The © Muhammad Haque Daily Ethical, Democratic and Economics Commentary

 

 

 

 

0240 Hrs GMTLondon
Monday13 August 2012

 

The © Muhammad Haque daily Ethical, Democratic and Economics Commentary

The SHEER IDIOCY of  behaviour concerned of those involved on BOTH sides of the latest “spectacle” staged around the name and the institutionality of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets YET AGAIN confirms my thesis that it is very important to consider the ethical, moral and the universally understood fitness of persons who crave “elected posts or office” before any of them is processed through to “stand  for election to a public position for the Party”.
Otherwise, the community affected ends up being hoisted in the most unwanted way!

How is it possible that during the last week of the “Games”, allegedly “hosted” by “Four local Councils” including Tower Hamlets Borough Council, when the UK mainstream media and all the conceivable OTHER media outlets have  been engaged in playing the “very high feel good” tune, the London Borough of Tower Hamlets Council manages to get itself into the “local” “newspaper” outlet by staging a spectacle concerning claims, counter claims about a guest  allegedly invited or not - from a Party in Bangladesh!

 

The MAIN DUTY in context of the Tower Hamlets Council in the past week should have been to make sure the local community was in line to “receive the benefits from the staging of the “2012 London Olympic Games” within their “Borough”!

Yet there has been no row, no squabble, and no exchange of bitter verbal accusations over any of that!

I said in March 2012 that Tower Hamlets Council was in crisis. Why did I say that?

I was not remotely thinking of any Political Party or faction or agency from Bangladesh or from any other overseas country or region being linked with the Tower Hamlets Council. Although evidence suggests that there is a higher incidence of Bangladesh-based Party Political influence in the composition of the majority of the recently recruited Bangladeshi personnel in the Council.

 

I was thinking of the dozens of “elected councillors” IN PLACE “on Tower Hamlets Council” who were drawing daily benefits by claiming to be serving the local electors and the local community. I know that most local people have nothing but contempt for most councillors they know about. Why?

I could write hundreds of pages. But at least for this piece I don’t have to.

One active member of the Tower Hamlets Labour Party shared his own estimation of “councillors”.

 

He said during an unplanned action seminar which I held in the Hanbury Street [off Brick Lane] last night [Sunday 12 August 2012: the day that the 2012 Games were formally “concluded”] that he himself rarely recommends a councillor to anyone seeking help about things to do with the Council!

And he is someone with years of canvassing experience behind him. He has canvassed hard for the election of several Labour Party candidates for election to Tower Hamlets Council.

So he is in a good position to know what he is talking about.

If he says that he cannot be confident about the competence of a single councillor, how bad is that state of affairs?

And how shockingly unfit the average Councillor of his knowledge must be!

 

 

So low is the standing of current Tower Hamlets Councillors that the spectacle about a “Bangladeshi Party Political guest”  involving a number of councillors would not merit any dignified attention from the ordinary members of the community.

The ordinary Tower Hamlets resident’s [elector or not; voting or not] thought process goes something like this :
 If an event, an incident involves a councillor or more than one councillor then it must be treated with the maximum scepticism.
And derision.

Even contempt.

And often ridicule.

And this item of “news” is one such.

Had the Tower Hamlets Councillors and the Council’s in-situ, incumbent bureaucracy were having a spat with the supposedly independently operating “Opposition” Councillors over the number of young adults out of job or education or away from productive, creative, compatible training programme and the provision for getting the thousands of youngsters out of the scrapheap future then that would be a real matter to get worked up about.
Then the councillors [if there were any of them involved in a row of that description] would deserve due recognition.

But in Tower Hamlets, Councillors, especially those from the “Bangladeshi part of the population”- who are and have been numerically the most prominent for the past decade or so -

THAT it has done so is prima facie the case. Undeniable. On the headline. On the web site of the former “East London Advertiser” [texts reprised below].

The texts of the piece by-lined to Mike Brooke do not do much credit to the “East London Advertiser” either.

They have got most facts wrong.

At least according to the information which I have gathered over the past three days.

Firstly, Tower Hamlets Borough Council is NOT an extension of ANY political party operating in and based in Bangladesh.  So whatever the claims after the facts, there was no constitutional right for any Bangladesh-based Political party to claim any access on that basis to the Council.

Secondly, the matter of protocol has to be complied with. And it was not complied with.

Finally, Lutfur Rahman has been known to have expressed his neutrality about any invited guests. So what actually happened?

 

SOME, not the majority of the “supporters of the invited guest” were in a state of confusion about where the main proceedings were taking place.

When it became clear where they were, it was clear that space was a serious issue and all the standard safety procedures had to be adhered to.

If there was a mischief in setting of an alarm then the correct thing should be to collect all the evidence and then make an authentic finding and then make it public.

This has not happened yet and people are making comments before the full facts of the fire alarm going off have been established.

Why should any councillor accept the suggestion that THEIR own Council is staffed by personnel who might be acting unprofessionally?

The answer is: The councillor concerned must know that there are Council employees and others with access to the Council’s installations that might be dodgy, unreliable!

Which sums up the case: Tower Hamlets is not a fit Council!

The blame for that should be laid at the doors of those who are responsible.

It is easier said than done.

As the Council is an undemocratic outfit, finding the chain of command, control and responsibility in an honest way may prove harder than it ought to be!

Ands therein lies the basis for my preliminary finding: Tower Hamlets Council is prone to idiotic spectacles!

[To be continued]

 

 

 

Olympic Town Hall blames ‘violent guests’ over VIPs barred from council chamber

Mike Brooke

Friday, August 10, 2012 

12:08 PM

  

Town Hall officials have today slammed back at opposition councillors calling for an investigation into why fire-alarms were mysteriously set off which disrupted yesterday’s civic visit by a Bangladesh government minister to Tower Hamlets Olympic ‘host’ borough.

Labour and Tory councillors were already furious over executive Mayor Lutfur Rahman banning use of the council chamber when the alarm rang 15 minutes into the visit by Bangladesh Minister Syed Ashraful Islam. The town hall had to be evacuated with hundreds of VIPs and office staff spilling out onto the street.

Tower Hamlets council has now accused some guests of being “disruptive and abusive” and is insisting the invitation from the council chairman to the Bangladesh government member was “a private meeting.”

A Town Hall statement said: “The fire alarm went off shortly after the guests entered. Some had already been very disruptive and abusive and there have been allegations of threats of violence against our staff.

“We will think carefully before allowing any similar functions in the future.”

Councillors deny there were any threats—but agree many guests were angry when they were kept in the lobby and barred from entering the reception because of overcrowding, which they blamed on the council chamber being locked.

Mr Islam, in London for the 2012 Olympics, had earlier been herded into a side office along with other VIPs because Mayor Rahman had ordered the chamber to be kept locked.

Labour and Tory councillors now want CCTV footage examined to find out if the fire-alarm had been malicious.

Labour’s deputy group leader Motin Uz-Zaman said: “We want to make sure anyone responsible should be reported. It’s totally unacceptable.”

He had earlier asked if he could give the visiting minister a tour of the chamber—but was refused.

Tory group leader Peter Golds said: “Locking up the council chamber was embarrassing and put Tower Hamlets to shame.”

Poplar & Limehouse MP Jim Fitzpatrick, one of the VIP guests locked out of the chamber, said the ban was an insult.

He told the Advertiser: ¨It’s sad when we should be offering the hand of friendship during the Olympics that the mayor decides to withdraw any opportunity to see what Tower Hamlets is all about.

“It’s a big mistake by Lutfur Rahman, whose refusal could be regarded as offending international guests.

“His ban seems perverse, petty and demeans the mayor’s office.”

Council chairman Rajib Ahmed, Tower Hamlets’ First Citizen who had invited Mr Islam, had to hold an impromptu gathering in the street where the Bangladesh minister gave his speech, after the Town Hall near the Blackwall Tunnel was evacuated.

Mr Islam, a member of the ruling Awami League government which heavily defeated the Bangladesh National Party’s Jamaat Islam alliance in the 2009 elections, later went on to a civic reception in Islington—where he was welcomed into the council chamber!