Some will find it a bit rich to hear Tories speak of moneyed influence in that way. But what is their attitude to those with religious influence in Tower Hamlets, principally some of the mosques?
"I am happy to meet with community groups from whichever section of society," said King. "But I am not prepared to make promises to any particular group or guarantees that I will treat them any differently. I am willing to talk to them. I am willing to sit down with any of these groups, and I have. I don't know what other candidates say in their meetings with them, but I know I have never promised anybody anything."
He says he hasn't visited the East London Mosque, because he's "unhappy about going to places of worship to proselytize politically," and doesn't personally leaflet mosques. "I'm a man of faith, and my faith is between me and my God and perhaps my congregation. I would be very upset if a politician pigeon-holed me as being part of a community that he could deliver to the polling station. I don't know if that's the same with mosques. The mosques often have a much more social role than other faith communities do."
Golds said he's visited many mosques in the borough in his twelve years as a Councillor. He supports the wish of Muslim campaigners to have meat slaughtered in the way they require as long as the animal is stunned, the provision of single sex schools and for male circumcision to be available on the National Health. He says that there are poor Bangladeshis who end up going to backstreet barbers to get the job done, while "the well to do middle class ones ring up a rabbi in Stamford Hill. I'm not joking."
King and Golds are united in their alarm over the embrace by some Bengalis of radical Islam. King said it didn't exist when he first came to live in the borough ten years ago. Two things in particular symbolise for him what's changed. "The first is stickers and graffiti encouraging people not to vote because it's haram, and the second is more widespread use of the full veil and gloves in the female community. They don't wear it in Bangladesh. The last three years, the veil; within the last eighteen months, gloves."
"The issues began first with 9/11 then, of course, Iraq and Afghanistan," said Golds. "There is no doubt they caused concern and they radicalised people - I think we all share huge concerns about Iraq anyhow, and Mr Blair has a great deal to answer for over that. Those issues brought the Middle East into the arena of this local authority and there have been incidents, certainly involving me, and I suspect involving other people locally."
Golds, who is Jewish, was talking about anti-semitism. "There was a very unpleasant remark made to me by a Labour Councillor. I have no witnesses because he was talking to other [Labour] colleagues. But had I had one, the police would have been called and he would no longer be a Councillor. And there is no question that in the [May] local elections people were being told specifically at polling stations that Councillor Golds is Jewish."
By whom?
"Activists on behalf of one of the other political parties."
Which ones?
"The Labour Party."
Golds said that this occurred at "the most heavily Bengali polling station in my ward. There was a Commonwealth delegation of election observers, and they were in my ward at seven o'clock in the morning. By a quarter to eight, the gentleman from South Africa said to me, 'This is outrageous what is going on, it would not be allowed in my country.' I complained repeatedly to election officials and indeed on one occasion to the police. I complained at lunchtime, I complained in the evening and nothing was done. Subsequently I polled 900 votes fewer than my colleague Councillor Archer."
Might this have been explained by "Archer" beginning with an "A"? It is, after all, seen as an advantage to have your name at the top of the alphabetically-arranged list of candidates on any ballot paper. King thought such factors might account for as many as few hundred votes, but not 900. He then listed familiar worries about electoral fraud in the borough: "houses that couldn't possibly take the number of people that are on the electoral roll", implausible postal vote applications and straightforward bribery.
There were four complaints made to the police about alleged election fraud during the May campaigns, but none have led to charges. Golds thinks the police response inadequate. "They're frightened," he said. He then produced a photograph of a scene outside a polling station in Bromley-by-Bow. A Labour poster was affixed to the railings of the school where the station had been installed and three young men, two of them wearing Labour rosettes, were leaning nearby. The presence of the poster, said Golds, contravened the rules and the young men were "thugs" who would challenge you if you tried to move it. The picture also shows two cars parked outside the school on single yellow lines. Labour colours are visible on one of them. A crowd of maybe 20 people is gathered outside.
"It's a form of intimidation," said Golds.
"The healthiest thing that could happen in this borough would be for Labour to lose control of it," said King.
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King for Mayor
Neil King - Conservative candidate for Tower Hamlets Mayoral election
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Comments in chronological order (Total 3 comments)
Post a comment30 September 2010 5:01PM
I see the racist and islamophobic Tories in Tower Hamlets at it again trying to pretend they are there to serve the whole community yet keep blaming the Bengalis with "these foreigners keep taking our money" arguments. The tories in TH are a two-faced bunch of racists who play the race game all the time. They are trully one of the most vile lot whose stench of covert racism can be smelt a mile away.
The tories complained in this article that pensioners clubs (whites) lost out to Jaganori centre (bengalis)? What a bunch of liars. My local community organisation in Bow lobbied Lutfur to get pensioners club funding which they secured and had to fight tooth and nail to keep it under Abbas. In fact the beneficiries of this pensioners club will mainly be white working class pensioners.
I hope people see through the Tory's race and hate game they use to play off white, bengali and ethnic minority communities off each other! They are truly a vile bunch!
30 September 2010 7:44PM
Dave: May we, the Bhangeelaar! CAMPAIGN IN TOWER HAMLETS AGAINST A DIRECTLY ELECTED MAYOR, 'congratulate' you on your continuing success in getting hold of so many leading lights who have shining careers in the name of our otherwise deprived inner city East End of London community! We can only further 'congratulate' our once glorious Oona King who set an example in June 1998 with her congratulation addressed at the then leaders of the Tower Hamlets Council on the monumentally misleading and diversionary ground that the Council had reduced the housing waiting list by a tiny fraction. We only cite Oona King’s record in context so that those who have been busy singing her praise in the last four months can be appreciated for the worryingly blatant role they are playing to legitimise the ideology that is driving the CONDEM Collusion. We rely on HANSARD for the record of what Oona King had said, as she appeared to make her de facto oratorical debut in the House of Commons. Tony Bliar duly followed the line that Oona King had been representing and he did concur with her in congratulating Tower Hamlets Council. Yet Oona King was very silent over one of the Housing options that the same Tower Hamlets Council was floating in the same decade. They had considered deporting people in housing need from Tower Hamlets to the North East of England. Where HAD Peter Golds and N King et al of their political ilk been in those years? Had they been concerned for the rights of the people in the ordinary locations in Tower Hamlets? And if they were, in what organ or traceable media were they recording their empathy for the people? We could not find any record of any such empathy or sympathy from the ones that you have accommodated today. Just as we cannot get them today to even acknowledge the many questions that we have for the Tories about why they posed – and there is no better word that carries the meaning of their behaviour - as being OPPOSED to the change of Tower Hamlets Council to one where an elected mayor is the executive head.
During today [Thursday 30 September 2010] our campaign media sent a detailed e-mail to Councillor Peter Golds and to his counterpart from the currently controlling group on Tower Hamlets Council Cllr Abbas Uddin ‘Helal’. The relevant part of our email said this:
“. Our basic question to both these councillors is this: if you had opposed the directly elected mayor system on PRINCIPLE and on the fragility of the claim by supporters of that system in March 2010, what principle has changed only because the Returning Officer [“Dr” Kevan Collins] has made a declaration that the referendum was validly held and that ONE SIDE of the REFERENDUM question campaigning got a decisive result as claimed by “Dr” Kevan Collins?”
To complete the record of today’s [Thursday 30 September 2010] communications in context, Cllr Golds has not replied and Cllr Abbas Uddin ‘Helal’ [‘Helal’ Abbas] has been represented [!] by what looks very much like a fabrication contrived by someone who would do the current ‘legal head’ Isabella Freeman VERY PERIUD indeed. We received a belated message, which said our email to Cllr Abbas Uddin ‘Helal’ [‘Helal’ Abbas] had not been delivered. In Tower Hamlets that means that the Council bureaucracy has been activated to block emails from the " No to an elected mayor" camping’s email address that asks the "Returning Officer" [who is also the current Town Clerk=Chief Executive, none other than the "Undercover Boss" of Channel 4 series recently, "Dr" Kevan Collins] about the role he played in mysteriously okaying the claimed referendum dated 6 May 2010 and who fails to answer questions about other relevant aspects of his conduct of the referendum for the alteration of Tower Hamlets from the current Councillors cabinet system to a dictatorial executive mayoral system.
Peter Golds attended a “NO to a directly elected mayor” in Tower Hamlets campaign meeting on 21 March 2010. He spoke at the meeting. He gave several reasons for his and his colleagues’ opposition to the undemocratic elected mayor system. Now he tells you he backs that very system which we know he had opposed on 21 March. Why should the ordinary people believe anything that he says?
30 September 2010 7:58PM
Dave: May we, the Bhangeelaar! CAMPAIGN IN TOWER HAMLETS AGAINST A DIRECTLY ELECTED MAYOR, 'congratulate' you on your continuing success in getting hold of so many leading lights who have shining careers in the name of our otherwise deprived inner city East End of London community! We can only further 'congratulate' our once glorious Oona King who set an example in June 1998 with her congratulation addressed at the then leaders of the Tower Hamlets Council on the monumentally misleading and diversionary ground that the Council had reduced the housing waiting list by a tiny fraction. We only cite Oona King’s record in context so that those who have been busy singing her praise in the last four months can be appreciated for the worryingly blatant role they are playing to legitimise the ideology that is driving the CONDEM Collusion. We rely on HANSARD for the record of what Oona King had said, as she appeared to make her de facto oratorical debut in the House of Commons. Tony Bliar duly followed the line that Oona King had been representing and he did concur with her in congratulating Tower Hamlets Council. Yet Oona King was very silent over one of the Housing options that the same Tower Hamlets Council was floating in the same decade. They had considered deporting people in housing need from Tower Hamlets to the North East of England. Where HAD Peter Golds and N King et al of their political ilk been in those years? Had they been concerned for the rights of the people in the ordinary locations in Tower Hamlets? And if they were, in what organ or traceable media were they recording their empathy for the people? We could not find any record of any such empathy or sympathy from the ones that you have accommodated today. Just as we cannot get them today to even acknowledge the many questions that we have for the Tories about why they posed – and there is no better word that carries the meaning of their behaviour - as being OPPOSED to the change of Tower Hamlets Council to one where an elected mayor is the executive head.
During today [Thursday 30 September 2010] our campaign media sent a detailed e-mail to Councillor Peter Golds and to his counterpart from the currently controlling group on Tower Hamlets Council Cllr Abbas Uddin ‘Helal’. The relevant part of our email said this:
“. Our basic question to both these councillors is this: if you had opposed the directly elected mayor system on PRINCIPLE and on the fragility of the claim by supporters of that system in March 2010, what principle has changed only because the Returning Officer [“Dr” Kevan Collins] has made a declaration that the referendum was validly held and that ONE SIDE of the REFERENDUM question campaigning got a decisive result as claimed by “Dr” Kevan Collins?”
To complete the record of today’s [Thursday 30 September 2010] communications in context, Cllr Golds has not replied and Cllr Abbas Uddin ‘Helal’ [‘Helal’ Abbas] has been represented [!] by what looks very much like a fabrication contrived by someone who would do the current ‘legal head’ Isabella Freeman VERY PROUD indeed. We received a belated message, which said our email to Cllr Abbas Uddin ‘Helal’ [‘Helal’ Abbas] had not been delivered. In Tower Hamlets that means that the Council bureaucracy has been activated to block emails from the " No to an elected mayor" campaign’s email address that asks the "Returning Officer" [who is also the current Town Clerk=Chief Executive, none other than the "Undercover Boss" of Channel 4 series recently, "Dr" Kevan Collins] about the role he played in mysteriously okaying the claimed referendum dated 6 May 2010 and who fails to answer questions about other relevant aspects of his conduct of the referendum for the alteration of Tower Hamlets from the current Councillors cabinet system to a dictatorial executive mayoral system.
Peter Golds attended a “NO to a directly elected mayor” in Tower Hamlets campaign meeting on 21 March 2010. He spoke at the meeting. He gave several reasons for his and his colleagues’ opposition to the undemocratic elected mayor system. Now he tells you he backs that very system which we know he had opposed on 21 March. Why should the ordinary people believe anything that he says?