Lutfur Rahman blasts Eric Pickles and “media lies”

14th November 2014

The mayor of Tower Hamlets, Lutfur Rahman, has blasted Communities Secretary Eric Pickles and the BBC in a rousing speech to his supporters in East London.

Rahman said:

Tower Hamlets is a successful council that has delivered a low crime rate, great schools, affordable homes and given grants to disenfranchised Bengali and Somali communities.
He didn’t come into politics to be a “yes man” or to get on a gravy train.
He serves people of all backgrounds, all faiths and none.
The BBC shouldn’t misrepresent and misinform the people of county.
Eric Pickles tried to get rid of him just before an election but he failed. He threatened to sue Pickles if he repeated any corruption allegations outside Parliament.
Tower Hamlets Labour party are hypocrites and reactionaries.
He’s done nothing wrong and is not corrupt.
The real problem for the establishment is that he is an independent, Muslim Bengali mayor.

A few weeks ago it was announced that Eric Pickles is to take over the administration of Tower Hamlets council for two years after an inquiry commissioned by his department found evidence of a crony culture in which grants and properties were handed to favoured groups, and proper procedures were ignored.

Pickles is to dispatch three commissioners to oversee grant-giving, appointments, property deals and the administration of future elections in the borough.

The inquiry, conducted by accountants PricewaterhouseCoopers, found contracts were awarded without the appropriate paperwork while Lutfur Rahman, the independent elected mayor, personally selected preferred companies.

Pickles told the Commons that Rahman had dispensed public money like a “medieval monarch” and oversaw an administration that was “at best dysfunctional, at worst riddled with cronyism and corruption”. He said grants were distributed without rationale, clear objectives, monitoring or transparency.