England may be out of the World Cup but the summer agony is set to continue for Tower Hamlets council and its residents.
I understand that PricewaterhouseCoopers, the auditors ordered in by Eric Pickles in the wake of the Panorama programme on March 31, have asked for another month to write their report.
They were due to file it with the Department for Communities and Local Government by June 30, but that has now been delayed until the end of July.
That might well be because they have so much more work than at first realised, or because they just need more time to reflect and analyse their findings: they’ve been inundated with information, that’s for sure.
Mayor Lutfur Rahman told BBC London radio’s Eddie Nestor last week:
I don’t believe they will find any serious irregularity in any of our governance, our financial structures or the way we run the council.
If there is any issue here, of course we will look at it and try to learn from it and try to improve on it, but don’t forget, if he was looking for fraud, he will find no fraud.
This seems an implicit acceptance the auditors will find something. Team Lutfur say that’s inevitable: put in a team of highly skilled auditors into any borough for a concentrated period of time and murky details will surface, they say. It’s just a question of seriousness.
I wonder how the council will react. I wonder whether they might even resort to their favourite tactic of hiring expensive barristers and contemplate a judicial review of the decision in the High Court.
Personally, I don’t think the auditors will find any outright fraud (on the whole, they have a good team of senior officers in Tower Hamlets) and certainly the Panorama team never made that allegation. There’s an element of ‘creating goalposts’ within the Lutfur spin camp on this.
I also think there’s an acceptance within his team that they got things wrong in the past four years on the questions of transparency and governance. Lutfur says in his fascinating interview with Eddie Nestor that he has no idea why Tower Hamlets attracts so much bad press. Well, he didn’t really help himself on the questions of perception and appearance, did he? The chauffeured Merc, the prominent associations with rogues and criminals like Shiraj Haque (I’ll be kind and say ‘the former’) and Mohammed Mahee Ferdhaus Jalil (twice the latter), the failure to answer questions in council, the failure to attend hustings etc etc.
He has a much bigger group of councillors to manage this time as well and hopefully they will ensure these matters are addressed. He’ll probably enjoy the challenge.
Here’s the interview with Eddie Nestor: it’s 20 minutes but certainly worth a listen.
As for the council’s commitment to transparency, I leave you with this FOI response they gave me yesterday. I’d asked for all invoices supplied by the Champollion, the expert PR outfit they hired to counter the Panorama programme.
Here are the invoices they supplied:
Here’s the explanation:
In terms of the Champollion contract the Council officers took the view in late January 2014 that in order to ensure the position of the council was clearly represented to the production company and the commissioning organisation, specialist media advice was required.
The in-house media team did not have specialist knowledge about the operation and application of the BBC’s editorial guidelines and were already occupied in managing an existing workload.
A brief was produced and a Record of Corporate Directed Action (RCDA) was signed by all relevant officers to consider the procurement issues involved. Given the short timeframe and the specialist nature of the advice required a longlist of specialist PR firms was identified. Four companies were then invited to apply after receiving a brief and invited to interview.
Section 36 (2)(b)(i) has been applied to the financial elements of both contract and internal discussion between officers on the basis that their disclosure would inhibit the imparting or commissioning of advice subject to the public interest test and information relating to financial and business affairs which could prejudice the Council achieving its obligation to obtain best consideration from the use of its resources and the best value from the procurement process.
Section 36(2)(c) has been applied to elements of the Champollion contract as the brief point 4 (a specific requirement concerns seeking strategic or tactical advice from the contractor) and point 8 (dealings with the BBC) and this forms part of the internal thinking space of the Council which if it were to be released would prejudice the effective conduct of public affairs. The Council needs to be able to examine the options.
Bollocks.
Erm those invoices have been redacted to the point of, well, pointlessness.
Am I missing something? (Apart from the information that was requested.)
Tim.
Quite. They will appear in the payments to suppliers data next month in any case.
How long will this go on,is Lutfur still getting paid while this is going on? If found guilty of any wrongdoing will he repay and rescind any grants ,payments made?
Or will it all drag out untill we are supposed to forget?
The visible parts of the invoices do not detail what resources Champollion put into each segment of work i.e. number of people, numbers of hours worked nor do they indicate the hourly or daily rate charged. So even if the invoice value was disclosed there is no way that anybody else would really be able to work out whether this was commercially acceptable or not and whether it met the best value test as you have no idea how much work was actually done. It might be worth doing a FOI on the purchase order number 8032958 as that should detail the services that Champollion were asked to provide by the council, so even if the value is redacted it should detail what they were asked to do.
What a joke – how can we expect the mighty Tower Hamlets to tell the people how they spend our money!
What about the sale of Poplar Town Hall?
What I find disgusting is we the local taxpayers of Tower Hamlets have to foot the £1m bill for Pickles’ audit? Doesn’t anyone else fail to see the irony of this?
What I find almost as disgusting is the lack of outcry from commentators here about the £1m bill having to be coughed up by rate payers. Do you really think that we should be paying for a politically motivated audit, which you yourself Mr. Jeory, are finally acknowledging that will not find any fraud or serious malpractice that isn’t going on in any other Council up and down the country?
Mr.Jeory you said:
“That might well be because they have so much more work than at first realised, or because they just need more time to reflect and analyse their findings: they’ve been inundated with information, that’s for sure.”
I believe there might perhaps be a third reason, being Don Pickles didn’t like what he read from the draft report/initial chats with PwC, so he has told them to go find more, or they’ll not be winning another contract out of DCLG ever again.
Whatever way this sorry saga ends let’s be done with it, so we can all move forward.
It was only ever envisaged that an interim report would be submitted by the end of June so Pickles wouldn’t have seen it yet. There is no evidence for your other claims.
The Mayor left no paper trail detailing his reasons for widespread overturning of his officers’ recommendations on grants. He could have saved the TH council tax payers £1m by explaining clearly and in writing why he was overturning recommendations made by people with sound financial experience.
If it takes £1m to get an explanation of how decisions were made about which organisations to give grants to, and how much money to give each one, then as a council tax payer I don’t have a problem with that.
The last time an investigation was set up into alleged wrongdoing by lading politicians it cost a lot more than £1million. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-89909/Law-Lords-order-Dame-Shirley-pay-27-million.html
The politician in question was surcharged £27 million.
The Westminster gerrymandering case is always worth a read for students of local government http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homes_for_votes_scandal
There are some who think it a very great pity that surcharge has been done away with. By and large in most councils it had the desired effect of keeping most Councillors on the straight and narrow.
One does wonder what decisions might have been made differently in Tower Hamlets if a surcharge was currently applicable to any individuals who may have acted in a way which was ultra vires and cost the Council money and/or lost revenue.
‘doshnombororsassa’ you make some really good points which are refreshingly non-partisan on this blog. I am so angry about our hard earned Council Tax money being wasted on politically motivated Auditors … I cant see how they will uncover anything serious that justifies their daily hire cost…this to me is the real financial scandle that has been caused entirely by Pickles abusing his powers !!
Maybe we could start a redacted letter of the week? I’ve one good entry from LBTH
Re: the Eddie Netsor interview – am I alone in getting “…not currently available…” for the soundstream for this clip, on the BBC London 94.9 website?
doshnombororsassa & Ajay – Are you seriously saying that if there are genuine worries about Council accounts then no outside organisation should be called in? You mention “our hard earned Council Tax money being wasted on politically motivated Auditors”. Auditors are motivated by one thing – MONEY! They don’t care which political party it comes from. I for one want to know that my Council Tax money is spent wisely, transparently and for the good of ALL of our community. It would appear that TH hates their dirty washing aired in public, so if it takes an outside audit to find out if they have dirty washing, so be it. TH, don’t treat us like imbeciles, by blocking us from seeing financial figures you are obviously hiding something. Not very clever!
Yes, John Wright, I agree. Auditors are motivated by money and a profit motive. That’s why I made the point that Mr. Pickles wouldn’t be offering out a contract to PwC ever again if they didn’t come up with the goods and insinuated that PwC are perhaps asking for more time so they could be more forensic than they probably already have been having spent more than a few months looking at a very narrow remit.
As for your comments on financial figures, then you are mistaken as the accounts are a public document and they too are audited by KPMG and the internal audit team is contracted out to another auditing firm Deloitte. So I think it is a waste of £1m and you should be pissed off about it. Are you saying KPMG an external company who audit the accounts and Deloitte who audit the Council’s Governance and Internal Controls are also in it with the Mayor and his administration?! I’m sure we are paying enough to KPMG and Deloitte…Why do we have to pay another £1m is beyond me. We might as well call in Ernst & Young and ask them if they want a bit of Tower Hamlets action, to round up all 4 of the Big Four auditing firms in this country, who are involved in Tower Hamlets.
It just smacks of desperation and beggars belief.
I’ve said thus before but you have very little idea about how auditors work on general audits.
This is a specific, highly detailed investigation that looks far more closely than mere process checking at a higher level of materiality.
I suspect you’ll even see PwC praising elements of Deloitte’s and KPMG’s work.
Now stop getting all frightened and het up. Or go and talk to people about how auditors work.
I had this exact same conversation with Alibor a few weeks ago. I thought he got it then…
Steady on Mr. Jeory. I’m not Cllr. Choudhury. I’m better looking even though my kufi hides my bald patch. Also you’re not the only armchair expert on audit and assurance.
I would imagine a grants programme which runs into the tens of millions, providing funding to groups of volunteers would be a very risk prone area; by risk prone I mean poor controls and systems. Therefore it would make little or no sense that Deloitte being one of the biggest 4 audit firms in the world wouldn’t have covered off this area in their audit work. If there was any indication of fraud or ‘buying’ of votes, which are the main allegations by Lutfor’s detractors then I’m sure we would have heard about it. You fancy yourself as an investigative journalist, why don’t you find out where the audit report for the grants commissioning is and what was reported to the Council’s Governance Committee/Audit Committee? Or perhaps you have already and know they gave it a clean bill of health, but as you have an agenda of sorts it’s not worth mentioning?
As for stating the obvious about PwC praising the work of KPMG and Deloitte, well I also bet you my bottom takka that they’ve probably sat down and had many meetings discussing the issues. I would also very much doubt PwC would want to expose or report any malpractice that KPMG and Deloitte should have picked up on, which goes back to my original point being £1m on a poxy audit that will probably reveal nothing more than we know already is a complete waste of money and is politically driven.
Pickles is in a pickle…He should just be the bigger man (although he wins that competition nine times out of ten) and let the auditors report on what they have found instead of pressuring them to keep digging for dirt of substance.
PwC had global revenues of $32.1 billion US Dollars or about £18 billion pounds in 2013. If the work they do for Pickles is for £1m that would represent 0.01% of total revenue so I suspect that Pickles does not have quite the hold of them that you suggest. I am sure Pickles can suggest things to PwC but they wont invent evidence on his behalf. I have worked with many auditors over the last twenty years and I know the vast majority of them would not come up with the goods as you suggest, it is simply not worth it for them.
Tower Hamlets Council had a total expenditure budget of £1,191,184,000 pounds in 2013/14. Lets say the alleged fraud was for £3,000,000 pounds that would be 0.25% of the total budget. Typically auditors have limited time and resources in an audit which typically only take a few weeks to perform. They are not going to spend a lot of time on the 0.25% but will focus on the big numbers.
External auditors do not specifically look for fraud (internal auditors would though) as they rely on managers telling them the truth although they will report it if they find it and will advise on an organisations internal controls (I just finished an audit two weeks ago). Also auditors tend to focus internally on an organisations own records, they will double-check some things externally like bank account balances but wont typically focus on what is happening externally as it is not part of their remit.
While I was financial controller at the London Olympics Delivery Partner I was being audited (as part of the normal process) by the companies internal audit manager, by PwC as our external auditors, by the Olympic Delivery Authority internal audit (performed by E&Y) and the National Audit Office (who I think had employed KPMG). I can tell you that they all look at slightly different things, none of them fully understood how it all worked and had I wished to I could have quite easily hidden things from them.
I suspect that PwC will find that the council followed its own internal processes, that people with the delegated authority to make decisions did so, that the paperwork was properly filled in and the i’s dotted and t’s crossed. But just because due process was completed does not make the due process complete.
It is only by looking externally at other organisations as well as THC, understanding who controls those organisations, what happens to any money and then linking it all together will they find anything and that is normally something that the police do and not auditors.
The perfect explanation.
John Wright- You seem to have over-looked the basic fact that All Councils get externally audited including TH who were only recently given a clean bill of health by KPMG and finances checked and approved by the Labour controlled Audit Committee. What will PWC find that will be radically different from KPMG? Will PWC really break their professional code of conduct to please Fat Pickles and loony Labour sore losers? I don’t think so !!
As Imran mentioned on this blog few months ago….”Unless there is a criminal conviction which bars Rahman from office, he ain’t going nowhere. What’s are the chances of that happening?
I also agree with him that..” the likely outcome of the inspection will be criticism of mismanagement. Rahman will pass the buck to Council officers, sack a few and move on. There is unlikely to be sufficient direct evidence to implicate him to any corruption. I haven’t heard any direct accusations here or anywhere else. Its all conjecture”
”Money has been redirected to Bengali and Somali communites. So what? They needed money and as the executive Mayor it’s his right to decide where he thinks its needed most.
I’m not a lawyer but I can’t imagine how this can be proven to be corrupt and result in prosecution and conviction. Remember without a conviction he cannot be removed from office”.
It would be better for the Anti-Lutfur brigade to concentrate challenging Rahman through the ballot box instead of bullying him with inspectors and wasting local tax payers money.
It’s almost like Labour have given up on the bi-election and instead pinning their hope on the inspection report.
Dream on !!
You seem to know a lot, or maybe nothing, about something that has yet to be published.
Ha ha , that’s very rich and quite amusing coming from people like you Jay Kay 🙂
Even before the inspectors walked in I read many of the loony-obsessed people on this blog were opening their champaign bottles to celebrate and were making false claims that Lutfur was ‘arrested’ and had his ‘office raided’.
You and many of Anti-lutfur brigade did not even wait for Auditors report or police investigation to be completed before the election where you went out in the borough smearing Lutfur and labelling him corrupt and a fraudster despite no criminal convictions proven in court.
Did you think that was fair and ethical? You thought by smearing him you will swing the election in your favour but the people of borough thought otherwise 🙂
You are an idiot. You know nothing about what I did or didn’t do. Go away and stop making yourself look even more ridiculous.
I agree with Ted, the PWC report probably won’t find outright fraud, and management are doing a good job in meeting the needs of residents in very difficult circumstances.
Does this Transparency International report also mirror the Tower Hamlets experience?
http://www.salfordstar.com/article.asp?id=2038
Well said Max 👍but this won’t ever satisfy the self-obsessed haters who will not rest until Lutfur is taken out by any hook or crook method !!
I am hearing that ”Cllr Josh Peck lost the Lovebox hearing at Thames Magistrates court now and will cost the Council £26,000 in legal costs”
Is this true Ted and have you got any info about this?
Here we go again with the cries of victimisation in face of exposure.
As I have expressed previously:
* If you believe in democracy then you must fight for it.
* Serious questions are being asked by people who live here and they need to be explored.
* The person who lost the election has already accepted defeat.
* It is not enough for the election to be fair and accurate. We have to know that it was fair and accurate.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/10917142/Arrest-over-car-boot-full-of-voting-forms.html
?
Raven, You’ve put up an article by Andrew Gilligan have you? I mean Andrew is the most reliable of sources isn’t he??
Is it at all possible that the report has been delayed because of the by-election in Blackwall and Cubitt Town?
Boring, I know, but…
Raven, I wonder if you would be saying that if the ‘victor’ was anybody other than Lutfur? Would the many detractors and so called democracy champions that appear on this blog be launching legal petitions to ‘know the results were fair and accurate’ if Biggs had won even by a handful of votes? Would they have supported Lutfur if he had lost and then THF launched a legal petition challenging the results because he was smeared unfairly by his opponents?
We all know the answer to this …NO
That’s because sadly we are not seeing real genuine champions of democracy and fair play. What we are witnessing is a ‘scorched earth’ strategy of the anti-Lutfur brigade whose only game plan is removing him by any means neccassary even at the expense of local taxpayers.
In doing so they are continuously bringing this borough into disrepute and tarnishing the image of everyone for purely party political purposes.
Really, can I suggest that if all you have to add to this blog is childish whataboutery conspiracy theories, you expound them elsewhere.
These comments do become pretty boring for most readers after a while.
“childish whataboutery conspiracy theories”?? Are you talking about your blog ted?
You REALLY don’t like to be challenged do you ted?
No, Ajay, you’re right. If Biggs had won by a handful of votes there would not be petitions laid. But then, Biggs, had he won, would not have won solely by saying to white churches in Tower Hamlets “I’m your man; vote for me and you will get massive grants, signed off by me, for the church”. And indeed had Biggs followed such a line (and I should point out there’s no evidence he did. and it really is not his style) he would have been called out by the Labour Party at large.
And yet this is what Lutfur has, as we all know, offered to the mosques. He (Der Fuhrer of ‘Tower Hamlets Furst’) faces no internal dissent within his made up party. Tower Hamlets council officers loyal to him happily waive off millions of pounds of corrupt financing.
That is why the treatment is different; different circumstances, different treatment.
The report has been delayed because there is nothing to report. simple.
It is quite interesting how cetrain people change their tone:
‘fraud!’
‘mismanagement’
‘Favouring Bangalis’
‘Favouring Bangalis only’
‘Lack of transparency’
‘everythingg is OK its only Luthfur’
The bottom line is some of us are very bad losers!!!
The Nazi references attributed to Lutfur Rahman would be more appropriately referenced with the Labour machine and its media spin doctors. Sour losers indeed.
What Nazi references?
I think you are mistaken, Ted.
The auditors will show no laws have been broken, That is almost a given amongst the cognoscenti in Tower Hamlets. Eric Pickles’ wonderful Localism Act makes it a-ok for councils to give money to misogynistic fascistic Islamist micro-groups, operating out of portakabins (funding for said portakabins largely having been given by L Rahman’s Labour council in 2008-2010, one J Peck the money man at the centre of these)
In the absence of any investigation by PWC (why would they? A bunch of auditors based at Waterloo? They’re chasing sheafs of paper saying “I the undersigned L Rahman decree the following thousands should be given to the Stepney Green Portakabin, the Poplar Portakabin, name yer Portakabin, the money is hereby legally given”. When they find those sheafs it will be business as usual)
They will find their sheafs of paper. But that doesn’t answer whether that money is morally given. I contend it was not.
There is 68% of the population of this borough, out of whom about 2% of those who voted voted for L Rahman. That is enough for him to be illegitimate; he is the Bengali Mayor, working for Bengalis only.
Let us imagine in Bradford; a racially divided city, where only 40% of the population is white, but where George Galloway can get himself elected – let’s imagine a BNP candidate whipped up the white population, said you are under attack, and got himself elected on the basis of fear.
Any such BNP mayor would, I don’t doubt, be removed from office by DCLG almost immediately, before he could start setting up a 100% white council cabinet, or funding extremist, BNP-supporting, Christian churches off the rates, or funding white-only pensioners lunch clubs, or any other of the dodges Lutfur, mutatis mutandis, is merrily pulling.
But in Tower Hamlets the direct equivalent is alright.
Sod whether the auditors find for or anti Lutfur. The man is only interested in Bengali votes, and funding Bengali lunch clubs or Bengali pensioners centres, no matter how corrupt; he needs to removed by central government now.
Hi WHS,
Quick response to your comment:
Really, can I suggest that if all you have to add to this blog is childish whataboutery conspiracy theories, you expound them elsewhere.
These comments do become pretty boring for most readers after a while!
Am challenged every day, David. That’s why journalism is so interesting.
The comments I referred to aren’t. They’re very repetitive and boring. You can do better, surely. ?
Oh dear, what a shame, I really ought to shut up offering truth to power. As you can’t take it, I ought to just go away.
How about facing up to the fact Lutfur is a Bengali supremacist who, thanks to a 99% turnout from Bengalis, manages to take control of a borough with a 32% Bengali population, and then uses that to funnel millions of public money at Bengalis?
Oh, yawn, yawn, too boring, conspiracy theory, such a bore
The upshot is democracy in Tower Hamlets has failed. Corrupt immigrants have succeeded; time for the Lutfurites to be suspended, and Eric Pickles to impose government from Whitehall. Labour are in the grip of the same Bengali-supremacist clique and cannot be considered ‘the alternative’, when they are two cheeks of the same backside.
So sorry if an anti Bengali-fascist point of view is too boring for you, “David”.
The comments of WHS and other right wing commentators are typical of the paranoyed and conspiritorial mindset that is rarely challenged by Ted no matter how ludicrous their claims / arguements are?
Well put, WHS
‘part of the internal thinking space of the Council’ – WTF you are local government and not a private media agency –
If PWC report finds no criminal case to answer I am expecting Pickles, Ted, Gilligan and co to bend down and offer the bare backside for Rahman to spank or do anything else he pleases. You might enjoy the experience Ted, I hear Rahman is very gentle.
Avoid Alibor though…..
Rahman + IFE = Gilligan & co = Pickles
Rahman – IFE = NO to Directly Elected Mayor vote = Better days
Ajay – My point about financial documents referred to those that Ted put up regarding the expenses that had the amounts blacked out. I really cannot understand how they can be financially sensitive. I agree with the rest of your comment.
Ted – I and probably many of us hope that you have received a specially engraved invite to the next Council meeting. Have you?
Phallically engraved.
Don’t be arrogant Ted, get there in time. We all love your reporting, wouldn’t want you to be standing behind a pillar again.
Getting to a 730pm start meeting at 720pm isn’t ‘in time’?
Get there 15 early next time.
On a serious not, you’d expect to have reserved seats for journalists. Does this happen? If so…
You’d except the journalist seats to be taken on first come first serve bases by those journalists who turn up. Do you agree?
You’d expect no journalist to be given preferential treatment. Do you agree?
Would you therefore agree if a journalist turns up and finds these seats are taken by other journalists, he or she should not complain.
Actually, I think those who turn up regularly and who have a track record of reporting council meetings should be afforded some weighting should any dispute arise.
I’ve always been disappointed about the lack of Bengali press at these meetings.
Anyway, I’m sure all this will be debated next month.
I think we should petition for the pillar in question to have a brass plaque engraved:
“Ted Jeory’s Pillar of Wisdom. This was the scene of the Battle of Mulberry Place, where local hero and journalist was escorted off the premises by Takki Suliman’s private army of THEOs. This incident marked the beginning of the end of the reign of Lutfur, Tower Hamlets first and only directly elected mayor. An Act of Parliament banned the election of directly elected Mayors in the borough following the publication of a report by government minister Eric Pickles in 2020”
I have no issues with external auditors coming in to do a professional job and I think it was a big mistake by the Tories in getting rid of the Audit Commission in the first place.
What I do have issues with is the unfair focus on Tower Hamlets. Every year lots of local Councils get poor audit reports but it hardly hits the headlines and nobody bats an eye lid but whenever a mouse farts in Tower Hamlets it makes the front pages and is turned into a national scandle. Why is it that Tory led Councils such as Croydon, Somerton, Gloucester and others get damning audit reports and nobody accuses them of fraud and corruption? In TH before Auditors had walked in or published their report you had the Labour / Tories and UKIP activists telling voters on their doorstep that Lutfur is corrupt and his adminstration are involved in fraud? This alongside the daily accusations peddled by Gilligan, Mail, Express and Standard that his an Islamist extremist with a plot to turn TH into an Islamic republic.
As Ted himself said these were serious and damaging smears used againt LR which now seems to be conveniently forgotten by people like WHS, Max, Jay Kay and other sore losers on this blog who bang on about unfair election campaigns. Why the selective amnesia, different treatment and hypocrisy in your outlook?
Where have I said anything of the kind? Stop making things up, it just shows how desperate and deluded you are. Speaking of smears, you have conveniently forgotten the smears from Lutfur’s camp in 2010?
1. I Googled those councils and can’t see anything (not even local blogs) which refer to damning audit reports. Is that because of a giant conspiracy or because they don’t exist?
2. Ignoratio elenchi is not a defence. If there is something wrong in TH, it’s not a defence to say “well there’s something dodgy going on elsewhere”.
3. I second Ted’s view that your (and some others’) posting is getting terribly dull. You post several times on the same article, always in a childish/aggressive tone and generally speak nonsense.
4. Spellcheck is your friend.
All the best
Chris
Somerton Audit Report:
http://www.audit-commission.gov.uk/wp-
content/uploads/2012/11/somerton2012pir.pdf
and the press release:
http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20120409041620/http://audit-commission.gov.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/Pages/somertontcpirpr.aspx
My impression is that the issues in Tower Hamlets are far bigger than those in Somerton.
We are awaiting the outcomes of several investigations – the police, the auditors, the high court, the electoral commission.
Too many contributors to this blog are writing as if they already know what the outcomes will be.
Chris, some people living in Tower Hamlets may have poor literacy, don’t be surprised by this, there’s no need to be rude. Goodbye Max
This has always been the Mayor’s defence. Like he says he can use nearly £100,000 of our money for a luxury chauffeur driven car because other boroughs do it. Doesn’t make it right.
I think external auditors inspecting our council governance is long overdue.
If Rahman had any integrity he’d permanently scrap his taxpayer funded chauffeured Mercedes and admit it is a total waste of our money.
Why does’nt he use public transport, and as a last resort use a minicab?
Because, Ajay, in Croydon, Somerton or Gloucester (not I must admit that I know much about those places) is there a racial divide, where candidate A from one racial or religious community X, gets elected, and is immediately accused of funnelling money towards racial or religious community X,
I’ll admit it; you say those three authorities have been damned by the auditors, and I don’t know, I don’t spend my life looking into Somerton’s accounts (is there an authority called Somerton by the way? I know it’s in Somerset, isn’t it in South Somerset?) but I’ll guess there isn’t there a leader elected from a minority racial or religious group who has a 100% cabinet made up of his racial or religious buddies, busy shovelling money to whatever the equivalent is of the Wahabbis, then busy claiming X-ophobia (Druidophobia, if you have to claim a phobia in Zummerzet)
Here in Tower Hamlets it’s a world apart, and your analogies don’t hold water. Every penny spent by Lutfur is rotten. I don’t care if he can win elections (won through shovelling public money at mosques, and winning the votes of the adherents therein); I don’t care if PWC clear him (through shovelling public money at mosques; and PWC being too fearful of race riots to deem shovelling money at mosques corrupt). Shovelling public money at mosques is corrupt, regardless of what the law says, full stop.
I live on the Island and will not be voting Tory, Labour or THF. Many comrades worked tirelessly hard campaigning for THF and in the end not a single black or white candidate was elected, every single THF Councillor is Bengali and only one is female.
My vote will go to TUSC, which is the only party that clearly calls for opposition to austerity. Here is an article entitled ‘Fighting for young people in the Blackwall and Cubitt Town by election’ written by Ellen Kenyon Peers who is one of the 2 TUSC candidates.
http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/18814
In solidarity
Paul
On the 22nd May in the neighbouring ward of Canary Wharf with a very similar population mix to that of BCT, the TUSC candidate Neil Cafferky got 58 votes and came last out of 9 candidates. In Island Gardens the TUSC candidate also came last with 100 votes.
It is the holy month of Ramadan starting from tomorrow. I am wishing peace and happiness to all my brothers and sisters in Islam and outside Islam. My Abrahamic cousins also fast in different shapes and forms. Wishing solidarity with all.
Take care and debate with respect everyone.
Ramadan Mubarak everyone. Muslims are forbidden from fighting, arguing and misbehaving in general for the next 30 days. Hope they rush through all of the Council meetings.
[…] the report’s delivery date has been put back, but I’m not the only one who thinks it looks that way. Meanwhile, those behind the election petition challenging the outcome of the mayoral election on […]
Noticed this week’s EEL has a 4 page wraparound for Islam Aid or something like that. I wonder if the full commercial rate was paid for this (some £10k I would guess) or was it a case of “let’s give it for nothing”?
Well, well, well, TH withholding documents, never!
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