Tower Hamlets Watch

Lutfur Rahman dropped from Mayors race due to Police Investigation

Just a quick note, as I haven’t the time. As the title suggests due to a police investigation into Lutfur Rahman it seems that hes been booted out of the party, and therefore the race for mayor.

Ha,ha,ha,aha,….ha,aha,ha,ROTFLMAO,ha,ha,ha….LOL…….muhhahahhahahah……..

As Ted Jeory pointed out Harry’s Place seems to have broke the news first;

Lutfur Rahman Suspended From The Labour Party

Heres Teds piece; Lutfur Rahman: Abbas wields the knife

The Advertiser’s : Labour drops its front-runner in East End mayor battle and their piece on Helal Abbas’s selection;
Supporters of ousted Tower Hamlets mayoral candidate mobilise online campaign

check out Andrew Gilligans blog over at the Telegraph;

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/author/andrewgilligan/

and finally Dave Hils blog over at the Guardian;

Tower Hamlets: Lutfur Rahman removed as Labour mayoral candidate

I’m sure there are many others but I think you get the jist, I think this deserves a good old east end knees up, maybe even street parties………..hurrah

hahahahahahaha

Poplar & Limehouse MP Jim Fitzpatrick ordered to pay back Public Funds & apologise to Parliament

Jim Fitzpatrick who last year accused the Tower Hamlets Conservative Party Councillors of mud-slinging in the run up to the election in thier accusations of mispending public funds. The accusations by the Conservative Party councillors was that he had been basically been misusing public funds, in that he had “used House of Commons provided stationery and pre-paid envelopes when sending unsolicited correspondence to constituents in July 2009.”

Tory councillor Ahmed Hussain and Peter Golds, the Conservative leader in Tower Hamlets, received mail from Mr Fitzpatrick. Mr Hussain said: “This is political campaigning, and I want it to be investigated. This is misuse of taxpayers’ money.” – MP ‘spent taxpayers’ money on coffee morning mail shots’ Evening Standard October 2009

Mr Golds detailed his accusation in a letter to the parliamentary commissioner for standards in September 2009.

After quite some time and some unnecessary delays and denials, the commission went on to confirm that the allegations by Mr Peter Golds had basically been correct, and that Mr Jim Fitzpatrick had actually been “in clear breach of the rules of the House” he was ordered to pay back the money for the envelopes, and assorted stationary. Not just the £24 he offered but the full £557 for sending out some 1,700 letters and envelopes unsolicited which is clearly in breach of house of commons rules & regulations, which had spanned a few years.

Although the commitee found that “the seriousness of the breach was well towards the lower end of the scale” they became more disturbed by the fact that Mr Jim Fitzpatrick MP for Poplar & Limehouse has now been accused himself by the parliamentary “Commons standards and privileges committee” yesterday of delaying the outcome of their investigation into the Conservative allegations until after the election so that he could;

“avoid the fact that he had breached the rules becoming public knowledge at a politically sensitive time”

.

Please take the time to read through the entire committees investigation (Standards and Privileges Committee – First Report Jim Fitzpatrick), you will find evidence of Mr Fitzpatricks disregard for the commitee and his delaying of an official investigation into his conduct.

In Mr Fitzpatricks own evidence he admits to delaying the investigation for political gain;

“15. When asked why he had changed his mind about accepting rectification, Mr Fitzpatrick replied that, whereas he had told the Commissioner in May 2010 that the decision “was not influenced by the imminence of a general election” he would now say that the decision had not been “wholly influenced” by the imminence of the election.[18] Mr Fitzpatrick told us about a meeting he had attended during the election campaign, at which the complaint about his use of expenses had been raised by a political opponent but he nonetheless felt he had won the support of the meeting. He gave us to believe that if he had by then been found to have breached the rules “that would have been a very different issue.” – Mr Fitzpatricks Evidence

In the conclusions it shows that;

“20. It is clear from his oral evidence that Mr Fitzpatrick calculated that, if he accepted that he had breached the rules and apologised for that breach, the information could be used against him by his political opponents in the general election campaign which was then imminent. This, together with his view that the rules were unreasonably restrictive, caused him “discomfort” and led him to change his mind just two weeks before Parliament was dissolved—which was more than a month after the Commissioner had sent him a draft of the letter of rectification. Immediately after the election, Mr Fitzpatrick denied to the Commissioner that the imminence of the general election had had anything to do with his change of heart. However, he told us in oral evidence that this was not wholly true. ” – Conclusions of the committee

One of the committees recommendations are set out below;

“Recommendation

22. We are disappointed that Jim Fitzpatrick chose in the run-up to the general election to rescind his acceptance of an offer by the Commissioner to rectify what was a minor breach of the rules—which would have required only an apology, his agreement to transfer the expenditure to the correct account, and the repayment of £24. We recommend that Mr Fitzpatrick apologise to the House in writing, through this Committee, not only for the breach but also for his conduct, which had the effect of postponing the resolution of the complaint against him until after the general election. We further recommend that Mr Fitzpatrick repay to the House from his own pocket the entire £557 cost of provided stationery and pre-paid envelopes misused by him in the period 2007-09.” – Commitees Recommedations

So with his own mouth it looks like he’s admitting to playing the political game in the hope of securing his position within parliament, and on such a minor matter. If hes willing to waste taxpayers money, and then to delay an investigation into such minor matters then what else is he capable of?

These are the types of politicians we have running our local issues, can we really trust any of these people?

On another note, almost a week later and there has not been a peep from the East London Advertiser on this. Surely this is classed as local news, surely it deserves a mention on their website?.

Major Works Halted on St Vincents Estate

As a result of the collapse of Connaught, one of Tower Hamlets Homes major works contractors, work on the St Vincents Estate in Limehouse E14 involving the installation of new kitchens has now halted. At least 5 families have been without a kitchen for around 5 weeks, as the old kitchens were removed at the start of the financial problems that hit the contractor Connaught. Sub-Contractors to the company initially went on strike as they had not been paid, which started the problems on the estate as the works temporarily halted. These contractors were then paid and work begun again, albiet behind schedule, when connaught finally collapsed as reported here 2 weeks ago work came to a grinding halt again, leaving all future works unstarted on the estate. Tower Hamlets Councils (in-house) void properties team who bring empty properties up to a decent standard normally replacing damaged kitchens and internal decoration have now been brought in and installed new kitchens in the homes of the 5 families who were living without one.

Apparently at least one of the sub-contractors to Connaught who were installing new electrical installations into the homes on the estate has also not recieved any money from Connaught who have now slipped into administration.

Residents on the estate are questioning why the void properties team who are quite capable of installing new kitchens and carrying out the Decent Homes Works and also the major works, then why does the council need to pay another contractor hundreds of thousands of pounds extra to do the same work?

All future work on the estate that was contracted to Connaught is now officially halted as internal wranglings within Tower Hamlets try to figure out how to proceed.

Respect finally admit to backing Lutfur for Mayor all along

Why did it take the Respect Party this long to admit to backing Lutfur Rahman for the position of Mayor, when i personally heard George Galloway state this at the supposed Anti-Fascist rally in June of this year.

Read about it here on Mr Jeory’s Blog: Respect statements on Mayor

Here at the Advertiser: Respect back Labour candidate Lutfur Rahman in Tower Hamlets mayoral election

and here is Andrew Gilligans take: Lutfur Rahman: yet more backers he really shouldn’t want

Heres again is my own recollection of the Rally earlier in the year, where Mr Galloway made his statement backing Lutfur Rahmans bid for Mayor. Why was it that no-one believed me then, some even laughing at my stating that Lutfur was even considering going for Mayor. IMO this signifies the real death of the Labour Party in this borough, a party that I’ve been almost conditioned to support from an early age, seems now to be imploding on itself locally. How they could not keep this scum-bag out of local politics, I’ll never know, and by finally announcing they will back Lutfurs bid for Mayor, their former political enemy, the Respect Party has finally lost it.