1125 [1120] Hrs GMT
London
Tuesday
19 October 2010
Editor © Muhammad Haque
BHANGEELAAR! told you so!
That Ken Livingstone had been wrong to give credit to Michael Keith about the "NO" to elected mayor Campaign.
We said that in April 2010.
How was Ken Livingstone wrong on that?
Answer: We knew that Michael Keith could not really be part of the movement for democracy that was opposing the change to the constitution of the local Tower Hamlets Council from the semi-democratic one now to an almost democracy-free system of there being an executive mayor.
How have we been proven correct?
Answer: We have been proven correct on that if the evidence we have heard early this morning is any guide.
Question: What evidence is that?
Answer: That evidence was broadcast on the Channel I early today Tuesday 19 October 2010.
Question: Describe it in brief
Answer: Several statements were made to the effect that Michael Keith was the real power and the influence behind the stated candidature of Abbas Uddin ‘Helal’ for election as mayor [at the allegedly scheduled election to that post on 21 October 2010].
Question: How is that a proof that Michael Keith could not be a genuine opponent of the mayor system in Tower Hamlets in the context of the movement for democracy?
Answer: For a start, Michael Keith would not be mentioned as a power behind anyone who was on course to being anointed mayor at all if he [Keith] were truly opposed to the elected mayor system. The fact that he is not actively opposing that so-called election of 21 October 2010 is proof enough that Keith is not the same person who was being named by Ken Livingstone on 6 February 2010 at the Brady Centre ‘launch of the YES for mayor campaign’.
The other, even starker, fact is that Keith was willing to declare himself a candidate for the candidature for the ‘first directly elected mayor’ on behalf of the Labour Party.
So much so that he was willing to tell the BHANGEELAAR! Campaign organiser to be ‘brief’ when [August 2010] the latter asked Keith about Keith’s contradictory stances on the matter.
[To be continued]
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Thursday, 15 April 2010
Muhammad Haque tells the London Daily Telegraph web site that Ken Livingstone had made an untruthful assertion about the campaign for a NO vote
Muhammad Haque tells the London Daily Telegraph web site that Ken Livingstone had made an untruthful assertion about the community campaign against a directly elected executive mayor in Tower Hamlets and our demonstration on 6 February 2010
This is the first published rebuttal of the untruth that Ken Livingstone had uttered at the Brady Centre. That utterance was broadcast on Channel S satellite TV station.
In that assertion, Livingstone said that the campaign against a directly elected mayor in Tower Hamlets was being led by Michael Keith.
Muhammad Haque tells the DAILY TELEGRAPH web site this morning:
“On 6 February 2010, I was in the demonstration in the Hanbury Street, off Brick Lane London E1, against a bid to undermine the local Council’s constitution by a ploy heavily personally identified with Ken Livingstone [in the glossy propaganda confetti] who wants to have a mayor take over the powers of the Council thus paving the way for an anti-democratic take-over.
In his speech addressing the gathering collected for that purpose inside the Brady Centre [Hanbury Street], Mr Livingstone, who has never claimed to have been an East Ender, made a very untruthful claim and said that the demonstration [that I was part of and was actually fronting with a clearly visible loudhailer which I used to calm people down as part of my ordinary work for the defence of my community] had been being led by a former Tower Hamlets Councillor who neither spoke nor, to my knowledge of the event, was asked to speak at the demonstration.
I am putting it here for the records. I am opposing the bid [on the merits of the matter] to change of the constitution of Tower Hamlets Council to one where an executive mayor wields the powers. I do not believe that a directly elected executive mayor is a democratic way forward for the community in Tower Hamlets. So what is Mr Livingstone's evidence for claiming so emphatically and in effect that I and hundreds of other ordinary people in Tower Hamlets are being “led” by someone that we have neither talked to nor have any intention of talking to about anything? If that is not an irresponsible smear by Mr Livingstone, I can’t think what is.
Mr Livingstone ought to think carefully before he insults an entire community. This analysis can be extrapolated to apply to most of Mr Livingstone's stunts and claims that appear to be getting increasingly desperate. He scarcely shows real respect to the ordinary people in the communities where he stages these stunts.”
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