Supporters have always maintained Rahman was stitched up, now it seems residents agree
Lutfur Rahman – standing under the banner of his own ‘Aspire’ party – has defeated Labour’s ‘fire and re-hire’ candidate to win the mayoral role in London’s Tower Hamlets, just a year after completing a ban on standing for election for electoral fraud. Rahman came within a whisker of winning in the first round and duly completed his victory shortly afterward.
Rahman’s supporters have always insisted that he was the victim of a racism-fuelled stitch-up – the Met’s criminal investigation resulted in no charges and an investigation by the Tory government found no fraud at Rahman’s council – and now it seems Tower Hamlets residents agree in large numbers.
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Despite the nastiest nationwide media smears against Lutfur Rahman, PLUS the Tories and their police roped in, he defended himself against SUSTAINED attacks.
Lutfur won! Triumphed!! DEFEATED the liars!!! The electorate showed their trust and judgement. The POLAR opposite re for eg Chukka Ummuna, Sourbry and Berger who were all rejected, because the good public distrusted them.
Ken Livingstone and George Galloway, also showed what COURAGE of CONVICTIONS can achieve, DESPITE sustained attacks from a hostile media etc.
Congratulations and well done to Lutfur for showing whats needed and DOABLE!!!
We need Lutfur Rahman’s spirit, attitude of DYNAMIC determination, THROUGHOUT our movement. When we are “attacked”, we MUST stand up and defend ourselves!!!
Never, EVER give up
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According to the BBC the Labour Party has won so far 53 seats in England with 3 Councils yet to declare. Tower Hamlets is one of them.
Aspire that Party supporting Rahman is standing 44 candidates, I wonder how many Labour seats Aspire will take? Presently Labour holds 42 out of 45.
Wouldn’t it be ironic if Labour manages to win less than 50 seats in England as a whole thanks to Aspire?
I have just chequed the BBC online and with Croydon and Tower Hamlets only undeclared, Labour has won 53 seats in English Local Authorities and the Greens have won 53 extra seats and the LibDems 190 extra seats.
For crying out loud outside London we are conceding seats to the Tories by the bucket load and even in London (Brent, Harrow, Hounslow) we are losing seats to the Tories.
Somehow, Starmer wants to persuade us that this is a good result for Labour. The only saving grace is Labour’s performance in Wales but we know that Welsh Labour doesn’t follow Starmer’s orders.
Labour has been in power in Wales but still it has gained 75 seats out of 22 Local Authorities (3 still undeclared) running elections. In England the number of LAs running elections is 146 and so far we have only managed to win 53 seats with Tower Hamlets still to declare we could still lose seats to Aspire.
I hope that despite the triumphalism in play for the gallery, Labour MPs realise that with the worse Tory government in living memory if this is the best Starmer can offer, many of them could lose their seats at the next General Election. The Tories will get ride of Boris and select someone more palatable if Boris doesn’t start improving his approval rating pretty soon.
For crying out loud outside London we are conceding seats to the Tories by the bucket load and even in London (Brent, Harrow, Hounslow) we are losing seats to the Tories.
Who’s this ‘we’?😏
Remember when keef whined that lockdown had deprived the nation of him and that once it was over, he’d be out & about, winning voters up & down the land?
Northerners don’t read the s*n on as many numbers as they do in londinium, keef; and those londoners that don’t read the rag don’t vote for your brand of toeragism.
And so much for this theory that former labour politicians (especially those that’d be branded guardians of the left) would be losing their deposits without wearing a red rosette (why red, I have no idea)…Seems to me some of them have prevented the muculent, box-headed one from getting the results a certain someone was hubristic enough to almost guarantee…😏
Even that nimrod dan hodges gets things right more often than the resident turd polisher.
Toffee, thanks for the correction we aren’t losing any seats the red Tories are. I left the Labour Party after last year’s Conference and over 30 years membership.
I guess that unconsciously I still see Labour as my Party since I am still waiting for a socialist Party to emerge.
Congratulations, Lutfur.
Free from Starmer’s drive anti-socialism drive , maybe now working people might see some glimmers of hope.
Well done Lutfur, great win.
Some explanation of why Lutfur and Aspire might have won – though given how media such as The Guardian seem to be avoiding mentioning this newsworthy victory, many may still be unaware they have.
Firstly forget the idea that this is just a product of ‘the Bangladeshi vote’ – if you talk to white-skinned people on the street in Tower Hamlets you will find precious few that supported their Labour councillor and John Biggs in particular.
Reason? The usual failure of many modern-day Labour administrations – their general lack of respect for and tendency to patronise their own voters. Or as Mandelson would say ‘there’s nowhere else for them to go’ – so why bother?
(Andrew Wood (a relatively decent Conservative) made some pertinent comments on this topic if you search for them)
Talking to the saner elements of the TH Labour Party even they had no time for Biggs – apparently his own councillors had been trying to get rid of him for some time but the usual internal party factionalism put paid to that. Labour might be wise trying to improve governing themselves before trying to govern the country.
Under Biggs/Labour, many councillors became invisible (only turning up for Election week), trying to contact managers etc. within LBTH was equally impossible, he reneged on his pledge to bring Tower Hamlets Homes back into Council control (one rumour being that if it was sold off he might be able to get a senior position there), and every bit of ‘resident consultation’ they ran was of the rather obvious ‘write your comments here, send them in to us … and then we’ll bin them unseen’ variety.
Talk to non-Bengali speaking consituents in TH and you’ll find that many found Councillors from Aspire’s predecessor (Respect Party) to be the only Councillors who ever actively did anything on their behalf.
Still no doubt we’ll see the ‘mainstream media’ (one of the Trumpers’ terms of abuse that actually has some merit) hint at the result as being due to shady / stupid ‘furrinners’ voting for people from their own ethnic background.
Unfortunately for that theory, 24 of the previous Labour Councillors were also of Bangladeshi background (though it often appeared that it was their lighter skinned colleagues in Labour who really pulled the strings – hence the frequently used term regarding them of ‘Nodding Dogs’).
Any decent Labour supporter should rejoice at Aspire’s victory and Biggs’ departure (for now). It might – just – lead to a real clearout of dross from the TH Labour Party and and return to fortune as a result. Having said that and looking at the state of the national Labour Party, maybe not a foregone conclusion.