The BBC’s Panorama programme is in the news again. The allegations aired during the programme were not new: the “documentary” referred to Council grants made several months ago. Viewers saw former Labour Leader Cllr Josh Peck say that he was “pretty sure” there were problems with the Council’s decisions on the various applications. We were left baffled about why, if Cllr Peck had these serious concerns, he felt the need to keep quiet about them until the elections were almost upon us. Perhaps he takes a long time to think about serious matters.
Anyway, there are now local reports that the Council had to spend just short of £37,000 on legal fees in order to ensure that the Panorama programme did not make too many wild accusations just before the elections – which, of course, have to be as fair as possible. In the event, we were just left with the more general accusation that Bangladeshi organisations had been given disproportionate grant funding – an accusation which still makes it hard to have a fair election and which will fester on the internet as an insult to all Tower Hamlets Bangladeshi organisations for years to come.
£37,000 is a great deal of money. It’s a shame that those in the opposition parties who thought the national media was the best place to air their allegations put the borough in a position where it had to spend that cash on legal fees rather than front line services.
£100,000 is an even greater sum of money. It would be dreadful to think that the actions of an opposition councillor had prompted a spending of that kind of money on compensation for a Council Officer whose employment opportunities had been unfairly trounced.