Mayor thanks voters

Lutfur Rahman held his first press conference as the re-elected Mayor of Tower Hamlets in the early hours of Saturday, 24th May – within minutes of the election result being announced. He was joined on the platform by the newly re-elected Cllr Ohid Ahmed, who had served as Deputy Mayor during Mayor Rahman’s first term of office – with other re-elected councillors joining him as the press conference went on.
Mayor Rahman began by thanking the media, especially the local media, for taking an interest in Tower Hamlets and covering the election. He echoed the words he had just said in response to the declaration, thanking the voters for turning out in such numbers and taking part in the democratic process. He then thanked the borough’s staff who had been involved with running the election.
Mayor Rahman recalled that when he had been given the chance to serve the people of the Borough in 2010 he had been very grateful, and he was grateful to the people again for giving him a second chance to carry on with his public service. Mayor Rahman said that his achievements in his first term had not been carried out on his own and he thanked his good team of councillors and advisers for their help. He also thanked the Council’s officers for their help and in particular for their various efforts which had helped the Council win awards in many cases.
Mayor Rahman said that his second terms would be about continuing the good work started in his first term. He also set a new target: that Tower Hamlets should not be best known for its levels of deptrivation and poverty but for being a multicultural and integrated community which was supported by excellent services delivered by the Council, some of which are unique in the UK. The roots of that community were being laid in the borough’s schools, in which 126 languages were spoken by pupils who traced their origins to all corners of the globe, but where there were high levels of achievement. School students are showing levels of achievement which are some of the best in the UK, but we shall not stop pressing for improvement until our school pupils are the best in the world.
Mayor Rahman said that he did not want to dwell on negatives, especially that night – but he did appeal to the press, particularly the national press, to give his Administration a chance. He asked the press to approach him if they were interested in the Borough or had a concern about it. He asked the press to bear in mind that they may be being fed information by people whose aim was to cause division in the borough – so it was important that the press established what the facts are before assuming that everything they are told is true and building reports on that foundation.
Mayor Rahman reminded the press that he had asked voters to judge him on his record and that he had confidence in the voters’ judgement because it was the voters who used Council services on a daily basis and were in a position to know Mayor Rahman’s record first hand and make a judgement on it. He pointed out that during the election he had issued a call to those who said he only served on part of the community to name any one policy which they thought was meant to benefit just one part of the community: no one had ever identified any single policy which benefited only one part of the community.  Again, Mayor Rahman asked people and the press to judge him on his record, not on hearsay.
Mayor Rahman said that he had not sought the post of Mayor for the money or the trappings of office or out of personal ambition. Politics, he said, was a passion for him and his councillors and that passion was concentrated on giving the children of the borough a future. That future might be a university place or a job, but it would give them chances in their lives that the older generation had not had.
Mayor Rahman recalled that he arrived in the UK with his parents when he was four years old. None of them spoke English and he had relied on neighbours and teachers to help him settle, integrate and speak English. The community had invested in him and given him a future and now he wanted to repay that investment by investing in the next generation. He had grown up with other children, at home and at school, of all colours and faiths and he, and many of them, had experienced the racism prevalent in society. For other now to call him a racist because of his colour or his religion is unfair and wrong. The media, Mayor Rahman said, are the conscience of the world because they speak up for the downtrodden – but he asked the media to be fair to him.
Unfortunately, Mayor Rahman’s pleas fell on some deaf ears Although the police were keen to get the Mayor outside to meet his supporters, who had been waiting in the rain outside the count, to avoid any trouble breaking out, the waiting press were given a few minutes to ask questions.
The first question asked about how the government audit, ordered by Eric Pickles, was going. Mayor Rahman said that he had made it clear before that he welcomed the arrival of the auditors. The Council was co-operating with them fully.  The police had already said that there was no evidence of criminality in the files which Panorama handed to the Minister and Mayor Rahman hoped the formal audit would lead to a good outcome which everyone would then have to believe.
The second question came from a journalist from The Wharf, a newspaper produced in the heart of Toryland (Canary Wharf) – which obviously has to design material to interest its readers. The journalist asked Mayor Rahman if he thought John Biggs was racist: just the kind of balanced, relevant inquiry the voters of Tower Hamlets would be interested in immediately after the election. You could see Mayor Rahman thinking “is it worth trying to explain the subtleties of institutional racism to this audience at this precise moment in time?”. It was not: Mayor Rahman merely commented that we all had to be careful what we said these days and take care not to inflame any situations.
A questioner from the local press than asked Mayor Rahman if he would re-join the local Labour Party if they invited him to do so. Again, Mayor Rahman considered whether to give a full answer to this question, explaining all the ins and outs – and again he decided it was not worth risking public order outside to give a full explanation. “That is a decision for another day,” said Mayor Rahman. This answer is fair enough, given the circumstances  – but there should be a public debate on the issue in due course.
Finally, Mayor Rahman made his first promise of his second term in office. Residents in Poplar have been delighted to see Mayor Rahman finding a way to re-open Poplar Baths – a swimming pool closed by the Lib-Dems which successive Labour administrations have not been able to bring back into public use. Mayor Rahman promised that if there is a tea dance at the opening ceremony, he will invite Ms Lilian Collins, a community campaigner who was part of the battle to get the Baths reopened, to have the first dance with him. Ms Collins was delighted: local children who live near the Thames and our canals need to learn to swim and Mayor Rahman has helped them do so.