Tower Hamlets Council continuing to fail to represent the needs of the Borough
Distraught face of the Council's "Speaker" [The Chair of the Council Meetings] Lesley Pavitt as she is gob-smacked at the latest outrageous, discreditable behaviour of a number of "Councillors"....
Tower Hamlets Council continuing to fail to represent the needs of the Borough of Tower Hamlets as the Council is again exposed as behaving in a way that adds to the disrepute it has already brought on the East End Community
[To be continued]
1335 [0300] Hrs GMT Saturday 08 March 2014
The report on the Daily Express web site, which the Khoodeelaar! Campaign accessed in the early hours of today Saturday 08 March 2014, has more than 30 comments on it at this time.
Most of those are clearly about "Muslims".
The KHOODEELAAR! Campaign has been describing Tower Hamlets Council as in the grip of a controlling corrupt clique.
We hold that clique responsible for the latest exhibition which most people would find unacceptable.
To put it very mildly.
Reading the Daily Express online report and the comments posted so far, we can go further and assert:
Unless those whose behaviour has been depicted in this Daily Express report
seriously change their approach and their attitude then they WILL be held responsible for causing a serious worsening in the atmosphere in the Community among people based on “faith, ethnicity” and so on.
Several participants feature in the Daily Express report.
Those individuals should recognise that they are councillors
because they were elected to serve the Community.
What is coming across is that there is inflammation, incitement and
hostility among councillors.
This is the opposite of what an elected Council should be.
The KHOODEELAAR! Campaign is aware of more than one published claim - so far published by PRIVATE EYE magazine (dated 7 March 2014, issue 1361) at page 14 in the ROTTEN BOROUGHS Column where it covers quite a few aspects of the same Council Meeting which the Daily Express is reporting on.
One of the points Private Eye makes is that the BBC’s Panorama programme is due to report on Tower Hamlets.
The indications so far are that it will add to and accentuate the picture of Tower Hamlets Council is polarising fast along ‘faith’ ethnicity, racial...” lines.
That cannot be doing the Community any good at all.
So we are demanding that Tower Hamlets Council stop abusing their positions in the ways already seen and that they should start addressing the many pressing needs of the Community which they have been failing to address or serve.
If hey continue to fail to pay heed to this then quite disproportionate escalation in hostilities will take place and Tower Hamlets Borough will be turned into the focus for all the wrong reasons.
That will let the Community down even more badly than has happened so far.
_________
The Daily Express online
'We're not CURRY PEOPLE!' Amazing VIDEO of politicians erupting in Asian-White race row
THESE extraordinary videos show a town hall meeting descending into bitterness and chaos after an Asian councillor likened white colleagues to Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirts, while another claimed his community had been branded “curry people”.
Published: Fri, March 7, 2014
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FURY: Cllr Anwar Khan accused his white Labour colleagues of halting the ambitions of Bengalis [TOWER HAMLETS]
A Labour Bangladeshi councillor even claimed his own party was ruled by a “white elite” and he is alleged to have called one white colleague a “racist piece of s**”.
The footage was captured by Tower Hamlets Council’s own cameras in east London, which were installed in the debating after a general edict to local government bosses from Communities Secretary Eric Pickles last year.
Mr Pickles had wanted taxpayers to see how their elected representatives, who are paid between £10,000 and £65,000 a year, behaved during town hall debates.
His department had specifically highlighted previous antics of Tower Hamlets, which is ridden with race politics.
The film was taken at the meeting of the full council to discuss a £1.2billion budget last week.
The notorious borough, which is one of Britain’s most deprived, is run by a directly elected mayor, Lutfur Rahman.
He is an independent who was expelled from Labour during an acrimonious election campaign in 2010.
(WATCH EDITED VERSION OF ROW)
Since then he has created a cabinet comprised entirely of councillors from a Bangladeshi background after failing to attract white members to defect from Labour.
The split has caused a poisonous atmosphere between the political groups.
During the meeting on Wednesday last week, Labour councillor Anwar Khan is invited to address the chamber by Speaker Lesley Pavitt.
As he makes some remarks about the budget, he cites the name of party colleague, Ann Jackson.
He refers to an email she sent before the Olympics criticising the Mayor’s attempt to make the borough’s famous Brick Lane a “Curry Capital” for 2012 tourists.
In that email, she had implored the mayor to be more adventurous and make the borough known for more than just good curry.
FARCE: Labour's group leader in Tower Hamlets, Sirajul Islam, was mocked as Danny de Vito lookalike [TOWER HAMLETS]
However, Cllr Khan in the video footage he says: "Despite the current chair of the Labour group Councillor Jackson dismissing the people of Tower Hamlets as nothing more than curry people in her email in 2010.
“In her email in 2010 when she dismisses the people of Tower Hamlets as nothing more than curry.”
Outraged, Cllr Jackson, who was wearing a black cardigan because she was in private mourning for her ex-husband, rises to her feet.
She dismisses his version of events as “laughable” and explains the “proper context” of her words.
But this was not enough for Councillor Alibor Choudhury who sits in the mayor’s cabinet and is in charge of the £1.2billion budget.
Oswald Mosely had the black shirts in the Thirties. John Biggs has the black cardigansCllr Alibor Choudhury
It is after his words that the meeting erupts.
Unaware that Cllr Jackson is in mourning, he says: "Cllr Jackson back then did say those derogatory things, and let me say one thing to you.”
He then points to her and to her boss John Biggs, a London Assembly member, and says: “Oswald Mosely had the black shirts in the Thirties.
“John Biggs has the black cardigans."
The speaker, Cllr Pavitt is visibly furious and says: "Cllr Choudhury, that was more than offensive.”
She then tries to have him evicted, only to be told that all she can do is issue a warning.
In the background, other councillors start chanting “Out, out, out.”
A few minutes later, Cllr Anwar Khan, who today quit the local party, is again the centre of attention. He mocks the appearance of Labour’s group leader, Cllr Sirajul Islam, labelling him “Danny de Vito”.
Seconds later and off-camera, another Labour councillor sitting next to him, Joshua Peck, switches off Cllr Khan’s microphone. At that point, Cllr Khan sees red and with increasing volume, yells: “Councillor, why did you turn it off?
Independent councillor Alibor Choudhury 'joked' Labour were like Oswald Mosley's Blackshirts [TOWER HAMLETS]
Veteran Labour councillor was visibly shocked by the behaviour and accusations [TOWER HAMLETS]
“Why are you being so disruptive and turning it off? Why are you turning it off?"He continues: "Madam speaker, why did he just turn my microphone off when you gave me permission to speak?"
This prompts more uproar in the chamber as the Speaker appeals for calm.
Cllr Peck then says: "Madam speaker, it was perhaps inadvisable for me to switch the microphone off because you were standing when Cllr Khan was speaking.
“But the comment he made, heard by a number of councillors around me that I was a 'racist piece of s***' is unacceptable from one councillor to another."
Explaining himself, Cllr Khan then says: “I think it is unacceptable that a member, my fellow ward colleague for four years, comes rushing without full context to turn my microphone off.
“It goes to the heart of the point I've been raising over the last four weeks, that the Labour administration - the white elite - do not want talented Bengalis to speak."
This prompts more shouting, jeering and cheering and another independent councillor, Rania Khan says: "He feels that the Labour Party hinders Bengalis from speaking out; which I second and I agree with."
Until Cllr Anwar Khan’s resignation today, the Tower Hamlets Labour group comprised 13 Bangladeshi councillors, one Somali and 13 white members.
Thirty of the 52 elected representatives in Tower Hamlets are Bangladeshi.
Cllr Anwar Khan today denied calling Cllr Peck a “racist piece of s***”.
Today, Cllr Choudhury said he had been "mortified to learn" Ann Jackson was in mourning and that his remarks had been "ill-advised".
(WATCH THE LONGER VERSIONS OF THE EXCHANGES BELOW.)
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