What on earth was that? There they all were, the finest of the local political elite, all dressed up for a quiet day of vote counting in the Wintergarden at Canary Wharf, when kerbooooom! The unthinkable happens.
Not a single political commentator had cottoned on to the fact that Tower Hamlets politics was going to change for ever.
The Green Party won a seat! Honest!
It must be right posh in Bow! They probably have inside toilets n that.
Well done Nathalie Bienfait, we hope you are not too shocked when you attend your first council meeting and the fists start to fly.
Seriously.
What else happened at the weekend? Anything? It does not seem that the borough’s roof has fallen in as yet so that’s something.
Oh yeah somehow Cllr Abdal Ullah, the man who put the i into idle and the me into “what’s in it for me?” got himself elected again. How did that happen?
Next time Cllr Ullah is seen in Wapping, in 2026 for the elections, can someone ask him? (But don’t mention the Reardon House incident please, we don’t talk about that remember.)
The validity of our local election process has to be called into question when amazingly good hard working community councillors are dumped while people like Ullah get elected.
On the plus side at least huge property developers across the country will be breathing a sigh of relief that Cllr Ullah has once again got unfettered access to the council’s Planning Department.
What? Didn’t Mole tell you about that? Oops. We will get round to it soon.
Moley is already hearing interesting stories about Cllr Ullah, none of which relate to residents of course as they have served his purpose so could they all just shut up now please? It would be much appreciated.
What goes around comes around
Any other shocks? Ah yes, ex-Councillor Kevin Brady got exactly what he deserved and was dumped by the very residents that he had shown such contempt for. Loathed by colleagues and residents in equal measure he is now back to treading the boards.
Amazing that someone like this (or Cllr Ullah) manages to rise within Tower Hamlets Labour Party to some semblance of responsibility.
But then its talent pool is very shallow. Toes wet, ankles dry shallow. Any wannabe Labour councillor with a dust speck of common sense avoids Tower Hamlets Labour like the plague.
What else? Anything?
Another ex-Mayor in the borough
John Biggs reaped the benefits of the bullshit he has been spouting for seven years and the political games he has been playing with his colleagues and had his political career ended in brutal fashion.
Tough.
Now you know how a resident feels when the council services they rely on to just get by in life are cut on a whim while millions of pounds floats around the town hall unaccounted for.
The greatest lie told by Tower Hamlets Labour is that there is no money for essential services and they have to be cut and it is all the governments fault.
Yes it absolutely is the governments fault that council budgets have been slashed and slashed again, but it is not the governments fault that the Labour administration was incapable of performing essential budgeting, project management and forward planning.
Something else happened though, sure of it.
The Comeback Kid is Back in Town!
After seven years of almost total silence Lutfur Rahman stepped back onto the public stage and achieved a stunning result in the Mayoral contest.
Mind. Blown.
Not content with that his Aspire candidates broke the Labour stranglehold on power with final figures of a lot of votes against not quite as many votes.
Moley is pretty sure that he owes a lot to another master of local politics, Ken Livingstone, and wonders if the exceptionally capable former Cabinet member for Resources, Alibor Choudhury, was casting his magic too? It would seem so.
Alibor has been spotted with Lutfur several times recently after seeming to disappear in 2015.
While Lutfur is the face of the new administration Alibor is the brains, a very capable man who gets things done. The borough is safe in his hands.
Great! No! Yay! What? Huh? OMG!!!!
Here is a random selection of tweets in response to Lutfur’s win including the type of in-depth analysis that Ted Jeory is rightly famous for.
Fair to say that there have been mixed responses to the election of Lutfur Rahman as Mayor which is understandable.
The most Important question facing the new Mayor
The borough now waits for the Mayor to make his first announcement, the one issue that unites the borough.
What colour Mercedes is he getting?
Maybe Sadiq Khan will have a nice sinecure to offer ex-Mayor Biggs?
Yes, one new Green Party councillor in Bow West – well done, Nathalie!
But what about the closure of Antill Road to non-residents and the timing of this? We were told that Liveable streets was about limiting residential traffic as well, and the ones of us who attended the Olga School ‘consultation’ meeting in 2019 heard that ANPRs would not be part of the solution…
A couple of years later, out of the blue, Antill Road becomes a resident-only street with it’s own ANPR camera!
Was this a desperate attempt by Labour (and one non-elected councillor, in particular) to try to undermine the Green Party and secure the votes from the Bow West residents?
Fortunately, the outcome has shown us that the community will not be fooled by such attempts