25 July 2012

Tower Hamlets Labour Group expels five councillors

An example of the never ending in-fightings, conspiracies and division amongst Bengali politicians in Tower Hamlet. Politics - a dirty business for dirty individuals! 


From East London Advertiser

Five councillors have been expelled from the Tower Hamlets Labour Group, following claims they campaigned against the party during April’s Spitalfields by-election.

The councillors, Kabir Ahmed, Rofique Ahmed, Shahed Ali, Abdul Asad and Shafiqul Haque, were all found to be in breach of Labour party guidelines, which prohibit members from campaigning against the party or actively supporting opposition politicians or groups.

The Labour Group also reprimanded the councillors for their continued membership of Tower Hamlets Mayor Lutfur Rahman’s cabinet.

Group leader, councillor Joshua Peck, said: “The five expelled councillors have consistently voted and campaigned against the Labour Party. Whilst it is sad that it has had to come to this, these five councillors made their choice and now have to deal with the consequences.

“I hope that this decision will draw a line under the problems of the past and allow us to focus on the important job of holding the independent Mayor to account and battling the Coalition’s cuts regime.”


8 July 2012

Lutfur Rahman's TV propaganda channel

An article by Andrew Gilligan, the Telegraph's London Editor, published in October 2010.

Lutfur Rahman, the fundamentalist sympathiser standing for mayor of Tower Hamlets, hasn’t always done terribly well on television. This encounter with me on Channel 4 was, frankly, a bit of a car crash.

Luckily, in his latest electoral struggle, Lutfur has what amounts to his own personal TV station. Channel S, one of the main British Bangla-language digital channels, flickers away in the corners of many Tower Hamlets living rooms. The channel was founded (and is still closely influenced by) a convicted fraudster and hosts regular appeals for the hardline East London Mosque – home to Lutfur’s biggest backers, the Muslim supremacists of the Islamic Forum of Europe. Another of Lutfur’s main backers is closely involved with the channel.

Channel S has form as long as your arm for blatant and repeated breaches of virtually every part of the broadcasting code on fairness, advertising, accuracy and political impartiality. In December 2008, the regulator, Ofcom, fined it £40,000 for broadcasting a party-political advert for the Liberal Democrats during that year’s mayoral election (one of its presenters, Ajmol Masroor, was the Liberal Democrat candidate for Bethnal Green and Bow at this year’s general election.)

In 2008 Ofcom also censured them for three further breaches: for airing sponsored news bulletins, for running more than the permitted amount of advertising, and for plugging the products of a show's sponsor during the show, which is banned.

Channel S in trouble for advocating Lutfur Rahman's politics

Channel S is in trouble again for breaching Ofcom rules. It is reported in Broadcast Bulletin 208 that a complainant alerted Ofcom to a news report of Channel S News, which the complainant described as a “political press conference, broadcast as a "news" item without any attempt to give an alternative view”.

Channel S stated its view that the complaint in this case originated from “a group of people raising anything and everything that could cause Channel S inconvenience and make our life difficult in relation to the Mayor and Tower Hamlets Council”.

This amateur response shows the the lack of understanding of the people running the channel. And what's this special love for the Mayor? In Ofcom's view complaint from viewers are useful but it only proceeds to a full investigation of broadcast content after carefully assessing programme content as broadcast against the provisions of the Code, and deciding that the content does in fact raise potential issues under the Code. Therefore, whatever the alleged provenance of a particular complaint, broadcasters must comply with the Code.

Ofcom concluded:

We noted that the news report in question showed Lutfur Rahman, the independent mayor for the Tower Hamlets Borough Council, at a press conference announcing his proposed 2012/13 budget for Tower Hamlets Borough Council. In Ofcom‟s opinion because Lutfur Rahman was elected to his post, and exercises certain important executive financial powers in that post (including setting the Tower Hamlets budget), a press conference called to announce and promote his budget could reasonably be regarded as a press conference dealing with policy matters that were politically controversial. In presenting a news item on a press conference dealing with such a matter, a broadcaster must present that news with due impartiality.

Lutfur Rahman is a very controversial figure. He was featured in Channel 4 Dispatches documentary "Britain's Islamic Republic" and thrown out of the Labour Party. Anyone interested in Muslim/Bengali issues must watch this enlightening documentary. Is it a coincidence that the above Ofcom bulletin links to a Labour Party article "Mayor Rahman’s Rotten Borough"? Surely a rotten borough run by a rotten man!

Channel S does not seem to realise the seriousness of these breaches. Outside Bangladesh, Tower Hamlet council in the East End of London has the highest number of Bangladeshis. There are political infighting amongst Bengalis, many of them see politics as a way of landing a lucrative job, when their compatriots are doing menial jobs. Also the big political parties, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Awami League has a massive grip over the Bengalis in UK, like a debilitating cancer that hinders progress.

Channel S is facilitating the ills of dirty politics amongst British Bangladeshis. 

Ofcom says "We are concerned that the breach in this case comes after three previous contraventions of the Code rules covering due impartiality and elections recorded against Channel S.... We therefore put the Licensee on notice that further breaches of the Code of a similar or related nature will be considered for statutory sanction.

Statutory sanction often means a financial penalty. Lets hope it will be a big one! That is the only way to teach these village idiots a lesson. It will not be too long before they breach the same impartiality rules again.