Thursday, April 23, 2015

Lutfur Rahman with Keith Vaz, Jon Ashworth and Sir Peter Soulsby



BBC News reports:
An east London mayor has been removed from office and a poll declared void after he was found guilty of electoral fraud. 
An Election Commissioner concluded Tower Hamlets mayor Lutfur Rahman breached election rules and must vacate his post immediately.
You can read Richard Mawrey's full judgment on Trial by Jeory.

In 2010 Rahman was chosen to be the Labour candidate for mayor of Tower Hamlets, but was deselected shortly afterwards amid concerns about the selection process and his alleged links with extremist groups.

In November 2010 he stood against the official Labour candidate as an independent and won the election.

Which made it odd that he travelled to Leicester the following year as an honoured guest of the city's Labour bigwigs. His visit came as the city was facing council elections, its first mayoral election and a parliamentary by-election in the Leicester South constituency.

I blogged about this visit at the time, linking to a video of it on a blog written by David Maclean, then the Leicester Mercury's political correspondent.

That blog has vanished, taking the video with it, but today I found this report of the event from Channel S, an Asian news station.

1 comment:

Phil Beesley said...

The video associated with David Maclean's blog post was recorded at Labour's post-election celebration in 2011. It recorded Peter Soulsby's election as Mayor of Leicester, and it is sad that it has been lost. Or misplaced.

Lutfur Rahman (previously dropped as a Labour candidate) was a guest at the event, along with some followers. Jon Ashworth popped in briefly to congratulate Peter Soulsby. Jon Ashworth's escort (nowt snide implied) was the only woman to appear in the video.

The Channel S video may be a Leicester montage. It's mostly about Lutfur Rahman's campaign visit to the Highfields Centre in Leicester.

Shock, horror but some women are shown in the Channel S video. On the sidelines, of course. Inside the Highfields Centre, token women can be seen at 1'08" for as much as three seconds.

When Rahman walks down the street, he is pursued by a posse of men, some of whom proclaim to seek equal opportunities for women.