Fun with Numbers - Is Lutfur Rahman Innumerate or Just Putting a Favourable Spin on Tower Hamlets' Crime Figures?
Posted on | Sunday, 22 July 2012 | No Comments
On the subject of Crime, the Mayor has informed us, variously:
"I know that crime and the fear of crime is an issue for our borough even though crime is falling - 2.7% drop in overall crime (744 fewer crimes), including knife crime – down by 10.4% since the previous year (50 fewer incidents)" Tower Hamlets Web site Community safety"Overall crime is down 30% since 2003" East End Life, 9 July 2012
(Note: the picture of THEOs comes courtesy of EEL: their agenda seems to be to link them, not the Met with any perceived crime reduction)
Now, the above statements by Lutfur Rahman are all pretty impressive, if taken on face value. I mean to say, 'overall crime down more than 20% over the last 3 years'. That's a huge turnaround. One can't deny it's a staggeringly profound achievement - am I right? Yet some may say this is all propaganda, even intentionally meant to deceive. But what possible grounds would detractors have for challenging these figures? Surely Lutfur Rahman wouldn't lie on a matter as serious as crime statistics in the Borough - would he?
Perhaps we should consider the official Metropolitan Police figures as grounds to challenge the Mayor's version? You decide..
Here is an extract of the official crime statistics for the Borough courtesy of the Metropolitan Police DoI Reporting Service:
Tower Hamlets Offences
2005 22,560
2006 29,677
2007 29,385
2008 26,811
2009 25,684
2010 26,884
2011 28,110
You don't need to graph this data to see that crime in Tower Hamlets has actually been on the increase since 2010.... Hang on, isn't that when Lutfur Rahman took office as Mayor?
Reference: Freedom of Information Request Crime Statistics Tower Hamlets 2005 - 2012
The Tragedy of Assigning Responsibility for Regeneration to Petty Politicians and Institutionalised Planners/Developers
Posted on | Monday, 16 July 2012 | 1 Comment
Or, how an opportunity to infuse social enterprise life-blood into the ailing, lifeless body of Tower Hamlets' Bromley-by-Bow Ward was scuttled by uncreative, unimaginative philistines, responsible for regeneration and planning.
None of us are in denial over the incriminating reality that in England around 1.75 million households are on the social housing waiting lists. As the demand for social housing has increased, so the supply has withered - there has been a drop of 1.7 million in the total number of social homes, from 5.5 million in 1981 to 3.8 million in 2009-10. But we need to realise that lack of work is a major cause and consequence of homelessness, eroding skills and self-esteem and acting as a practical obstacle to finding and keeping a home. It's no secret that job training and education can give unemployed and homeless people the skills and confidence required to get them back on track and help them prepare for, find and keep jobs.
The London Borough of Tower Hamlets contributes significantly to the huge and growing national social housing list, estimated to be 10% of the borough's population. Yet the Council continue to foster the belief that this is a legacy problem best treated by infusions of new building stock. Their solution is to squeeze more and more poor and unemployed people into fewer and smaller homes. Their focus is on the effect of this 'legacy problem' - a social housing bottleneck - rather than its cause. Councillors and MP's alike drag the chains of this misery as if it represented some high moral cause to justify their existence. We repeatedly read of how they 'represent one of the poorest boroughs in the country', yet, as we can see by this one glaring example, they compound the problem, rather than recognise the cause, and set about curing it.
As stated earlier, lack of work is a major cause of Tower Hamlets' growing social housing list. Uncontrolled immigration into the borough is another, but that is less complex and ought to be solved by closer liaison between the Council and Immigration (more on this in a upcoming blog). From the Council's point of view, the long term strategic focus must be on reducing the social housing list not by simply building more units but by reducing the need for social housing through new social enterprise and local employment which will inevitably raise the standard of living. All regeneration and development ought to be aligned with this strategic aim so that employment enablers figure prominently in any development.
Let's relate this strategic no-brainer to the recent disastrous planning approval given for the Hancock Road development in the Ward of Bromley-by-Bow. You can read how this project for 741 residential units, office space, and a huge car dealership was steam-rollered through a poorly advertised 'public' Planning Committee Meeting held in Newham by the London Thames Gateway Development Corporation (LTGDC) on 12 July 2012.
The site is historic - most in East London are. But more than this, the Hancock Road site sits adjacent to the River Lea's network of underdeveloped canals, and at the intersection of two of East London's arterial roads - the A11 and A12. It screams out for redevelopment focusing on tourism, and that means local employment and income. Think Camden Market, the fourth-most popular visitor attraction in London, attracting approximately 100,000 people each weekend. The canal fronted Hancock Road site is far better located than Camden Market. It has the potential to become a vibrate tourist destination with restaurants, bars, shops and market stalls catering for crafts, clothing, bric-a-brac, and fast food. As part of the Olympic legacy development, the canal network will be revamped and this will further add to what may have been termed, the new Bow Bridge Market becoming a major attraction.
This is a wake up call to say that the shocking LTGDC decision was wrong and the site surely ought to have been used primarily for building social enterprise initiatives/models to kindle (re)training and employment, and raise the local standard of living, not to provide more cell like social housing which only further exasperates the problem.
This is not to underestimate the importance of our social housing need, and it should be accommodated on the site as part of a balanced mixed development, but supporting the strategy outlined above.
Alas, it is now too late. Gone is the opportunity for creative regeneration, servicing local needs; our Councillors and LTGDC have seen to that.
Maintaining Pressure on the Met for an Investigation into Alleged Postal Voting Fraud in Tower Hamlets (3)
Posted on | Thursday, 5 July 2012 | No Comments
Following on from my last post on this topic, its worrying to report that the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Hogan-Howe has failed to respond as promised. Coupled with zero progress on the Commissioner front, it was necessary to remind Tower Hamlets Chief Superintendent Dave
Stringer that a response was also due from his office. Finally, on 27 June, I received a response from a PC in the Borough Commander's office advising me that New Scotland Yard's Specialist Operations Department (SO15) are now investigating the matter. The PC advised me to contact SO15 for further details.
I did as the PC suggested, and as of the date of this post, have still not received a response - not even an acknowledgement to an online enquiry although their site promises (a term the Met are not unfamiliar with it would seem) a response within 24 hours.
Keep in mind that so far I, and I'm sure many others, have made representations to Tower Hamlets Borough Council, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, and the Electoral Commission, for an open investigation into this issue.
The latest attempt is my Freedom of Information request to the Metropolitan Police. Let's wait to see whether a 4th post on this serious issue can deliver any news of progress....
Maintaining Pressure on the Met for an Investigation into Alleged Postal Voting Fraud in Tower Hamlets (2)
Posted on | Thursday, 21 June 2012 | No Comments
(1) How disappointing; the WebChat was little short of a farce, with a constant steam of unanswered questions rolling through the Met's HashTag #AskMetBoss.
As for my own questions, they received this (Private) response:
Host@MPS:
[Private Message to Grenville Mills] Hi, if you give us your contact details we will follow it up after the chat with the Commissioner? (Reply Privately)
Why a private exchange? What is it with this voting issue that causes so much subterfuge?
To compound matters, we were subjected to the following: (6 times!)
Host@MPS:
While the Commissioner answers this question please watch this video.
This is not the way forward Commissioner. A WebChat project on this scale cannot possibly succeed and you were poorly advised to launch it. It suffers from the same mentality that would have us believe an MP representing 70,000 constituents, can fairly listen to, and represent their interests. Much better you devolve this project down to your Borough Commanders and if possible Wards. This will achieve a workable ratio of public/police dialogue.
p.s. And please, if we are invited to a WebChat, no force fed videos.
(2) Finally on Thursday 21 June 2012, I was able to deliver my collective emails on alleged Postal Voting Fraud prior to the Spitalfields and Banglatown bi-election personally to the Met's Borough Commander, Chief Superintendent Dave Stringer. On Friday I received a call from his office to say that a formal response will be issued next week.
Maintaining Pressure on the Met for an Investigation into Alleged Postal Voting Fraud in Tower Hamlets (1)
Tomorrow, Thursday 21 June, I will be (1) joining the Metropolitan Police Commissioner's afternoon WebChat during which I will raise the issue of alleged Postal Voting fraud prior to the Spitalfields and Banglatown bi-election, and (2) in the evening I will be attending a Community Briefing by Tower Hamlets Chief Superintendent Dave Stringer, during which I will again raise this issue, specifically:
Why Tower Hamlets Chief Superintendent Dave Stringer has not answered THREE emails concerning accusations of electoral fraud prior to the Spitalfields and Banglatown bi-election. For reference, the Electoral Commission stated that it does not have power to investigate alleged electoral fraud and it is the responsibility of the Police. The Police have so far not even provided (separately requested by me) a single point of contact for electoral offences.
In light of the exceptionally high and unprecedented postal vote and rejection rate during the bi-election, there is ample justification for the Metropolitan Police to investigate and they were asked to:
1. Interview each of the 956 constituents who submitted a postal vote to establish whether any were forced to vote under duress (a clear risk in postal voting), and
2. Examine each of the 135 rejected PVS and in the case of fraudulent signatures/submissions, prosecute as appropriate. (These documents will be destroyed after 1 year)
To recap:
40% of votes were Postal (i.e., 956)
Of these the reject rate was 14% Reject (i.e., 135)
The margin of victory was just 43 votes
Anti Social Behaviour and Lutfur Rahman's Cheeky Roadshow
Posted on | Sunday, 17 June 2012 | No Comments
There is an old East-End Music Hall monologue that starts, "Saturday night in Bethnal Green, naptha lamps a-flarin' Along the gutters for nearly a mile, and men and wimmen blarin". Times have changed in a 100 years, but we can still find a modern version of long lost Music Hall entertainment at the Town Hall and every Sunday night courtesy of clown Lutfur Rahman's East End Life (EEL). This little man's army of quisling editorial staff routinely haul the integrity of a free press through the gutters of dictatorial third world censorship and cheap propaganda, and then have the gall to force this rag through every letter box in the Borough. I say 'force' as it somehow appears in letterboxes in secure apartment blocks, but then that's another issue.
Today's monologue - how much of this rag does today's Joseph Grimaldi write himself? - promotes him, his small posse of followers, and his THEOs. It's the sheer impudence of the man that's turning him from a threat into a Music Hall act. Most in the Borough will remember that the Metropolitan Police, in conjunction with Safer Neighbourhood Teams, recently completed an exhaustive series of Ward by Ward community meetings. They were big, and well resourced by the Met, SNT, and occasionally THEOs. The focus was unreservedly on anti social behaviour (ASB) and it was a Met initiative.
Notwithstanding the sheer effort and co-operation of the above exercise, scantily reported in the EEL incidentally - in fact I only remember the Met's own advertisements, Mr Rahman has ordered the penning of this piece of self publicity in today's EEL:
'Residents had the opportunity to raise their concerns about ASB....when Mayor Lutfur Rahman put on a community road show with his Deputy, and Cllr Gulam Robbani'. Gulam Robbani, remember, is the controversially elected councillor for Spitalfields and Banglatown.
Music Hall, aka Town Hall - have times changed that much after all? Perhaps the difference is that we once laughed with the clowns, not at them.
Monarchy or Republic? The Proposition is Premature
Posted on | Friday, 1 June 2012 | No Comments
On Tuesday 29 May 2012, I attended a debate at the Bishopsgate Institute entitled, 'Monarchy or Republic?’ The Panel of speakers were:
Supporting Monarchy
Jacques Arnold (former MP and member of Council of the Constitutional Monarchy Assoc)
Peter Conradi (journalist and author)
Supporting a Republic
Graham Smith (Republic’s CEO)
Joan Smith (columnist and author)
Before the debate commenced the audience were asked to vote on the proposition, 'should we end the Monarchy'. 4 voted 'no', 3 'undecided', and the remainder (around 60) voted 'yes'. The effect of this overwhelming support for the Republican argument resulted in raucous shouts of outrage whenever the Monarchists spoke and rounds of applause extolling almost every Republican viewpoint, regardless of the banality of many comments.
However, it soon became apparent to me that the whole argument of Monarchy v Republic is a side issue to whether we want to be administered within a true democratic system or a sham one. I’ve blogged many times on concerns over our democracy here, here and here.
I was one of the 3 abstainers by the way, but by the end of the evening, was left deeply concerned that so many in the audience blindly supported pro Republican arguments that were clearly flawed, or at the very least, were open to more critical debate. Here is an extract from the first speaker, Joan Smith which basically summed up the level of debate:
She commenced by proclaiming that she loves voting and elections, emphasising the value of our democratic process. Her naïve faith in what I consider to be an outdated and dysfunctional process undermined her credibility from the outset.
Next she ploughed into the quagmire of the Sovereign’s wealth, tax concessions and restricted Freedom of Information (FoI) access. Well, excuse me for mentioning this but our Government gives away unmandated sums far larger than the Sovereign's collective wealth to failed banks and in Foreign Aid. I’ve only to mention Dave Hartnett to send shivers down the spine of HMRC when they reflect on their reluctance to claw back tax owed by major corporations. As for FoI (aka transparency), hello Mr Lansley can we have that NHS Risk Report please?
Already disillusioned by the banality of the lead speaker’s arguments, Ms Smith then announced, ‘the Queen was never interviewed for the job!’ Words almost fail me on this revelation by the obviously popular columnist and author, who incidentally complained that the Queen ignored her after the prickly journalist greeted HRH (at the Palace no less) with a simple ‘hello’. One suspects she’s carried the grudge ever since. Does Ms Smith believe for example that Lutfur Rahman, Tower Hamlets ‘elected’ Mayor (elected incidentally by just 13% of the electorate) was interviewed before he took office controlling a £1billion+ annual budget and wielding almost despotic power? Or that any politician for that matter is interviewed other than by their own party electoral committees that are by definition not representative of the total electorate?
The remaining speakers swayed me to believe there is no substantive case for a Republic and I was getting an uncomfortable feeling that an angry petite bourgeoisie jealousy was bubbling to the surface through their flimsy arguments. Did this Republican cause consider that society ought to be respecting them rather than the untouchable Monarch – seen as a barrier to their own oligarchy’s upward mobility? One dreads to consider the prospect of a Joan Smith Lord Protector.
The final pitiful comment by Ms Smith was to decry the national campaign for the country to be bedecked in ‘red, white and blue’ to mark the Jubilee celebrations. But then perhaps that’s in line with a Cromwellian Puritanism that would denounce any form of revelry, or festivity. Personally I’ll be flying the flag and hanging bunting - out of national pride; the celebrations are an opportunity for the nation to unite – young and old, poor and rich, black and white. One flag, one people. For the time being at least, God Save the Queen.
Who to Trust when it comes to Reporting Anti Social Behaviour in Tower Hamlets?
Posted on | Monday, 28 May 2012 | No Comments
This week's East End Lies (EEL) reports (page 2), 'Anti Social Behaviour falls by a third in a year'. On the face of it, this is excellent news, notwithstanding the fact that credit for this is exclusively given to Lutfur Rahman and Tower Hamlets's THEO's. No mention is made of the Met's Safer Neighbourhood Teams (SNT), but we have to remember this is EEL reporting..
It's worth highlighting this EEL report as, coincidently, a recently released statistic under FoI tells us that an associated statistic for Acceptable Behaviour Contracts (ABC's) shows an overall fall of just 13%. Accepted that an ABC is distinct from Anti Social Behaviour (ASB) incidents, but nevertheless they are very closely linked.
What is also revealed by the FoI file is the worrying trend that ABC's have increased almost 4 fold for individuals under 18 Years of Age. An unpalatable reality for both Lutfur Rahman and his rag. Here's an extract from the FoI:
Acceptable Behaviour Contracts (ABC's)
Request
1. In the past 24 months, from 14th January 2010 to 13th January
2012, how many Acceptable Behaviour Contracts were signed at the
station or in its operational area? How many refused to sign? (the request was for Bow Police Station, but the Met provided stats for the whole of Tower Hamlets)
2. Of those, how many were issued to people aged under 18 years of
age?
3. What is the male/female ratio?
4. In the case of under-18s, were all parents sent a letter asking
them to attend with their children to discuss signing an ABC?
Response
During the financial year 2010-2011, Tower Hamlets had 55 ABCs signed. Of
these ABCs:
44 of those were signed by MALES
11 of those were signed by FEMALES
6 of them were signed by individuals under 18 Years of Age.
In 100% of those cases where the individual was under 18, parents received
letters asking for them to attend.
During the financial year 2011-2012, Tower Hamlets had 48 ABCs signed. Of
these ABCs:
43 of those were signed by MALES
5 of those were signed by FEMALES
23 of them were signed by individuals under 18 Years of Age
Again, in 100% of those cases where the individual was under 18, parents
received letters asking for them to attend.
As usual, you are left to draw your own conclusions on the veracity of EEL's reporting..
The Shame of Tower Hamlets' East End Life
And the shame of all those directly associated with this publication. It's a sham and we all know that, but what I find particularly distasteful and loathsome is the editorial staff's bootlicking subservience to this third world political regime, so clearly steeped in cheap propaganda, accusations of corruption and racial disharmony. It's quisling editor applies a third world meaning to the paper's byline, 'News from Tower Hamlets Council'. Let's all understand what the editor means by this, i.e., 'What Tower Hamlets Council Want You to Know'. Familiar propaganda stuff isn't it?!
Real Council News this last week would have been, as every other local 'news'paper reported - 'Councillor Arrested for after Brawl and Death Threats in the Council Chamber'. But, no, not a mention in East End Lies!
And what of the illegally hung portrait of the Führer Mayor in Brick Lane - where the planning Application was never granted and the Banner swiftly removed after unprecedented opposition. Not even a back column mention.
Clearly these newsworthy events were of a type that Mayor Lutfur Rahman and his multicultural quislings consider politically too damaging to the Mayor's image. Honest News from Tower Hamlets Council will have to wait until honest people take the helm - and write the log.
Lutfur Rahman - a step too far
Posted on | Monday, 21 May 2012 | No Comments
Left Futures, describes itself as dedicated to socialism and democracy but endorses derogatory reporting, calling a respected Tower Hamlets' Councillor a 'gay Jew', and comfortably aligning itself with the belief that biased reporting and censoring out criticism of its political drivel is all part of left wing democratic principles. Take a look at this article, published on the 19th May, and lapped up and Tweeted by Tower Hamlets' Mayor Lutfur Rahman, 'Time for Ed to apply the lessons of Bradford to Tower Hamlets'.
It seethes with the dogma of personal abuse and ignorance. And to make matters worse it moderated out critical comment. Here's their response to my comment:
.....Your comment at Left Futures is abusive and will not be published.
This is rich from an article labelling a Councillor as a gay Jew. Like me, you may ask yourself why make issue of sexual orientation and religious belief? would a celibate Christian or a heterosexual Muslim carry the same prejudiced undercurrent? Against this offensive piece of 'journalism', what did I say that they considered so abusive....just this:
"An inept, bigoted article that has found a follower in a similarly minded (here today, gone tomorrow) politician".
Hardly abusive in my humble view, critical yes, but 'abusive' no, and definitely not by their own low standards. No surprise that Lutfur Rahman's own publication, East End Lies, suffers from a similar aversion to criticism.
It's interesting, and potentially explosive to note that Mayor Rahman applauds through Twitter this article, labelling one of his own Councillors as a gay Jew! And this from a man gripping an anti-racism gun with a feather trigger!
Thank goodness for the open debate of blogs, and the freedom a good spanking allows us through Tweeting the truth.
Me on Social Networks
My Twitter Feeds
