BHANGEELAAR! 'NO' to an elected mayor in Tower Hamlets, first comments on Guardian piece about Lib Dems John Griffiths-1

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Friday
08 October 2010

Editor © Muhammad Haque

BHANGEELAAR! 'NO' to an elected mayor in Tower Hamlets, first comments on Guardian piece about Lib Dems John Griffiths-1


"
Your use of language is remarkable. Why have you described him as having been “a Councillor for Bethnal Green North ward until 2006”? It gives an end date but no clue as to the year he had started as a councillor, whether “for Bethnal Green North” or anywhere else. A clear suggestion is that he was an elected councillor for longer than he in fact was! It is a linguistic device that can exaggerate positive appeal of the subliminal agenda in the piece.
Mr Griffith’s silence or lack of statement in your account about the YEARS of obstruction that his Party’s Group of Councillors put up against demands from the community is a most interesting omission. We shall furnish names, dates and behaviour should either he or anybody else in the name of his Party choose to challenge our assertions here.
He does not say in your account anything about any non-profit, transparent, and lasting work that he supported in the community as part of his implied awareness of the “disadvantaged” “groups” or “communities” in “Bethnal Green North” during his time as a Councillor “for” that Ward! This absence of reference is a telling one indeed.
His apparent willingness to focus on ‘race’ gives Mr Griffiths’ game away! HE IS talking about race!
You do repeat some names of some of your oft-featured ‘sources’ as you leave out those with really key facts and clues about the really contradictory state of Mr Griffiths’ ‘Party’ in Tower Hamlets.
Lets start with the undeniable and the citable evidence of his Party’s position on the core issue of whether a directly elected mayor is what the people in Tower Hamlets really want.
The only Councillor carrying the Lib Dems banner on Tower Hamlets, Stephanie Eaton [who too is ‘for’ Bethnal Green North Ward] was taking part in the “NO to a directly elected mayor” campaign events. At the demonstration held against Ken Livingstone’s part in the "YES” campaign on 6 February 2010 outside the Brady Centre, Hanbury Street off Brick Lane, Stephanie Eaton spoke against a directly elected mayor. She had earlier given an interview to at least one TV crew that was recording the movement of the demonstration from the Vallance Road Park to the Hanbury Street. Her choice as a highlighted interviewee at that demonstration was a direct result of decision by a Bangladeshi campaigner present who had suggested to that TV crew that they spoke to her. Later still, she spoke at another gathering and had been invited to speak by the same Bangladeshi organiser of the “NO” campaign who is writing this comment. Were those activities “racially determined”? Mr Griffiths should visit Tower Hamlets more often before the tide of ignorance, detachment and prejudice that preoccupy so much of the “mainstream” journalism about our Borough carries him away. And as a footnote: Did Mr Griffiths recognise the TV studios he visited a week ago along with Peter Golds as a ‘racially’ segregated one? We observed Mr Griffiths being given a measured amount of time and scope to set out his suitability! As he uttered his ‘manifesto’, he claimed that Tower Hamlets needed the sort of business that he was running. Perhaps Tower Hamlets needs the truth more than the promotion of the limited use enterprise. Mr Griffiths has shown another set of evidence justifying why we do and should continue to oppose the directly elected mayor system in Tower Hamlets. Just imagine the serious risk of ‘race’ related statements being made by an occupant in that post!
People in Tower Hamlets do NOT want a Council that is treated as an opportunistic tool by one faction or by a section or by a Party or a Group in the Borough.
Almost 40,000 people of ALL known backgrounds in the electorate in Tower Hamlets voted in May 2010 [as admitted or stated by the Returning Officer] against there being a directly elected mayor in Tower Hamlets.
Neither Mr Griffiths nor any of the others that you have given publicity to in context has explained why they should simply ignore nearly two fifths of the electorate who rejected the bid to change the Council.
Far too much of the whole Tower Hamlets community’s universal and precious rights and say has been exposed to serious derailment, distortion and loss by the importation of this anti-democratic key to the ‘office and elected executive mayor’ that can be craved by those susceptible to temptation, abuse and misrepresentation. Just re-read the words attributed to Harriet Harman as she ‘defined’ the Tower Hamlets Elected mayor thing! In one chilling sentence, Harriet Harman reduced democratic say to the toast that she was frenziedly intent on shielding two of her chosen vulnerables from !
Like Harriet Harman, Mr Griffiths has not shown any urgent regard for transparency accountability or indeed for real democracy.

"


http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/davehillblog/2010/oct/07/tower-hamlets-liberal-democrat-john-griffiths-interviewed?showallcomments=true#end-of-comments

Tower Hamlets: interview with Liberal Democrat mayoral candidate John Griffiths


Comments (4)
We met in a Farringdon cafe tucked around the corner from the office of Rocket Science, a consultancy he co-founded devoted to "improving the quality of life of disadvantaged individuals, groups and communities." He's 46, be-suited and bespectacled but his style is relaxed. He was a Councillor for Bethnal Green North ward until 2006, but well beaten in Blackwall and Cubitt Town in May. What are his chances of making a comeback as mayor?

People are rallying round, he says, but he'd have liked party HQ to have helped him give his campaign "a bit more welly." He's pretty candid about it. "If I could have persuaded them to treat this like they would like a parliamentary bye-election, we could have won it. I've no doubt about that. I find it baffling because in comparison with a lowly backbencher the directly-elected mayor of Tower Hamlets, running one of the biggest boroughs in London in the run-up to the Olympic games, has to be a bigger job. It's a huge prize and would have been a real fillip to the party to have won it."

That sounds a bit pessimistic. Or maybe just realistic. The Liberal Democrats and their SDP-Liberal Alliance forerunners ran the borough from 1986-94, a period that ended in controversy. Now they're down to just one Councillor. For John Griffiths to win he'll have to come from a long way back. The expectation is that the contest is between Labour's Helal Abbas and the man Labour's National Executive Committee removed to make way for him Lutfur Rahman. Still, Griffiths knows what he'd do if he won.

"The main function the mayor has to perform is to be an advocate, a champion, for the borough," he says. "In the present situation, with a government of a different political hue from that of the [Labour-dominated] Council, it's critical that there's someone there who can really stand up for the borough and have the ear of ministers. We could be isolated at a very critical point. It's been described as possibly the most difficult job in London for whoever gets it, in terms of minimising the impact of the inevitable cuts. I think the mayor will be judged in terms of not letting the situation getting any worse."

He'd freeze the Council Tax, but explore ways of raising revenue elsewhere. "The coalition is interested in is freeing up local authorities in terms of what they can do with business rates. Tower Hamlets is actually one of the wealthiest boroughs in London when you look at our business base - Canary Wharf and so on. The long term residents of Tower Hamlets deserve more from the Docklands development."

Other aspects of the government's "localist agenda" attract him too. He favours a partial return to "a more community-based, neighbourhood form of administration," of the type pioneered the last time his party ran the borough.
He acknowledges that this radical devolution created problems: "The system collapsed under itself." However: "There were some very good things that came out of that. It was a bold experiment, ahead of its time." He thinks it pre-figured the Big Society agenda. "I think there is some value in devolving powers to community councils, giving them budgets to run and administer, so you get a better quality of service delivered at a lower level. I'd be the anti-mayoral mayor, in a way." It would keep Councillors occupied too: "There's a real danger under the mayoral system of elected members becoming redundant. Giving them leadership of community councils would be a way of tying them into the wards that elected them in the first place."

Griffiths acknowledges that a Lib Dem mayor would be very isolated, surround by Labour, former Labour and other Councillors from different parties. How would he appoint his team? "I'd look at all 51 Councillors and choose the best. For example, I could say to Mr Francis, 'You have a background in housing, let's use that expertise. Mr Abbas, you've got particularly strong links into the Bangladeshi community, let's bring that in too.' You'd create a cabinet of all the talents. I get on very well with Mr Golds. The Isle of Dogs has become a Conservative area and you certainly have to acknowledge that." What about Councillor Rahman, the now Independent candidate that Labour dumped? "I don't know Lutfur well, but it's important to acknowledge that he has a significant groundswell of support and to ignore that might be unwise."

Griffiths thinks the characterisation of Tower Hamlets politics being dominated by secretive Muslim organisations overstated. "I don't think it's nearly as bad as people are saying it is. There's no smoke without fire, but some people are bent on stirring that up. What I did see when I was on the Council - and this goes back to Tammany Hall and the old machine politics - was the use of public money for overtly political purposes."

He takes pride in the part he played in rooting out misuse of regeneration funds and the prosecution that ensued, and though he praises many of the Council's officers ("we attract very good ones") he says he doubts that the funneling of grants to pet projects has ceased. "A directly-elected mayor serving one section of the community would possibly exacerbate that," he warns, diplomatically. He wrote in a piece for Ted Jeory: "An unchecked mayor heavily backed by one section of the community will exaggerate the worst of the Council's recent tendencies."

Message received. Griffiths adds: "Race is almost the elephant in the room in this election, that no one is prepared to really talk about." He's thinking partly about Labour replacing Rahman with Helal Abbas rather than John Biggs, who came second in the candidate selection process. "Labour, I think, has shown real cowardice. Political correctness is going absolutely bonkers. They're putting their own political party interests first, over and above the wishes of the membership of the Labour Party. They wanted Lutfur and if they couldn't have him they wanted Biggs."

The NEC's decision to go for Abbas instead betrayed, in Griffiths's view, "A party running scared of being accused of racism - of putting up a white man. I think Tower Hamlets really does need a candidate who is willing and able to work for all sections of the community."


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Comments in chronological order (Total 4 comments)

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LiberalSweden
8 October 2010 12:56PM

Well I wish John Griffiths a lot of luck. Tower Hamlets has always been a tough place for Liberals to do politics.

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heyone
8 October 2010 1:05PM

Well, many residents in this borough still forbid their wives to go out and work for 'religious' reasons. I would like to see his views on this as a Liberal candidate.

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Notoanexecutivemayor
8 October 2010 2:38PM

Your use of language is remarkable. Why have you described him as having been “a Councillor for Bethnal Green North ward until 2006”? It gives an end date but no clue as to the year he had started as a councillor, whether “for Bethnal Green North” or anywhere else. A clear suggestion is that he was an elected councillor for longer than he in fact was! It is a linguistic device that can exaggerate positive appeal of the subliminal agenda in the piece.
Mr Griffith’s silence or lack of statement in your account about the YEARS of obstruction that his Party’s Group of Councillors put up against demands from the community is a most interesting omission. We shall furnish names, dates and behaviour should either he or anybody else in the name of his Party choose to challenge our assertions here.
He does not say in your account anything about any non-profit, transparent, and lasting work that he supported in the community as part of his implied awareness of the “disadvantaged” “groups” or “communities” in “Bethnal Green North” during his time as a Councillor “for” that Ward! This absence of reference is a telling one indeed.
His apparent willingness to focus on ‘race’ gives Mr Griffiths’ game away! HE IS talking about race!
You do repeat some names of some of your oft-featured ‘sources’ as you leave out those with really key facts and clues about the really contradictory state of Mr Griffiths’ ‘Party’ in Tower Hamlets.
Lets start with the undeniable and the citable evidence of his Party’s position on the core issue of whether a directly elected mayor is what the people in Tower Hamlets really want.
The only Councillor carrying the Lib Dems banner on Tower Hamlets, Stephanie Eaton [who too is ‘for’ Bethnal Green North Ward] was taking part in the “NO to a directly elected mayor” campaign events. At the demonstration held against Ken Livingstone’s part in the "YES” campaign on 6 February 2010 outside the Brady Centre, Hanbury Street off Brick Lane, Stephanie Eaton spoke against a directly elected mayor. She had earlier given an interview to at least one TV crew that was recording the movement of the demonstration from the Vallance Road Park to the Hanbury Street. Her choice as a highlighted interviewee at that demonstration was a direct result of decision by a Bangladeshi campaigner present who had suggested to that TV crew that they spoke to her. Later still, she spoke at another gathering and had been invited to speak by the same Bangladeshi organiser of the “NO” campaign who is writing this comment. Were those activities “racially determined”? Mr Griffiths should visit Tower Hamlets more often before the tide of ignorance, detachment and prejudice that preoccupy so much of the “mainstream” journalism about our Borough carries him away. And as a footnote: Did Mr Griffiths recognise the TV studios he visited a week ago along with Peter Golds as a ‘racially’ segregated one? We observed Mr Griffiths being given a measured amount of time and scope to set out his suitability! As he uttered his ‘manifesto’, he claimed that Tower Hamlets needed the sort of business that he was running. Perhaps Tower Hamlets needs the truth more than the promotion of the limited use enterprise. Mr Griffiths has shown another set of evidence justifying why we do and should continue to oppose the directly elected mayor system in Tower Hamlets. Just imagine the serious risk of ‘race’ related statements being made by an occupant in that post!
People in Tower Hamlets do NOT want a Council that is treated as an opportunistic tool by one faction or by a section or by a Party or a Group in the Borough.
Almost 40,000 people of ALL known backgrounds in the electorate in Tower Hamlets voted in May 2010 [as admitted or stated by the Returning Officer] against there being a directly elected mayor in Tower Hamlets.
Neither Mr Griffiths nor any of the others that you have given publicity to in context has explained why they should simply ignore nearly two fifths of the electorate who rejected the bid to change the Council.

Far too much of the whole Tower Hamlets community’s universal and precious rights and say has been exposed to serious derailment, distortion and loss by the importation of this anti-democratic key to the ‘office and elected executive mayor’ that can be craved by those susceptible to temptation, abuse and misrepresentation. Just re-read the words attributed to Harriet Harman as she ‘defined’ the Tower Hamlets Elected mayor thing! In one chilling sentence, Harriet Harman reduced democratic say to the toast that she was frenziedly intent on shielding two of her chosen vulnerables from !
Like Harriet Harman, Mr Griffiths has not shown any urgent regard for

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Notoanexecutivemayor
8 October 2010 2:47PM

Your use of language is remarkable. Why have you described him as having been “a Councillor for Bethnal Green North ward until 2006”? It gives an end date but no clue as to the year he had started as a councillor, whether “for Bethnal Green North” or anywhere else. A clear suggestion is that he was an elected councillor for longer than he in fact was! It is a linguistic device that can exaggerate positive appeal of the subliminal agenda in the piece.
Mr Griffith’s silence or lack of statement in your account about the YEARS of obstruction that his Party’s Group of Councillors put up against demands from the community is a most interesting omission. We shall furnish names, dates and behaviour should either he or anybody else in the name of his Party choose to challenge our assertions here.
He does not say in your account anything about any non-profit, transparent, and lasting work that he supported in the community as part of his implied awareness of the “disadvantaged” “groups” or “communities” in “Bethnal Green North” during his time as a Councillor “for” that Ward! This absence of reference is a telling one indeed.
His apparent willingness to focus on ‘race’ gives Mr Griffiths’ game away! HE IS talking about race!
You do repeat some names of some of your oft-featured ‘sources’ as you leave out those with really key facts and clues about the really contradictory state of Mr Griffiths’ ‘Party’ in Tower Hamlets.
Lets start with the undeniable and the citable evidence of his Party’s position on the core issue of whether a directly elected mayor is what the people in Tower Hamlets really want.
The only Councillor carrying the Lib Dems banner on Tower Hamlets, Stephanie Eaton [who too is ‘for’ Bethnal Green North Ward] was taking part in the “NO to a directly elected mayor” campaign events. At the demonstration held against Ken Livingstone’s part in the "YES” campaign on 6 February 2010 outside the Brady Centre, Hanbury Street off Brick Lane, Stephanie Eaton spoke against a directly elected mayor. She had earlier given an interview to at least one TV crew that was recording the movement of the demonstration from the Vallance Road Park to the Hanbury Street. Her choice as a highlighted interviewee at that demonstration was a direct result of decision by a Bangladeshi campaigner present who had suggested to that TV crew that they spoke to her. Later still, she spoke at another gathering and had been invited to speak by the same Bangladeshi organiser of the “NO” campaign who is writing this comment. Were those activities “racially determined”? Mr Griffiths should visit Tower Hamlets more often before the tide of ignorance, detachment and prejudice that preoccupy so much of the “mainstream” journalism about our Borough carries him away. And as a footnote: Did Mr Griffiths recognise the TV studios he visited a week ago along with Peter Golds as a ‘racially’ segregated one? We observed Mr Griffiths being given a measured amount of time and scope to set out his suitability! As he uttered his ‘manifesto’, he claimed that Tower Hamlets needed the sort of business that he was running. Perhaps Tower Hamlets needs the truth more than the promotion of the limited use enterprise. Mr Griffiths has shown another set of evidence justifying why we do and should continue to oppose the directly elected mayor system in Tower Hamlets. Just imagine the serious risk of ‘race’ related statements being made by an occupant in that post!
People in Tower Hamlets do NOT want a Council that is treated as an opportunistic tool by one faction or by a section or by a Party or a Group in the Borough.
Almost 40,000 people of ALL known backgrounds in the electorate in Tower Hamlets voted in May 2010 [as admitted or stated by the Returning Officer] against there being a directly elected mayor in Tower Hamlets.
Neither Mr Griffiths nor any of the others that you have given publicity to in context has explained why they should simply ignore nearly two fifths of the electorate who rejected the bid to change the Council.
Far too much of the whole Tower Hamlets community’s universal and precious rights and say has been exposed to serious derailment, distortion and loss by the importation of this anti-democratic key to the ‘office and elected executive mayor’ that can be craved by those susceptible to temptation, abuse and misrepresentation. Just re-read the words attributed to Harriet Harman as she ‘defined’ the Tower Hamlets Elected mayor thing! In one chilling sentence, Harriet Harman reduced democratic say to the toast that she was frenziedly intent on shielding two of her chosen vulnerables from !
Like Harriet Harman, Mr Griffiths has not shown any urgent regard for transparency accountability or indeed for real democracy.

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