Tower Hamlets’ part-time “Quiet Man” turns DOWN the volume

“The quiet man is here to stay, and he’s turning up the volume,” said Iain Duncan Smith – kick-starting the steady slide down towards losing the election for Tory Party Leader. For his look-a-like John Biggs, Labour’s candidate for Mayor, the opposite is true: in the last week of the election campaign, Biggs has turned the volume down.

There was a nasty incident at the start of the week, when some women who were in Chrisp Street Market, canvassing for Lutfur Rahman, were subjected – they allege – to vile, sexist, misogynistic abuse from someone who was canvassing for Labour (see our other two feature stories). They have reported the matter to the police, who are treating the report as a public order offence. Ironically, the women who allege they were abused were not all home grown Tower Hamlets types. This may be why they approached the Labour Party for assistance in identifying the perpetrator to assist the police in making their inquiries – and why they were so surprised by the result of their approach.

The person who had used the woman-hating words against them was photographed talking to Labour Councillor Shiria Khatun: who would not help the women identify him.  Labour candidate Robbie Scott openly supported her.  Labour’s local official, James King, refused to help the women, saying that the Labour Party would only speak to the police (though he did not offer to go and tell the pollice who this man is).

Finally, John Biggs refused to help identify the canvasser – until he thought the women might be referring to an alleged physical assault which, he tweeted, would be different, and he went off to discuss the matter with his team.  East London News emailed Biggs to ask him why he would not help identify the male canvasser.  Here is the substance of his reply:
“the reason I sent the tweet was that it appeared that allegations of foul language (not acceptable but not the same as physical assault) seemed to have been escalated to assault. If that is the case it is a far more serious matter and both the alleged assailant and the victim need to be identified to the police who need to be invited to investigate.”

You will note that there is still no offer to help do the identifying of the perpetrator. And it’s not as if John doesn’t know who he is. Because John was out campaigning again with him today, as you will see from the photographs below.

Of course Biggs is not always silent. When ELN asked him if he had a copy of the memo which his former colleague, the then councillor Professor Michael Keith had referred to as “racist” in 1995 (the last time Labour’s John Biggs was in charge of the Council), he told us clearly that he doubted he still had it but would look if he got a chance.

Of course Biggs is not always that forthcoming.  When ELN asked him if he was going to resign his post on the GLA if he became mayor of Tower Hamlets – and, if not, if he was going to draw two full-time salaries for doing two part-time jobs? – Biggs went silent again.  We asked him if he had overlooked replying, as he surely did not want us to run a story about him not replying – to which he did not reply. So either Biggs doesn’t know what he intends to do, or he doesn’t think it is relevant as he’s given up hope of winning, or he’s just a wicked little tease. It’s still odd for a candidate who has criticised Mayor Rahman for “not answering questions” in the Council Chamber to… not be answering questions.

The Tories’ “quiet man” may have lost the Tory leadership – but he went on to inflict the welfare benefit cuts on us all. What does Labour’s “quiet man” have in store for us? That’s what we don’t know: he’s so quiet, he just isn’t telling.

The photos from the eve of poll canvass – with the “do you know this man” man (do you?)