I was at the annual Private Eye/Guardian Paul Foot Awards for investigative journalism last night and naturally the conversation with some of the most celebrated names in the profession turned to Tower Hamlets.
They’re all aware of what a basket case it is and how badly served its residents have been over the years by far too many councillors and officers.
What some weren’t aware of was the culture at officer level to try and close down journalistic scrutiny.
In the same way that Labour did for so many years, Lutfur’s administration seems to have successfully muzzled the influential Bengali media (and if Alibor Choudhury is reading this, I mean the British Bangladeshi media). The grant money and other council cash he’s chucked their way has probably helped. So too has the hiring of Channel S reporter Mohammed Jubair to work as his part-time adviser on “community media” (the job title is interesting: Jubair doesn’t have any contact at all with the East London Advertiser).
But there’s another issue. The frequency with which Takki Sulaiaman, the council’s £100k a year head of communications, rings the Advertiser to yell at impudent journalists is legendary, staff there tell me. He’s become something of a figure of fun there.
This is nothing new in Tower Hamlets. A few months after I joined the Advertiser and started investigating the council in 2005, one of Takki’s predecessors, Lorraine Langham (now the chief operating officer at Ofsted) called my editor at home and whispered to him that I was working every Saturday at the Sunday Express. She wondered whether I was in breach of my contract. My editor, the fabulous Malcolm Starbrook, put her straight: I’d already got permission to do those shifts. He was furious she had tried to get me sacked.
In 2012, the council’s then chief lawyer Isabella Freeman (now at the Homes and Communities Agency) sent me a series of erratic and poorly spelled emails and letters in which she threatened to sue me because I had likened her to an ostrich. She also seemed to determined to shut down this blog.
But what the hacks at last night’s do were most concerned about was a letter sent by Takki to my editor at the Sunday Express, Martin Townsend, in November 2012 in the run up to the Leveson Inquiry. They suggested I publish it here, which is what I’ll do.
Regular readers will remember this story I ran in October 2012 about a headhunter’s report that had been leaked to me on Murziline Parchment’s application to become council chief executive. The report was damning and suggested she was nowhere near able at that stage to do the job. The reason I published it in full (and after careful consideration) was because she was later recruited as the extremely important ‘head of the mayor’s office’ working directly for Lutfur Rahman. Her experience working for Ken Livingstone at City Hall probably helped her.
It was a classic case of public interest journalism, but Takki was incandescent. They had no legal case, so they very sneakily went to my editor to try and get me sacked.
The letter laid out a load of trumped up charges on the Editor’s Code (none of them remotely stood up), sinisterly raised the work of Leveson, and claimed I was blurring the lines between my job at the Sunday Express and this unpaid blog.
As our lawyer and my editor said to Takki in reply, there is no boundary. The blog is part of my journalistic toolkit (which frequently provided stories for the Sunday Express).
Takki had even gone to the length of checking the watermark on the scan of the leaked document I’d posted on this blog: he’d seen it had been created using ‘terryscanner’, which is a network name for a scanner allocated to my former and now retired Sunday Express picture editor, Terry Evans.
The letter was received with disbelief and hilarity. There was a discussion about whether we should even reply, but we did do, telling Takki in the politest possible terms to back off, get real and stop trying to muzzle the investigative journalism that has helped several articles and news items/documentaries in the national and broadcast media.
We didn’t hear from him again. But he’s a busy man at moment and with the election coming up, I hope he keeps it together.
Here’s the letter.
The more they try to shut you down seems to be proof that they have more to hide.
Wow. Really? The high-handed nature of that letter is as annoying as it is amusing. “Please confirm what course of action you intend to take on these three matters.” More than a hint of school snitch telling teacher, n’est ce pas?
If this blog is pi55ing off LBTH then I’ll redouble my efforts to post on it and offer you, Ted, my personal assistance in promoting it as much as possible. I shall consider my work a success when my boss is in receipt of similarly brown-nosed letters from Takki (and look forward to reading the ‘Foxtrot Oscar’ response before it is posted.)
One other point; you said that The Despicable Rahman has muzzled the influential Bangladeshi media. Is it right to infer from this that there are sections of that media that would be critical of him if they were able to?
Tim.
As Tim’s comment above, obviously you are getting to them, thin-skinned, unintelligent and vain though they are, in my opinion. As you know I’ve left the borough but still have many friends there, all of whom are being betrayed by this disgusting circus.
Circus is the wrong word, that’s fun for all the family, LBTH is bad for everyone and needs a prominent health warning.
Tim. The British Bangladeshi media know which side their bread is buttered on. Lutfur dispenses the money and they give him column inches and airtime. If John wins the situation will reverse itself.
Perhaps it’s Takki who needs to reconsider his position for being so ineffective. What happened to ‘transparency?’ Or does LBTH want to choose what to be transparent about?
I am sure hiring your friends and family are far better examples of blurring the lines of professional and personal behaviour.
But lets not be petty and try to get him in trouble with his boss.
Interesting. Tell me more..
Bit ambiguous there Luke. Can you be more specific?
What worries me is this council keeps digging their hole bigger and bigger, but no one ever falls into it. How can we give them a push?
PRECISELY my thoughts. Where does the rot stop and when is there to be a reckoning?
Tim.
In theory, an election should do that, but ‘elections’ in Tower Hamlets are often special, not in a good way.
Ted
I am pleased to see that you are getting them in a froth. Please keep up the good work.
horrible underhand behaviour from the people who are supposed to be representing us (TH Residents). Well it is fair to say that this does not represent the ordinary good people of the borough.
Join the group “Tower Hamlets Votes” on Facebook to help promote the election in May. Residents taking matters into their own hands!
Takki Sulaiaman is a failed Labour candidate who popped up in this vile run local authority is some highly paid non-job. Lets face it, he probably would not be able to find work if not for his friends at Tower Hamlets letting him in through the back door
Does anyone know anything about a Panorama programme due out soon on Lutfur and Tower Hamlets? Apparently it’s going to be particularly damning.
Sounds interesting. Something a bit more damning than the last one would be good, particularly if it could air shortly before the election. I take from your question that you don’t know much about it?
Tim.
What a horrid man Takki seems. I can’t wait until he has to try and find an honest job come May.
The employment thing is one of the reasons why the standard of candidates for senior posts in Tower Hamlets is so low. No one of any talent wants to have the borough on their CV.
For Tower Hamlets, read Royal Borough of Greenwich!
My colleague Rod Kitson and I will appear at an employment tribunal on March 12. Maybe some of you saw a piece I wrote for Press Gazette. I’ve attached it below for those who didn’t. We’ve got a great Labour MP in Lewisham (Heidi Alexander) but Ed Miliband has not replied on an issue that I believe is central to Labour’s progress (and I’m a lifelong supporter) over the next 20 years. See what you think. I’m contactable at petercordwell08@gmail.com
Keep up the good fight in Tower Hamlets!
http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/content/newspeak-quotes-written-pr-team-faces-airbrushed-history-what-it-was-edit-townhall-pravda
I hope you and your editor referred Mr Sulaiaman to the reply given in the case of Arkell v. Pressdram.
Ted I tried to post earlier but I don’t think it worked. Just wanted to say that whilst I have on occasions disagreed with you and your take on people and events. I have never found you to be other than completely professional in doing your job of holding us all up to scrutiny or ridicule as deserved. I’ve also noted that you have been big enough to correct yourself when you’ve been shown to be mistaken. I wish you many more years of good hackery and thank you for your contribution to the political and public life of the Borough.
And the feeling is completely mutual Judith: you’re someone in politics for the right reasons, not for the cabinet cash. You’re a shining example and you’re good ways will be missed. And yes, it is important to admit when wrong ~ hacks and politicians alike. It’s what we do every day in our normal lives so why be different in public.
Who purchased Poplar town hall, and how much did it sell for!!
Your report is news to the Khoodeelaar! Campaign.
This is about Taki Sulaiman failing to answer questions repeatedly put to him and to his so-called Communications Department by the Khoodeelaar! Campaign Hour that
was broadcast once a week for a few months starting on 20 September 2012.
In your ‘scanned’ copy of the letter carrying his signature, he admits to making information available to you in the knowledge that you often used the knowledge for your blog, rather for your Sunday Express pieces.
He evidently discriminated in favour of you and against us in comparisons.
He totally blocked release of all information to us.
That is by applying the thing called FoIA. As most people who have had dealings with FoIA in Tower Hakes know, that is a blocking mechanism.
As for Khoodeelaar! Campaign, we have NOT received one single answer to dozens of very detailed questions we put to Lutfur, to Rabina Khan, to anybody else in Tower Hamlets Council via “the FoIA”.
It seems that showing even more contempt to “Bangladeshi community” is
a banner Taki Sulaiman carries with impunity.
We have plenty of evidence. We shall bring in all of them should he deny this first one:
We refer here to Altab Ali. The Khoodeelaar! Campaign belongs to the Movement that mobilised the community’s Defence by holding the biggest peaceful rally in the Commercial Road on 7 May 1978, three days after Altab Ali’s murder. It it is very important to us for ever.
So when we noticed that the highly plasticky descriptions about Altab Ali’s murder
was stated as having taken place 1977 in the Bangla language text erected by the Council, we pointed that irresponsibility out.
Taki Sulaiman has failed to remove that insulting error.
So has the rest of the Council.
Fascinating stuff, and once again congratulations for exposing it.
We have exactly the same problems in Waltham Forest.
Self-evidently, you can’t have a progressive politics without transparency and accountability, and that means a local press free from harassment.
May I helpfully suggest the excellent (at crap) LBTH tackle the scandal of empty homes within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets ?
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/256090/LiveTable615.xls
reveals
Table 615 All long-term1 vacant dwellings by local authority district, England, from 2004
2009 = 1,371
2010 = 1,623
2011 = 939
2012 = 806
2013 = not yet available
Table 615 local authority1 vacant dwellings by local authority district, England, from 2004
2009 = 339
2010 = 372
2011 = 86
2012 = 192
2013 = not yet available
Table 615 Housing association vacant general needs1 dwellings by local authority district, England, from 2004
2009 = 745
2010 = 531
2011 = 511
2012 = 723
2013 = not yet available
Table 615 Housing association long-term1 vacant general needs2 dwellings by local authority district, England, from 2004
2009 = 657
2010 = 347
2011 = 371
2012 = 442
2013 = not yet available
If Mr Mayor and his expensive
really wanted to work for the citizens of TH, this appears to be one of the many issues they have blatantly overlooked (or just indifferently ignored). It seems shabby electioneering is about their limit.Curious Cat
1748 GMT Thursday 27 February 2014
KHOODEELAAR! Campaign is asserting that Taki Sulaiman directly and through those he line-‘manages’, has been neglecting to deliver due disclosure of relevant facts that the community deserves about the “local Council”.
We here add, in reference to Curious Cat’s point we have just noticed this afternoon about empty properties in Tower Hamlets, that over a period of five months, the KHOODEELAAR! Campaign Hour, a weekly radio programme, gave over one hundred separate opportunities for either Rabina Khan to come on air or for Lutfur Rahman to do so.
The offer was only limited to time. We never said what they should say.
We only had questions for them. On housing. Including on all aspects of stock.
Here are the key excerpts from one of our offers sent to the Communications unit of LBTH Council and to “the mayor’s office” on 18 October 2012. Taki Sulaiman did not take the offer up!
COPY of the email sent by Muhammad Haque in the afternoon of [1606 Hrs] Wednesday 17 October 2012 to the Council’s Communications nit being sent to “the mayor’s office” staff member [name withheld] at 0622 Hrs Thursday 18 October 2012 for the urgent attention of Lutfur Rahman
KHOODEELAAR! CAMPAIGN HOUR
[Thursdays between 1700 Hrs and 1800 Hrs]
Dear [Name withheld]
This is to refer to my original conversations and communications with you.
As you must be aware by now, I have broadcast on air invitations to BOTH Lutfur Rahman and to his “cabinet” colleague [on Housing matters] [Cllr] Rabina Khan to come on the phone or to agree to record interviews with me covering the many unanswered and pressing questions about Tower Hamlets Council on housing.
So far, neither has come forward.
Here is another invitation to both of them to come on the record and make a factually up-to-date and contextually evidentially comprehensive statement [that can be made in less than 4 minutes] addressing the many serious questions that have been raised about housing and the Council’s role and duties.
I have begun to encourage comments about the relaunched campaign for the return of the Council housing stocks BACK from the Registered Social Landlords, the RSLs.
What do those making policy decisions about housing stock and huge demand for housing have to say to this call and demand for the return of those stocks?
What Policy steps are currently in active consideration or in the process of actual implementation by the decision-making, democratically installed part of the Council to address the many aspects of the housing needs in Tower hamlets?
You should ask these cllrs directly for interviews and note what they say.
Of course Takki is the Haringey councillor who hired Sharon Shoesmith. Now, political opportunist that he is, he’s an apologist for a racist Bangladeshi Nationalist council.
By the way, Ted, kudos to you for giving this obnoxious jumped up turd the Arkell v. Pressdram treatment, but I hear that senile old fool Brooke and his colleagues at what’s left at the Advertiser after they fill it with Newham council business (59-1 vote, how exciting!) are scared witless of him and will print what he wants, so long as they can get the quota of Biggs material in too.
Can’t you have a word with the proprietors? It’s a laughing stock. Takki spends all the hours God sends trying to drive them out of business with an illegal propaganda newspaper, and they cringe and crawl to him in the hope he’ll leave them alone. What’s that called? Ah yes, appeasement.
=> WHS
Why has this increasingly putrid cesspit been allowed to blighten everyone for so long ?
Why is everyone moaning now, when this unpleasant scandal has been festering for years ?
Surely pragmatism and simple common sense says you lot should have done something about the status quo years ago ? Why didn’t you ? Scared of Mr Mayor and his bunch of heavy-weights bruisers or because you didn’t really care ?
You’ve still got a chance to form a TH residents campaigning group and fight to get a few of the council seats ….. or is this forum just a load of hot air which quickly dissipates ? Moaning is merely a first step that needs to be followed by decisive action. Moaning on its own achieves nothing.
Anyone who has seen LBTH knows change and improvement is badly needed. Sitting on bums won’t achieve any improvements.
Curious Cat.
With regards to the EEL I think most people are against it and when they did a survey I made sure I voted to get my voice heard but perhaps other people didn’t hence the paper carried on. The thing that annoys me though is when Labour were in power they supported the paper and when they were not in power they are against it. Still better late than never. I hope they won’t change their mind if they get back in power and decide to keep the paper. It needs to go. Once upon a time before many people had access to internet it served a useful purpose in providing access to local jobs. Now it is pretty much a tree killer.
The sooner we get rid of these shysters, the better. Hopefully thepeople of LBTH will come out in force (no pun intended AC), and push this lot off a political cliff.
Fingers crossed, they have left enough evidence the hold them to account for the years of abuse, wastage and asset stripping we’ve had to endure.
=> Shadwell Man
Good sentiment but devoid of anything resembling effective action.
How is everyone going to know the full extent of the rogues progress ?
Until the day the local election is officially announced, anyone can distribute leaflets critical of any potential local election candidate.without contravening any aspect of election law. One does not even need to include a publisher and printers details.
Why not devise your own leaflets, get them printed cheaply, and stick them through the doors ?
No good moaning afterwards if the wrong candidates get re-elected, is it ?
Actions speak louder than eloquent comments here.
Curious Cat
KHOODEELAAR!…..Part of your post mentioned the transfer of housing stock.
There are good Registered Social Landlords(RSL) and bad ones. The executives of the bad ones tend to be ex council officers. I naively wanted the transfer of my estate, although ominously, as a leaseholder I was not allowed a vote. (Where my human rights?) The ballot was held correctly, BUT THE BALLOT BOXES WERE OPENED AND COUNTED IN SECRET! EastEndHomes got our estate. Executives? = Ex council officers.= bad management.Somebody should check how much profit their “preferred development partners” (usually Telfords) are making from OUR land. The RSL will respond that they are providing social housing, yes they do, but a tiny percentage. They never reach the target. The council allowed this.
The greatest scandal was that the government of the day somehow allowed RSL to not come under the Freedom of Information Act (FOI). Currently I can put a FOI to our government, our council but not an RSL. Crazy or what!
=> John Wright
RSLs (Registered Social Landlords) no longer exist.
They are now, according to law, called Private Registered Providers of social housing. They are not subject to the Freedom of |Information Act 2000 or to any aspect of public scrutiny.. The Homes & Communities agency appears to loosely monitor their financial dealings.
http://www.homesandcommunities.co.uk/ourwork/general-consent-withdrawn
Once again public property has been placed in private control which is not subject to any aspect of so-called Open and Transparent and Accountable government …….. so why are councils and the government funding them, giving them land and homes at cheap prices or at no charge at all ?
The law allows tenants to run their own local ‘housing association’ including doing repairs and collecting rents. Would it work in LBTH ?
Curious Cat.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03wy4hx/Question_Time_27_02_2014/
Our TH MP was on QT. Politicos may be interested to watch. Perhaps further such publicity will be good for Tower Hamlets. Sadly Rushanara only mentioned her “London constituency” and not Tower Hamlets. still…
Reply [short] to John Wright
Just in case you missed the KHOODEELAAR! youtube report featuring you John, posted in July 2013, here is a good contextual reference for all concerned
As to the other aspects of your and others’ comments about Housing in Tower Hamlets, the KHOODEELAAR! Campaign will be posting our updated analysis in the near future.
For now, let’s say that taken as a whole, the collection of sitting “Councillors” on Tower Hamlets Council is failing to make a big anything over housing.
There is complacency and there is serious abuse of the democratic deficit that has been mounting because the secured employees in Housing have been enjoying impunity from all accountability.
The rampant conversion of ex Council Housing stock and estates into de facto private enterprise for cliques of ex-RSL-linked “housing” professions (!) has been allowed to take place over years of collusion by the Councillors CHOOSING to not ask questions and allowing the robbery to take place.
The Homes and Communicates Agency IS A JOKE!
As was the Housing Corporation. And now that Isabella Freeman is installed there, you can be certain that there will be nothing for the little people at all!
More on this and related events soon here.
1945 GMT 01 March 2014
KHOODEELAAR! – Your website has expired. Can you renew it so we can see what you’re all about?
There are between 160,000 to 250,000 online results for KHOODEELAAR! even now.
But that is not at all a condition for finding out what Khoodeelaar! has been saying about Tower Hamlets Council. There is plenty of our contemporary stuff on line, on youtube as well as in general accessible texts.
That video report featuring John Wright should be self-explanatory.
It is about KHOODEELAAR! action for a democratic Tower Hamlets Council which took place in June 2013.
In September 2013 too, we put a petition to the Council, focussing once again on the
transferred Council housing stock and the disservice by the ones controlling those stocks.
A year ago, in February 2013, the KHOODEELAAR! Campaign was approached by residents in the Vallanace Road/Whitechapel Road area with lists of grievances against one of the ex-RSLs that had abused its position. We organised a petition which was delivered on 30 April 2013 to the Council. It was done with reference to the Council’s Pledge given a decade earlier at the time of the stock transfers.
It took a few months before the Council listed it in June 2013 as part of the Agenda of Council Meeting.
That is when John Wright began filming the proceedings….
1355 GMT
London Sunday 02 March 2014
Domain Name: KHOODEELAAR.COM
Registrar URL: http://www.domainbox.com
Creation Date: 2006-01-26T00:00:00Z
Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2014-01-26T00:00:00Z
KHOODEELAAR……I so agree with you.
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