Note: We made a couple of errors in our reporting yesterday but have corrected them (see below). For some odd reason Tower Hamlets council decided there was no room for East End Enquirer staff at the count so we were reliant on reading the tweets of those who were allowed in.
He who laughs last laughs the longest.
Lutfur Rahman has defied his critics (including this author) and once again becomes the Directly-Elected Mayor of Tower Hamlets.
What happens to the borough now is a complete unknown.
This is the same Lutfur Rahman who was banned from seeking elected office in 2015 for five years at the end of an electoral petition that found him guilty on multiple counts of electoral fraud and corruption.
Rahman’s approach to the electoral petition verdict was simple – he was not guilty. He also argued that the judgement by Justice Mawrey was no such thing, it was just a report, not a legal judgement. And also that (quite correctly) he had never been charged with any criminal offence despite lengthy investigations by the Metropolitan Police.
His second Mayoral victory was made even sweeter by the scale of his majority and the damage rumoured to have been caused to the Labour Party n the ward elections.
With just three thousand more first preference votes Rahman would have won the Mayoral election outright in the first round, his 11,600 majority just not quite enough to kill with the first swing of the axe.
First Preference Votes
Rahman: 39,533
Biggs: 27,894
Khan: 6,430
Weaver: 4,269
Wood: 3,985
Pierre: 1,462
Holmes: 552
As it was Biggs conceded soon after the first round votes were announced, realising that his chances of winning on second preference votes was zero.
Apologies for getting that completely wrong yesterday!
For some reason there was a second preference vote which was:
Lutfur Rahman 40,804
John Biggs 33,487
So that’s that!
Comment
Sincere congratulations to Lutfur and his team on what is probably one of the greatest political comebacks in local politics.
There will be those who immediately claim that this result was fixed. We would ask these people to present their evidence before they make such allegations.
We have not seen or heard any allegations of fraud during the election. None.
Rahman’s defeat of Labour’s John Biggs is momentous and will almost certainly mean a change of leadership in Tower Hamlets Labour Party.
If there is anything left to lead.
Was you down for the count at the Winter Gardens? No? Well be careful walking around the streets outside the venue. Why? They are covered in red slippery, sticky stuff, the result of THLP members stabbing each other, sometimes in the front but mainly in the back.
If Lutfur doesn’t include a range of people from different cultural backgrounds in his team, and carries on like last time, refusing to answer questions from the council, it will feel like we are under occupation. If it’s like that again I hope Whitehall steps in once again and runs this borough through appointed commissioners.
The first corruption lies in the illegal legalization of the Muslim vote. The system allows Muslim demographics to dictate the democracy we live in, viz the Muslim version. John Biggs knew this and tried to scrap the Mayor system. He should have been more forthright about it.
What? Never heard of this before.
Difficult to reply to ‘John Savva’s response given it makes very little sense e.g. ‘the illegal legalization’.
Bottom line is that only people who are registered to vote can vote – so all the votes were ‘legitimate’. If you are saying (as it seems) that too many Muslims voted and that is how (Muslim) Lutfur got in then you are being rather blinkered.
Firstly a lot of white-as-white old East Enders have publicly come forward to recommend Lutfur (even if as the best of a bad bunch) and confirm they are voting for him.
Secondly if only Muslims voted (as you may be suggesting) then the question is why did not enough of the non-Muslims vote? Maybe because they couldn’t bear Biggs and the Nodding Dog councillors either so decided to abstain.
We never see or hear from one of our Labour councillors – Ayas Miah – except at election time. Unfortunately slightly more people voted for him and his mate than for the far more down to earth Aspire guys on this occasion. We live in hope for next time.
The truth is that Labour as a party in Tower Hamlets is such a basket case that whenever decent Councillors join – e.g. Dipa Das – they get hounded out.
Whenever the very arrogant Labour hierarchy get the boot they always throw mud in order to get back rather than just improve their own performance. Remember when they conned the media to start calling the Liberals ‘racists’ to get them out? – that mud eventually stuck.
Next when Lutfur and his Respect party booted them out they got one or two of their ‘concerned’ constituents to push the corruption line. Corruption there may well have been but rather strange that the Police decided there was not enough evidence to prosecute if so. As for voters being harassed at polling booths, the only thing I encountered were jovial Respect supporters asking if we would vote for them and being perfectly pleasant when told that they would have to wait and see.
Not that I’m a major fan of Corbyn but it was quite fascinating to see how Labour HQ used a similar playbook to get Corbyn out – they are on record as saying that they would rather see Labour lose to the Conservatives than allow Corbyn and Co. in. We see the results of that now in their results nationwide – hardly a huge success given the Liberals picked up most of the anti-Tory votes.
What is the linking feature of all of these incidents? The Liberals, Lutfur Rahman and Corbyn and Co. were all putting forward active plans to change the way of doing things (supposedly for the better of the consituents whether or not they could achieve it). And in each case the constiutents showed they were unhappy with the way the present lot (Labour) were operating and wanted a change.
So in each case the Labour mafia used smear tactics to confound the opposition – which of course unthinking Labour party members and a compliant media lapped up.
Decent Labour Party members who really do want to improve residents’ lives and who just ‘put up’ with the useless Biggs and fellow travellers should really be rejoicing in Lutfur and Co. doing so well – the likely blood letting within TH Labour might just result in some decent replacements being made. Or another version of Biggs turning up albeit a brown-skinned one.
Let’s see what Lutfur and his mates do in the next few months – if he could get the excellent Alibour Choudhury back to help him that would really produce results.
Agree about Alibor.
Glad we have chosen to replace one straight shooter with another. High fives all round people of TH. It’s like turkey’s voting for Christmas.
Leaving partisan shenanigans aside, I can state with confidence that the good people of Tower Hamlets have suffered a grievous loss with the ousting of the former Councillor for Canary Wharf, Andrew Wood … even though the majority wouldn’t know a true political worthy if they fell over one.
As for “Lex”Lutfur – a practised operator who proved far too smart for Mr Biggs and assorted toadies – he could do no more than win the Mayoral contest fair and square.
Absolutely true, if we had more councillors like Andrew Wood we would be fine.