This week’s Panorama shone a light on how Lutfur Rahman runs Tower Hamlets, his unwillingness to account for himself publicly and his use of public funds. Others have highlighted the transfer of public buildings to his supporters, his profligate spending, his questionable judgement and his intensely divisive politics.
Yet it is his abject failure on issues of policy that is the real tragedy of the last three and a half years, and the reason why it is imperative that Labour’s John Biggs wins the mayoral election next month.
To say that Tower Hamlets is one of Britain’s poorest boroughs is to tell only half our story: while half of our residents receive some form of benefit, another 10 per cent earn over £100,000. We have the second highest unemployment rate in London, despite there being almost three jobs for every two residents of working age here. We are a borough of huge opportunity, yet it passes too many local people by.
Getting our residents into good-quality, long-term jobs has to be a priority for any mayor but Rahman’s record is poor. The council’s construction training centre was closed down just as London’s housebuilding market came back to life, while local employers are so put off by how the current mayor operates that they now run their job schemes without reference to the council, leading to fragmentation and overlap.
When Tower Hamlets is compared to neighbouring Labour boroughs, it is clear how bad things are. Just next door in Newham, Robin Wales last year got over 5,000 residents into work through his Workplace jobs brokerage and training scheme. In Tower Hamlets our rate is a fraction of that, despite having many more jobs. Most starkly, while both Hackney and Newham saw falls in unemployment as a result of the Olympics, our rate actually rose.
Basic quality of life issues are also on the slide: our street cleaning has been cut by 50 per cent and the introduction of charges for bulk waste collection has seen 7,000 fewer collections by the council, most of it simply flytipped instead. Crime is up by 1.4 per cent since 2010, despite having fallen by up to 10 per cent in nearby boroughs. Our public parks are increasingly seen as sites for raising revenues from commercial events and festivals rather than the green lungs our overcrowded population so desperately needs.
On education, Rahman’s record is little better. Our focus on results when we ran the council transformed the education landscape here: in 1998 our schools were among the worst in the country, but by the 2010-11 academic year, when Labour lost power to Rahman, our schools significantly outperformed the national average. It is a Labour achievement for which he likes to claim credit but the much-needed next stage of that journey, getting our post-16 provision up to a similar standard, has been woefully neglected, and our graduate unemployment is now one of the highest in the country, leaving many young people trapped in a cycle of worklessness and poverty.
Running a council and transforming a place has never been easy. But, with local government facing a ferocious, ideological onslaught from this coalition government, it is tougher than ever. Delivering a progressive future for local residents means redesigning how we deliver services, building partnerships with other public services, business and the third sector, paying attention to the detail of policy, innovating and creating, taking tough decisions, and leading from the front. Whatever you think of the allegations of corruption, cronyism and divisive politics – and I am clear that the way things are done here has no place in a modern democracy – it is the very basics of running a council on which Rahman fails local people the most.
The election next month is our chance to put Tower Hamlets back on the side of local people, to have a council that listens to their concerns, that fights their corner and that makes a positive difference to their lives. John Biggs has set out a positive, progressive set of policies for how he would run our borough and start to turn things around. The contrast between the two could not be clearer. And the stakes for the people of Tower Hamlets could not be higher.
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Joshua Peck is former leader of the Labour group in the London borough of Tower Hamlets
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To help John Biggs beat Lutfur Rahman in Tower Hamlets, you can sign up here
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Photo: Alan Denney
He seems to have refuted all the Panorama allegations in the Standard, here:
http://www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/lutfur-rahman-on-panoramas-the-mayor-and-our-money-9229457.html
And Ken Livingstone says here his policies are excellent: first living wage borough, free school meals, EMA, energy coop.
http://www.live.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-26835707
Is this just another slimy attack by Progress?
And what about the election fraud that is alleged to have occurred in Tower Hamlets? It is rotten to the core. However, hooray for another Ken Livingstone own goal, lets hope this puts the nails in his political coffin!
Err, maybe because it’s not try?there’s no evidence! The cops have investigated 100 times, spent so much money writing 100 page public reports which you can read online. Wouldn’t you expect them to find a shred of evidence if it were true?
Anyway, even if it were true, why would it be Lutfur Rahman’s supporters and not John Biggs’ supporters committing the fraud? How would you know who people were voting for? It’s a secret ballot, remember! Or are you just assuming it would be Rahman because he’s black and Biggs is white? Which is why the panorama programme was made – there are 16 democratically elected mayors in the UK and yet the programme – and Progress it seems – just happens to obsessively focus on unseating the only black one. Coincidence?
ER, Ken Livingstone is also white! Is this some kind of reverse racism? We have several Bangladeshi councillors in Camden, one of them was the mayor last year and they are perfectly honourable.
In reply to Jno: the failings of having a directly elected mayor with excessive and uncurbed powers is exactly why the Tories brought in the system and precisely why most cities voted against it, they had more sense.
I find it incredible that folk don’t see Lutfur’s faults. His way of doing things is divisive. If you make decisions in secret and don’t do your democratic duty by attending Overview and Scrutiny meetings to answer queries then what are people supposed to think? And the high turnover (and legal costs) of council top brass is something special in Tower Hamlets under LR.
tory boy is a twat
except he does attend o&s once a year and cabinet members attend the rest. as has been the tradition in tower hamlets for years. only becomes an issue when a brown mayor is in charge.
No. Tower Hamlets doesn’t have a tradition of having a directly elected mayor. He is the first. That is kind of the whole point: A directly elected mayor is a new way of doing things. I didn’t vote for it and the autocratic way your friend has done things is doing a good job of ensuring it won’t be around long enough to become a tradition. The system is failing and lacks sufficient checks and balances..
John Biggs for Mayor is fine, but can he get a few LABOUR voters to VOTE for him next month?
Show me some statistics on unemployment on age groupings in TH? eg, 60% of Tower Hamlets [male] workforce who are currently unemployed are 18-25 year olds. JB should really worry about that statistic and think of ways to get the above [group] out of bed to vote.
Shambles. Little wonder Boris J laughs at us.
“Racism is dead” [?] … after reading this mini-micro-snapshot of opinion it seems to me back to the drawing board. You folk in London’s Tower Hamlets are watched by billions worldwide to see how the United Kingdom leads the way in racial harmony. Even Bradford’s residents are not so openly “hate-your-neighbour on the basis of colour”. Flabbergasted. Disgraceful to allow your petty hates to expose yourselves to ridicule and directly show an image which does not truly reflect the opinion of 95% of our people in United Kingdom. Its a mess, Ed, get JB to do something [PRONTO]or it can only get worse.
The majority of the white working class despise him. He is seen as homophobic and corrupt opening more Mosques and closing down more pubs. Most of his votes are from the islamic community.