Tower Hamlets - it's happened again

[username358]

NC for this.

I live in Tower Hamlets which has a myriad of problems and is in desperate need of good governance.

I remember the furore around Mayor Rahman the last time he was in office. He accused anyone who criticised him of being racist, he gave lucrative contracts to his friends, his supporters intimidated voters, women in particular and I don't think he employed many women. He and his supporters were found to have used religious intimidation through local imams and vote-rigging.

He was banned for five years, made a comeback in 2022 and he's done it again!
Inspectors have raised the alarm about him and Ministers are going to intervene. Last time he was accused of dispensing public money like a "medieval monarch” and apparently this time his behaviour isn't any different.

This is absolutely awful news for residents of TH, least of all because he cancelled our wonderful firework display, again this year. I can't understand how this has happened twice.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/nov/11/ministers-to-oversee-tower-hamlets-council-amid-concerns-over-leadership

Rahman is just flat corrupt. I don’t understand why we don’t permanently ban people from standing rather than just suspending them.

Completely agree. The likelihood of rehabilitation through suspension is zero. He should have had a lifetime ban from holding public office.

He accuses his opponents of being motivated by Islamophobia (although struggles with Labour as most of their Tower Hamlets councillors are Muslim) and tries to mobilise the relatively poor and disadvantaged Bengali community into the same sense of grievance. This is the same area that voted in George Galloway in 2005, so he's not the first to use such tactics.

It's utterly horrifying to watch, it's maddening that there aren't enough safeguards to prevent this kind of behaviour

doesn't surprise me.
his administration first time round caused us a lot of issues.
when moving away to a different council our account was not closed and we were not removed from the electoral register. we were chased for council tax. and dc school place was withdrawn as we were still officially register in TH.
luckily we kept the deregistration paper copy and all was solved in the end.

This is my concern. How on earth was he allowed to run again given his first time in office? Never mind the cronies he surrounded himself with and he was found guilty of voter intimidation! Isn't that a crime?

There needs to be a law where you cannot run again. This man is going to keep exploiting the borough and acting like it's his fifedom. I can imagine the toxic atmosphere for his staff as well.

He and his henchmen are dreadful.
We actually lived in Bethnal Green, we had Galloway as MP. Rahman elected then disqualified. Oona King became MP, she was a chocolate tea-pot!

If he misappropriated public funds, he should be in prison, not just suspended.