East London News: With the votes for the Labour and the Independent candidates in the Spitalfields & Banglatown by-election being so close, with the other parties trailing so far behind, it is these two candidates whose literature is of most interest. A leaflet put out by Gulam Robbani, Independent candidate, has been scrutinised by other political parties and on other websites. ELN thought that in the interests of balance – and in the interests of people living elsewhere in the Borough, who would not have seen it – we would take a look at Labour’s eve of poll leaflet.
ELN only has an image of one side of the leaflet at present. The reverse concentrates on promoting Labour’s candidate Ala Uddin (and we’ll publish it if someone sends us a copy). The leaflet we display below is what political parties refer to as “knocking copy”: that is, it attacks an opponent rather than promoting the party’s own candidate. But is Labour’s “knocking copy” honest – or does it go too far?
Labour’s “knocking copy” is set out in three parts.
Part 1
What they tell you: “Lutfur Rahman’s Councillor was jailed for Benefit Fraud. “Now he expects you to elect his agent to replace her?”
What they don’t tell you: Yes, Cllr Akhtar was jailed for benefit fraud: but in what sense is she “Lutfur Rahman’s Councillor”? Ms Akhtar would have completed an application form to be a Labour Council candidate in 2009. She would have been interviewed, well before the May 2010 election, by a panel of Labour Party members from outside Tower Hamlets chosen by the London Labour Party. That is Labour’s vetting procedure: and Ms Akhtar passed it. They deemed her a suitable candidate. From the pool of potential candidates who passed the vetting procedure, the London Labour Party chose Ms Akhtar to stand in Spitalfields. Before taking that decision, they took advice from Cllr Lutfur Rahman (then Leader of the Labour Group of Councillors) and from Graham Taylor (then Chair of Tower Hamlets Labour Party). Ms Akhtar stood and was elected as a Labour Councillor on the same day in May 2010 that Tower Hamlets residents voted on the referendum to have a Mayor. She began to commit benefit fraud during the summer of 2010. It was only in late September 2010 that Lutfur Rahman announced that he would be an independent candidate in the mayoral election that October: Ms Akhtar endorsed his candidature and was therefore automatically expelled from the Labour Party. In other words, Ms Akhtar was vetted by the Labour Party and deemed suitable to be a Labour Councillor before the mayoral system was even adopted in Tower Hamlets. Her benefit fraud began while she was a Labour Councillor. Why does that make her “Lutfur Rahman’s” councillor rather than “Graham Taylor and Labour’s councillor”? Labour argues that having candidates selected by London officials is a more impartial process, but it may be that local members, who know the candidates better, would be better judges. Perhaps Labour could apologise to the electors because its vetting procedures failed, and perhaps it could improve its procedures in the future.
Part 2
The leaflet reprints a number of headlines from newspapers.
“Councillor in fraud shame”: this may well have been a headline in the East London Advertiser, but reprinting it does not prove that Mayor Rahman or Gulam Robbani were in any way associated with that fraud – it’s just reprinted to associate them with the notion of fraud. The leaflet could have reprinted a different headline from the Advertiser, such as: “Tower Hamlets mayor Lutfur Rahman demands benefit fraud cllr Shelina Akhtar’s resignation”.
“Mayor’s ‘£500,000 a year’ for aides” is a headline from the Evening Standard. The substance of the original article was that Conservative Councillor Snowdon had estimated that the total bill for advisers, consultants and office staff “could be approaching half a million pounds.” It gives not a shred of evidence to back up this claim and doesn’t say whether the estimate is for a year, four years, a decade or a geological epoch… Of course the Conservatives want to attack Mayor Rahman: and printing the Standard headline sounds much worse than printing “Tory Councillor speculates about what political opponent is spending”.
“Mayor of poverty-hit council hires adviser in £1,000-a-day deal” is another reprinted headline. The adviser responded to the news story by pointing out that although his contract included this discounted amount for his services, he had not actually made a charge for his advice.
Having set the scene with these headlines, the leaflet goes on to warn that if the Independent candidate wins the by-election, the opposition parties will lose the two thirds majority they need to stop the Mayor’s “worst excesses”. This is a strange statement, as the by-election is to fill the vacancy previously filled by an Independent councillor, so an Independent victory should not have any effect on the political balance of the Council.
It is also strange because councillors only have the power to amend the Mayor’s budget – if they win a two thirds majority in a vote at Council. You would have thought that if the Mayor was going round committing excesses, Labour would already have tried to stop these excesses (maybe all the excesses, not just the worst ones) with the two thirds majority they can command if they combine with the Tory Party on a vote. However, in Mayor Rahman’s first two budgets, the Labour Group has only put forward some very small amendments, many of which Mayor Rahman has accepted. At Cabinet and Council meetings, Labour Leader Josh Peck has commended the bulk of the budget (before moving his small amendments). If Labour has been voting with the Tories to establish a two thirds majority to stop the Mayor’s “worst excesses”, just what excesses have they stopped? None.
Part 3
In the third section of the leaflet, Labour has a go at George Galloway and the Respect Party. Of course local Labour leaders have reason to dislike Galloway because he defeated Oona King MP in the Bethnal Green General Election. Oona King voted for the war on Iraq and Galloway was against. Faced with this political choice, the voters opted for Galloway, and Labour has never forgiven Galloway for giving voters that choice. The Respect Party was responsible for almost all the outgoing Labour Cabinet members losing their seats. However, Labour is not totally hostile to the Respect Party: they admitted four Respect Councillors (and one Lib Dem) to the Labour Party in the run up to the General Election, when they were trying to maximise votes for Labour. So on the one hand, Respect has politics which Labour wouldn’t touch with a barge pole; and on the other hand, Respect has politicians whom Labour was keen to embrace. Nonetheless, this is perhaps the most honest part of the leaflet, because it does little more than appeal to Labour supporters to make sure they vote because a candidate whom Respect support may win if they do not go out to vote.
So what do you make of Labour’s tactics? Are they justified in printing Tory speculation and covering up their own role in vetting Cllr Akhtar, or have they gone too far? Should all leaflets concentrate on policy issues, or is it fair enough to throw all you can at your opponents?
ELN has one concern about Labour’s tactics. The Evening Standard is not campaigning against the Mayor because he has reinstated the EMA which the Tory Government cut, or because he’s pledged to build an extra 1,000 homes a year or because he says that social landlords should not raise their rents to 80% of market values. They always associate their criticism of Mayor Rahman with the fact that he is of Bangladeshi origin, and that trend is taken up, and enlarged upon, by even more right wing forces to enforce their ideology and win converts to their cause. So when our young people apply to university or for jobs and write on their application forms that they went to school in Tower Hamlets, more and more professionals who have never set foot in Tower Hamlets will devalue those young people because they have heard that we have no achievements in our Borough. Is fanning the flames of the right wing racists playing politics with people’s lives? Is that something Labour wants to be part of?