Abbas v Lutfur: views on an Islamic republic of Bangladesh

Now that the Islamic Forum of Europe has again gone on the record to deny accusations that it is linked to Jamaat e Islami in Bangladesh, I feel more comfortable legally in reporting part of a conversation I had with Lutfur Rahman last year.

You’ll remember that I posted a transcript of a conversation I had with former IFE president Habibur Rahman here. That took place in March 2009 at about the same time I talked to Lutfur and the transcript for part of that conversation was reported here.

Here’s more of it.

TJ:  People say that IFE supports Jamaat e Islami in Bangladesh. What are your views on that?

LR:  OK. That is something I don’t know. In terms of Bangladeshi politics, yeah, I don’t belong to a party and I don’t even support a party in Bangladesh, nor do I get involved in anything to do with Bangladeshi parties. I’m so happy that we’ve got a democratically elected government after two years of quasi-military rule. I’m grateful that people have seen sense and elected a democratically elected government, a socially progressive government in Bangladesh. I don’t get involved in Bangladeshi politics because I don’t even know anything about it. All I know that and I care about is that people are being fed and people have a chance to lead a decent life.

TJ:  Would you like to see, as [Jamaat e Islami want], Bangladesh become an Islamic Republic?

LR:  Ted, I want to see a democratically elected country in Bangladesh. That’s all I care about. What I care about, I come from the centre-Left of British politics and I struggled through my life, I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth, I believe in libertarian, liberal values, I believe in free speech, I believe in people having a chance in life and equality of opportunity and I believe in people expressing themselves. People have spoken and they have elected a government and I’m very happy with that. I do not indulge in Bangladeshi politics.

TJ:  But to the direct question, would you like to see an elected Islamic Republic of Bangladesh?

LR: To me, the faith politics is not important to me. What is important to me is I want to see a progressive government, whether that be an Islamic republic, or that be a socialist republic or whether it be a capitalist republic, I want to see a progressive government for the people. How do you define progressiveness? To have been fed twice a day, to have equality of opportunity, a hood health service, free education and that people can go about their normal life.

I have just posed the same question to Helal Abbas. Here’s what he said:

HA: I definitely would not want an Islamic republic of Bangladesh. I would not support it. I would not want any single-issue based party. I’d want a socialist-leaning government in Bangladesh which serves the needs of all communities regardless of faith.

An interesting comparison, in style and substance.

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Ken’s future – and Oona’s

As the BBC and Harry’s Place blog report, the Labour party rules are quite clear:

Chapter 2, Rule A(4)(b) of the Labour Party Rules state:

“A member of the party who joins and/or supports a political organisation other than an official Labour group or other unit of the party, or supports any candidate who stands against an official Labour candidate, or publicly declares their intent to stand against a Labour candidate, shall automatically be ineligible to be or remain a party member….”

Under those rules, eight councillors in Tower Hamlets were expelled from Labour after they were seen campaigning for Lutfur Rahman. When I revealed last week that Lord Nazir Ahmed had also appeared on a pro-Lutfur platform, Labour HQ declined to take such swift action and instead said it would investigate it after the election.

No doubt, it will be the same double-standards with the far bigger fish Ken Livingstone. However, Oona King’s campaign team are once again readying for action stations. Oona, who many believe would have a wider appeal than Ken in taking on Boris Johnson, is understood to be playing down that excitement.

It all depends on the party’s NEC which has yet to have its first full meeting since Ed Miliband became leader. It has 31 members:

Leader	Ed Miliband
Deputy Leader	Harriet Harman
Treasurer	Diana Holland
Government	Pat McFadden
Government	Angela Eagle
Government	Tom Watson
EPLP Leader	Glenis Willmott MEP
Young Labour	Stephanie Peacock
Div. I – Trade Unions	Keith Birch
Div. I – Trade Unions	Jim Kennedy
Div. I – Trade Unions	Harriet Yeo
Div. I – Trade Unions	Paddy Lillis
Div. I – Trade Unions	Norma Stephenson (Chair)
Div. I – Trade Unions	Andy Kerr
Div. I – Trade Unions	Cath Speight
Div. I – Trade Unions	Mary Turner
Div. I – Trade Unions	Chris Weldon
Div. I – Trade Unions	Andy Worth
Div. II – Socialist Societies	Simon Wright
Div. II – Socialist Societies	Keith Vaz MP
Div. III – CLPs	Ken Livingstone
Div. III – CLPs	Oona King
Div. III – CLPs	Ann Black
Div. III – CLPs	Ellie Reeves
Div. III – CLPs	Christine Shawcroft
Div. III – CLPs	Luke Akehurst
Div. IV – Labour Councillors	Jeremy Beecham
Div. IV – Labour Councillors	Ann Lucas
Div. V – PLP/EPLP	Angela Smith MP
Div. V – PLP/EPLP	Dennis Skinner
Div. V – PLP/EPLP	Michael Cashman MEP (Vice Chair)

How many of those do you think would be pro-Ken? Help needed, please….

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BBC coverage

Just a brief note….I understand that The Politics Show on BBC 1 at noon tomorrow will feature the Tower Hamlets election, quite possibly with a discussion about postal voting fraud.

The Sunday Telegraph could also be covering the goings-on.

Any more coverage, do let me know.

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Smears and victims of poison

As I’ve mentioned before, Lutfur Rahman’s campaign does seem to have galvanised a section of the Tower Hamlets community and many, if not most, are certainly very angry young people who are fuelled by a fair degree of hatred.

That bitterness has been targeted in almost equal measure at the Labour NEC and the party’s official candidate, Helal Abbas. At Tuesday night’s hustings in Poplar, I heard many, including councillors who aspire to be MPs, hurl playground insults at him. Some said he lacks integrity for accepting the nomination after coming third in the voided selection process. They may well be genuinely held views, but more than one person I’ve spoken to who attended that hustings remarked on what appeared to be a fairly unpleasant and thuggish element to among some of his supporters; probably, that’s the case with all candidates, except of course the nice Greens…

Ordinarily, I’d put such opinions down to a generation gap which views all teenagers as yobs, but in the last couple of weeks I’ve been spending a lot of my time editing or removing comments from this blog which are not only potentially libellous, but which are also vile and outright nasty. There are many in the Labour party who believe the level of vitriol is similar to that experienced by Oona King in 2005 when she was beaten by Respect and George Galloway. They believe the tactics are similar: smear the candidate at all costs.

Incredibly, as Andrew Gilligan reports here, those smears have been published in full in the London Bangla newspaper, whose well-funded print run this week has been distributed en masse around large parts of the East End. Laughably, it describes Cllr Oli Rahman as being “traumatised” by a handbags-at-dawn incident at Stepney Green Tube station on Monday. Even Oli will laugh at that: yes, he was so traumatised he called me immediately after dialling 999 and said: “I’ve got a story for you.”

You can read the London Bangla edition in full here. You’ll notice that not one of the allegations has been put to Abbas, who tells me he strongly denies them and describes them as “outrageous smears”.

Before anyone starts chipping in about how Lutfur wasn’t able to respond to Abbas’s dossier to the NEC, that’s a completely different issue. Newspapers have a duty to give the subject of allegations a right of reply. I would be very surprised if London Bangla is not sued for defamation.

The issue is such a disgrace that Emdad Rahman has decided to resign his unpaid post as “executive editor” in protest. He tells me he has had nothing to do with those articles and he completely disassociates himself from them.

So Emdad, whom I’ve featured several times on this blog as an example of positive activism in Tower Hamlets, becomes the first casualty of the poison that has infected our borough.

Pity he’s not standing for Mayor.

 

UPDATE- 4.25pm, Saturday, October 16

Emdad tells me that Newham Labour councillor Forhad Hussain has also resigned as London Bangla’s news editor in protest. This really does raise the question who was behind the published smears. The editor and managing director is Shah Yousuf. He was awarded the Civic Award by Tower Hamlets council last year for his “outstanding contributions to the community”. Here’s what else he boasts about on his own website.

Shah Yousuf

Shah Yousuf (Shajad) is a man who works to bring his dreams become true. A man with very high ambitions of making a difference to the community by bringing positive changes to the lives of the people he proudly serves.

An engineer of Information Technology and Graphic Design by profession, Shah’s laptop is his second self and is the vital tool that enables him to interact with the greater community.

Shah’s self satisfaction stems from the desire to ensure that the community benefits first and foremost, and his outlook defines his principles.

Shah is a perfect example of a self-made man. He learnt to succeed in life at a very early age, and is currently involved in various projects, mainly involving the use of Information Technology, new media, outreach and commerce.

To aid his vision, Shah created London Bangla Limited where he is the Managing Director.

The very first production of this company is London Bangla News Weekly, the first free English-Bangla Bilingual free weekly. As the Editor of London Bangla, Shah oversees and maintains strategic responsibility and management, including a highly skilled editorial team of volunteers, dedicated to serving the communities needs.

 

London Bangla LTD

London Bangla is the only bilingual newspaper in Britain and it is free. Its target reader group are the 153,893 Bangladeshi communities residing in the greater London Authority (GLA). The newspaper is published every Friday and distributed to many outlets including local mosques, Islamic and community centres.

London Bangla is the first step of Shah’s journey to making his vision become reality. His sheer enthusiasm and dedication has already spread to great heights, achieving much success, including public recognition since its creation.

 

 

Shah’s Business credentials

Royal Bengal Airline

Shah was the Marketing Director of Royal Bengal Airline (2006), aiming to operate domestic flights in Bangladesh with future plans of international operations.

Faith Business Ltd

In 2005 Shah started a print and graphic design company in East London; Faith Business Limited which is now operationally managed by a team of different stakeholders.

Primeland Property Services

In 2005 Shah also invested in property development with the aim of of selling lands and overseas property in the UK to residents. For Primeland Property Services, Shah achieved outstanding success, mainly due to his personal attributions; integrity, assertiveness and strong analytical skills.

EuroBangla and Notudin Newsweekly

Shah believes in personal development and sharing his expertise in the field with other members of the community that he proudly serves. Before London Bangla he worked at EuroBangla as the Managing Editor and Notundin Newsweekly as a Managing Director.

Shah in the media

Shah hosted a live TV show for Channel S from 2006 to 2010. He presented a live discussion programme where the public participated live regarding issues on a variety of subjects covering immigration, community safety and financial matters.

 

Shah’s success in business

Shah has received the Borough of Tower Hamlets Council’s Civic Award 2009 for outstanding contributions to the community and specifically praised for establishing London Bangla, the exclusive free bilingual newspaper where he is editor.

Achievements

During Shah’s career, public recognition has been at the forefront, winning him commendations and several awards. Balancing these with his business commitments, Shah is proud that his strong efforts have brought greater contribution to the lives of young people and particularly improving the services of the Bangladeshi community.

LondonBangla Newsweekly received recognition of outstanding services to the community in 2009 by the Borough of Tower Hamlets. Since then Shah has received the 2010. Community Safety Award in tackling and reducing anti social behaviour, where Shah campaigned and overseen in particular the installation of CCTV in supporting community safety initiatives to address crimes in the locality.

While expressing his feelings about the award Shah said, ‘It is always a good feeling when your efforts are recognised. But now I feel more responsible as an award brings more responsibilities.

“For this I thank the LondonBangla team. It’s me receiving the award but I am just picking it on the teams behalf.’

Shah receives Tower Hamlets ‘CIVIC Award 2009’

‘Community Safety Award 2010’ from Tower hamlets Council.

Public commitments and appointments

Shah is a highly regarded individual within the Bangladeshi community; a positive role model and dedicated community activist.

Shah is the current elected Chair of Chicksand East Tenants and Residents Association (2008- to date) comprising of Hanbury Street, Pauline House and Davenant House near E1 Whitechapel. His appointment has been successfully acknowledged by the residents, in helping to deliver several community safety initiatives.

Chairing Chicksand East TRA Meeting

Shah is a founder and Co-ordinator of St. Mathias Bangla School. This school provides an after school service where children are taught their mother tongue, Bangla. The age group for children is 4-7 years.

Shah is a founder of the charity organisation “Help To Save Them”. helptosavethem.org is a non profit making organisation. This organisation aims to help abandoned children in Bangladesh.

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Tower Hamlets election – the bookies’ odds

They say that bookmakers rarely get it wrong, but I’d love to know the person setting the odds for unpredictable Tower Hamlets election.

Sporting Bet has opened a book here. At 11am this morning, they had Helal Abbas at 2/11 odds-on favourite, with Lutfur Rahman at 8/1, John Griffiths and Neil King at 16/1 and Alan Duffell at 100/1.

In the past hour, money must have flowed to Lutfur. As at 12.20pm, he’s come in to 3/1 and Abbas has drifted to 2/7.

My bet is that will continue to change.

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Housekeeping rules – a curious development

I mentioned in this post here that this blog was getting a fair amount of comments from people with what appeared to be made up names.

When people post comments, I’m notified of their IP addresses which can then allow me to see their general location and whether it is residential.

One one single residential IP address hosted by Be Un Limited and which one search tool pinpoints to Waltham Forest (although I’m not sure how reliable that is), I’ve had commenters using the following names:

Vote King, Aktar, Laura, Nothing_but_the_Truth, Junior, Joyce Williams, E1 Resident, TH Resident, Shahid, Lena, Richard, Tony R

On another, I’ve had:

Aktar, TH Resident, Hussain, Tony R, Ignorance, Junior

On another, I’ve had:

Wake Up, Get Real, James Hughes, Samara, Truth, Rachel, Ebby, Jayson, Jo, Abdal

Someone seems to have been busy.

I’m relatively new to this blogging business and I realise that this is bound to happen, but there does seem to be a concerted attempt to ramp up the strength of opinion. Of course, some of the comments left by the above names are perfectly valid, but some are highly poisonous and defamatory.

For the moment I’ve decided to classify incoming messages from those IP addresses as spam, but I’d appreciate any advice from more experienced bloggers out there on what is best etiquette.

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Rushanara Ali’s call for action

With less than a week to go, all the campaigns are hoping to pull out all the stops during one last weekend of door-knocking. Bethnal Green and Bow MP Rushanara Ali has gone one step further with a “call to action” to party activists.

Her campaign to win the Parliamentary seat last May was fairly low-key and run below the radar. That’s certainly not the case this time round. Turnout is likely to be very important next Thursday and all candidates are trying to mobilise an electorate that is either largely unaware there will be a ballot, or just confused about what this “mayor thing” actually is.

Rushanara’s article on the Left Foot Forward website is here and I’m reproducing it below:

Uniting the East End: A call to action in Tower Hamlets

Our guest writer is Rushanara Ali MP (Labour, Bethnal Green & Bow)

In a week when we are all waiting with trepidation for the results of the Comprehensive Spending Review, while marvelling at the twists and turns of Lib Dem MPs as they attempt to crawl out from the tatters of their higher education policy, there is a vital campaign happening on the doorsteps ofTower Hamlets. In less than a week, residents of the east London borough will be going to the polls to elect their first directly elected mayor.

Six months ago, many, many people from across London and beyond came to help me and Jim Fitzpatrick beat George Galloway’s Respect and the parties that would later join together and form the coalition. During that election the people of Tower Hamlets rejected the politics of division and joined with us backing our Labour vision of a united East End.

Since that election we have been putting that philosophy into action, challenging the far right English Defence League when they tried to march here, challenging the coalition on cuts to our public services and more recently fighting for Labour in this election.

Ed Miliband and Left Foot Forward have long argued that Labour needs to be a campaigning movement or it is nothing. By opening up the campaign to new volunteers we helped to create, with a fantastic team of organisers, a formidable campaigning force during the general election. Our team working under the banner ‘Uniting the East End’ attracted hundreds of volunteers, which let us do the most important thing – in elections – talk to voters.

Last time we had three years, in this election we have had three weeks! As MPs, Councillors, Greater London Authority members, Labour Party activists and community volunteers we are fighting as a Labour team on behalf of Labour candidate Cllr Helal Abbas, but we can’t do it alone. We need the support of activists from across London – so let’s start building that renewed movement in the East End, home to so many of the great  campaigns of the past.

What’s at stake next Thursday is a billion pound budget, in one the most vibrant and diverse boroughs at the heart of our capital. For the people of Tower Hamlets this isn’t about personalities, it’s about the real issues – schools, housing, jobs and the economy. This is no time for a Galloway-backed independent who appeals to the margins and wants to turn the clock back to the politics of the past.

Over this weekend, and on election day on 21st October, readers of Left Foot Forward have a chance to help defeat the Galloway candidate in Tower Hamlets, and make Labour’s Councillor Abbas a mayor who will finally turn the page on the politics of division, and start putting the people of Tower Hamlets first.

Please come and join us in this campaign, details of how you can help can be found below. The campaign office is at 349 Cambridge Heath Road, London, E2 9RA and will be open for canvassing and leafleting from 10am-6.30pm every day until the election. Please ring 0207 729 6682 or email abbas4mayor@gmail.com for further details or to let us know when you are available. With your help we can ensure a Labour victory on the 21st of October.

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A Tower Hamlets development

Amid all the madness of the political scene, normal life of course goes on. No matter who is elected mayor on October 21, he will not have power over planning decisions. That will still be left to the quasi-judicial development committees, which never (let’s repeat that: never ever, oh no, never) vote on political lines. Ahem.

Around the corner from me in Bow is a large empty building site. It is a sad symbol of council failure. Four years ago, a Safeway supermarket and a large car park stood there. It was the heart of the community around the famous Roman Road. Then Morrisons bought out Safeway and deemed the store surplus to requirements. It closed and except for a few weeks when squatters moved in, it remained empty until the bulldozers arrived last year.

The council owns the freehold on the site, but the leasehold belongs to a development company called Goldquest. Goldquest wants to build three tower blocks there, with the tallest 10 storeys high. It would add 500 new residents to an area whose medical, transport and educational services are already creaking under the pressure of recent over-development. The blocks would also tower over a street of Victorian terraced houses and decrease the daylight into council flats across the road.

Although there will also be a small, shoppers’ car park, other parking bays will be removed.

As a sop, the developers have promised a Tesco Metro on the ground floor, but this would be a smaller store than the Safeway and there is no guarantee that Tesco will actually move in.

A petition a couple of years ago suggested overwhelming local opposition to the proposals. But Labour councillors, led by current deputy council leader Josh Peck, ignored all that and voted by a majority of one to grant planning permission. (The Tories had refused to attend the committee because they were boycotting council meetings at that time).  Josh, who lives about half a mile away in a Victorian terrace unhindered by 10-storey blocks, argued that Goldquest’s section 106 commitment to plough millions of pounds into the area would help to regenerate the Roman Road.

That planning permission was then quashed after procedural errors emerged. When it went back to committee pretty much unaltered, Cllr Shahed Ali, who had voted against the plans while sitting as a Respect member in the original hearing, inexplicably changed his mind now he was there for Labour. When I asked him why and whether it was because he was angling for a seat on the cabinet, he told me he would get back to me. That was a couple of months ago. He hasn’t.

The next chapter involved a High Court judge and when he ruled that there was a case to answer in a judicial review over Josh’s neutrality on the planning committee, the developers withdrew their application and started the process all over again.

Their new application can be viewed on the council website here. A campaign group called the Bow Safeway Site Action Group has been set up and they are urging residents to write to the council by October 25 to object to the plans. They can be reached on savetheroman@googlemail.com. Their letter to residents is below:

Safeway site redevelopment – Object Now!

Your support is needed urgently in the latest stage of the campaign to stop excessive and inappropriate development of the former Safeway site at 2 Gladstone Place, Bow E3.

A third planning application has been lodged by the developers. It is effectively the same as before and if passed would result in the construction of 3 huge tower blocks up to ten-storeys high containing 208 flats. There would be a Tesco Metro on the ground floor but this would be smaller than the previous Safeway supermarket. The development would cram in the region of 500 more residents into this small area.  The old 140 space shoppers’ car park would be replaced by only 30 shoppers’ spaces.

Detrimental development

If it were to go ahead on this scale the development would have a serious and detrimental impact on the area. It will put intense pressure on health care, transport and the environment in the Roman. Your access to a doctor could suffer, your chances of getting on a bus will be even worse than at present and local schools will be increasingly oversubscribed. It is in breach of planning guidelines and puts the developer’s profits before community interests.

Write to win

Successful action by local residents forced the first planning permission to be quashed. The second is still the subject of a judicial review action. The developers are now trying to bypass the legal process with yet another planning application. We all as local residents now need to show our continuing opposition by sending letters of objection. The letters must be sent before October 25^th when the Council’s consultation period ends.  A draft letter is attached for you to adapt to your own views.

We support regeneration of the area but this development proposal is not right for this site. The supermarket and the main shoppers’ car park should have priority to preserve the Roman’s future.  Lower-density residential housing is more appropriate and in line with both local and London-wide planning guidelines.

If you would like an electronic copy of the draft objection letter, need more information or wish to offer other help to the campaign please get in touch by e-mailing savetheroman@googlemail.com.

Make your view count

Remember your letter matters. It does have an effect and it is vital if you wish to protect and change the Roman for the better. Please send it to the planning department by October 25^th quoting reference PA/10/01970 and including your name and address.

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Labour double standards

When Lutfur Rahman decided to stand against the official Labour candidate for mayor, he was very swiftly expelled from the party.

When eight of his fellow Labour councillors then declared their support for the renegade, party rules were again swiftly executed.

Harry’s Place reports that the rules are these:

The Labour Party Rules, Chapter 2, Rule A (4) (b).

“A member of the party who joins and/or supports a political organisation other than an official Labour group or other unit of the party, or supports any candidate who stands against an official Labour candidate, or publicly declares their intent to stand against a Labour candidate, shall automatically be ineligible to be or remain a party member….”

So given that the Labour party is aware of this post of mine yesterday in which Labour peer Lord Nazir Ahmed openly declares his support for Lutfur, surely they’d take similar action.

Er, no.

Here’s the statement I’ve just been sent from Labour HQ:

A Labour Party spokesperson, said: “Our focus is getting Labour’s excellent candidate Helal Abbas elected as Tower Hamlets’ Mayor. We will look into the allegations made in due course after the election.”

Talking about ducking the issue. What is there to investigate? The video only takes a couple of minutes to watch. I’ve just asked the Labour press office why it is applying one rule to the town hall and another to the House of Lords.

Watch this space…

 

 

 

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Lutfur Obama and barracks

Here’s some more detail on last night’s hustings. First off, unless someone drops a real clanger, I don’t think these events will have any effect on the outcome of the election on October 21. The audiences are relatively small and, for the most part, packed with supporters of particularly camps. Most voters won’t hear anything about them at all.

However, they do provide useful insights and they are opportunities for candidates to stick in the knife and produce wider media coverage.

With that in mind, last night we learnt that the Tories, the Greens and the Lib Dems would scrap East End Life in its current format, while both Abbas and Lutfur took the Labour line that the news-sheet played an important function, but that savings could be found.

There were two questions in particular that whipped up both the platform and the audience. The first came from someone wanting to know how much Lutfur’s decision to force out former council chief executive Martin Smith had cost taxpayers.

Disingenuously, Lutfur denied Martin had actually been forced out. He said: “It was a mutual agreement. It was not the first time a chief executive has moved on. It has happened before in this council and across the country. It was a mutual agreement and when there’s a mutual agreement you can have a financial settlement – go and check the law.”

As well as producing guffaws from the audience it also spurred Abbas into action. He said: “As people who hold public office, it’s important that we respect the integrity of everyone. I’ve seen officers come and go in my time, but no officer in my time left with a golden handshake.”

Tory Neil King went further, describing the Lutfur-led appointment of former assistant chief executive Lutfur Ali, who then moonlighted doing other work while at the town hall, as “extraordinary”. [Cllr Ohid Ahmed, who sat in front of me and who was on the panel that appointed Ali (who is now helping Lutfura Rahman’s campaign), heckled rather loudly at that one.] King added: “If I’m elected mayor, I’ll have no favours to pay back to anyone.”

Lib Dem John Griffiths said he was the “anti-mayor mayoral candidate” and added: “I’m very wary about this mayoralty falling into the wrong hands.”

The final question was asked by a young Lutfur supporter who demanded to know why people who had been against the change of council system were now standing to become mayor. I didn’t get the logic of this (is he trying to say that if the Tories lose the AV referendum next year that they should refuse to participate in the next General Election?). However, it was clearly directed at Abbas, who said he had been against changing the system and, for the first time showing some fire in his belly, added: “The Yes campaign was funded corruptly. It was funded by business interests.” [Ohid bawled out loud at this as well.]

Neil King said: “Now that the system is here, I’m determined to try and make it work. There seems to be a man running who is doing it for his own ego and very little else.”

John Griffiths moved the question on and pointing angrily at Abbas said: “If you believe in democracy, why are you here and not John Biggs.” Lutfur’s supporters loved that. “He’s looking for our second vote,” one said.

Those were some of the words. Here are some of my other observations. The event was due to start at 7pm, but did not in fact get underway until just after 7.30pm, at which time Lutfur had failed to arrive. he had been at a Youth Conference meeting in Bethnal Green and he arrived at 7.40pm just as Abbas was talking. Instead of waiting for his opponent to finish, he distracted the audience’s already struggling ears by striding to the platform to take his seat.

To compound the problems for the audience, about 200 of his supporters then arrived in groups over the next half hour. What was fascinating was their age. He does seem to have galvanised an element of the Tower Hamlets youth, many of whom seem to see their man as some sort of Yes We Can Obama figure.

This could be dangerous for Labour and Abbas. They will have to rely on a core vote who do not bother attending hustings like last night.

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