Former Derby Council leader arrested

Cllr Philip Hickson is the new Conservative leader of Derby City Council. The Council will continue to be run as a Conservative/Lib Dem coalition although Labour gained five seats on May 5 and will be hoping to take control next year when another third of the seats are up for election.

The new leader was chosen after the previous Council leader, Cllr Harvey Jennings, was arrested after allegations that he assualted his ex wife. As he has been charged with an offence under tthe Conservvative Group's rules his membership has been suspended until the matter is resolved.

Mayor of Tower Hamlets gave character reference for minicab molester

Ted Jeory reports on his blog over a serious misjudgment by Lutfur Rahman, the independent elected Mayor of Tower Hamlets. Rahman provided a character reference for a man he barely knew, without carrying out any checks. The man had molested a woman in his illegal cab.

The East London Advertiser reports:

An unlicensed cabbie who was slammed by a judge for not bothering to learn English was caged for grabbing a passenger’s breasts.

Zamal Uddin, 44, twice sexually assaulted the 26-year-old in Hoxton last October after she got into his illegal taxi after a night out with friends.

Judge Timothy King had blasted Bangladesh-born Uddin, who was aided in court by an interpreter, for not learning English after moving to the UK in 1992.

And before passing sentence the judge was handed testimonials on Uddin’s behalf from several Tower Hamlets councillors and the borough’s mayor Lutfur Rahman. Judge King said they all seemed “to be in ignorance of your background and personality”.

Jailing Uddin for 18 months, Judge King described how he leaned over and touched his passenger’s breasts in the cab before following her after she fled into an alley where he pinned her against the wall and touched her under her clothing.

Uddin, of Rogers Estate, Globe Road, was also ordered to sign the sex offenders’ register for 10 years. He admitted two charges of sexual assault and driving while disqualified.

Labour councillor suspended over "racist email"

CllrSue Gray, a Labour councillor on Thurrock, has been suspended from her Party after forwarding an racist email. I haven't seen the full email but while it may not be racist it certainly sounds inflammatory and inaccurate. The police being involved sounds like a misuse of their time and a breach of free speech. 

Do the people of Thurrock want the police to be out on the streets catching yobs or having long discussions with Cllr Gray on her insights into race relations and demographics?

On the other hand Cllr Gray's defence that she forwarded the email on to lots of people without reading it does not come across as entirely reassuring. So probably Labour were right to suspend her.

Among other comments the email said:

“This is unbelievable. It’s now predicted that Britain will become an Islamic state by 2070. (Time to think about your children/grandchildren). Please forward this e-mail asap so that 40 per cent of British voters who didn’t vote last time might get the message.”

Tower Hamlets councillor arrested

Reports from Andrew Gilligan and Ted Jeory over the arrest of Cllr Shelina Aktar of Tower Hamlets Council, a supporter of the extremist directly elected Mayor, Lutfur Rahman. Ken Livingstone campaigned for Rahman even tough Rahman was standing against an official Labour candidate.

Livingstone has been lobbying hard for Rahman to be allowed back into the Labour Party. But this has been rebuffed. More to the point is why Livingstone himself is allowed to remain in the Party given his contempt for the Party's entirely reasonable rule (Chapter 2, Section A. 4 b) that supporting a candidate standing against an official Labour candidate means you are ineligible to remain a member.

A recent Daily Politics interview between Andrew Neil and Ken Livingstone included the following exchange:

Neil: You were attacking Phil Woolas, though, for smears and so on. But here are you, backing a man who distributed 90,000 copies of a Bangladeshi freesheet which carried smears [on] the Labour candidate, the man you’re supposed to be supporting, calling him “the wife-beating candidate” and a racist!

Ken (smiling): It’s very dirty politics down in Tower Hamlets. No-one denies that.

Neil: Much worse than anything Phil Woolas said. And you’re backing this guy!

Tory councillor arrested over Twitter comment

If a political opponent called for me to be killed I would think it was pretty offensive. But whether I interpreted it as merely silly or as a genuine incitement to violence would depend on the context.

Cllr Gareth Compton of Birmingham City Council has been suspended from the Conservative Party and arrested by the police. It followed a message on Twitter, he sent on Wednesday, where he said:

‘Can someone please stone Yasmin ­Alibhai-Brown to death? I shan’t tell Amnesty if you don’t. It would be a blessing really.’

Cllr Compton really should know better. He's a 39-year-old barrister, not some student demonstrator. He was annoyed that Yasmin Alibhai-Brown had criticised David Cameron for raising human rights in China. I suppose the point he was trying to make was, how would she like having her human rights violated? He apologised for his comment but it was crassly expressed to an extent to be unacceptable. So for the Conservatives to suspend him seems reasonable as a signal of their strong disapproval.

Pickles to scrap Prescott’s Town Hall ‘Thought Police’

Eric Pickles pledged today that the new Government will scrap the army of town hall ‘thought police’ who are spending millions of pounds on suppressing freedom of speech in local councils. Under laws passed by John Prescott in 2000, a whole ‘monitoring’ industry has been created in local government which prevents elected councillors from championing local issues and has fuelled thousands of petty and malicious complaints. Instead, new criminal sanctions will target genuine town hall corruption.

Under Labour’s so-called ‘crackpot code’ – policed by local ‘monitoring officers’, so-called ‘ethical standards investigators’ and the unelected quango of the ‘Standards Board’:

• In December, councillors were told not to share a car when driving to a Planning Committee meeting to avoid the “appearance of bias”.
• Opponents to hikes in car parking charges have been gagged by town hall bureaucrats. Anyone making a comment “in a public forum” questioning higher parking charges were gagged from speaking or voting on the issue at a council meeting.
• Election candidates campaigning against the closure of a local swimming pool and sports centre were told they would not be allowed to vote on the issue if they won the election.
• Opponents of a controversial park-and-ride scheme and mobile phone masts were forbidden from voting if they drove a car or owned a mobile phone respectively.

Now abolish the local standards boards

Mark Wallace, Senior Account Manager at Portland Communications and author of the Crash Bang Wallace blog, says councillors should be punished by voters - not Standards committees

The fundamental principle of British Democracy should be that the people are the regulators of their elected representatives.

The decision as to whether a politician is doing the right or the wrong thing is down to the voters. Only they know what they want from their councillors - and no matter how well-intentioned a quango or regulator might be, they will always have a rarified view. Often, of course, they aren't even well-intentioned.

This is why it is great that the Standards Board for England is to be abolished.

The Board has been an albatross around the neck of local government for years. With a ridiculously pernickety set of rules, they have investigated and even punished councillors for the grievous sins of being angry at opponents, gesturing with cigarettes and even for speaking up for their constituents.

Labour councillor calls for Baroness Thatcher to "burn in Hell"

Imagine a Conservative councillor called for the death of a political opponent (such as Tony Blair or Gordon Brown). Furthermore that the offensive comment was not something they were overheard uttering in a pub after a few drinks but a comment made on the internet. Furthermore that they refused to apologise even after its offensive nature was highlighted. I would say that such a person should have the whip withdrawn.

Yet what of Cllr Florence Anderson, a Labour councillor, who has said in a message on an open Facebook  group, that she hopes Margaret Thatcher "burns in Hell"? Not only will she apparently remain a Labour councillor but is to continue as Deputy Leader of Sunderland City Council. Will the Labour MP Peter Hain be happy to continue as her Facebook friend?

Another aspect of the saga is that the Council press officer said:

 “There are still strong feelings in many parts of the country about events during Margaret Thatcher’s time as Prime Minister and Cllr Anderson has expressed her feelings.”

It sounds to me as of the press officer has breached the Local Government Act 1986 and the Code of Practice on Local Authority Publicity. They are not suppose to get drawn into party political controversies.

Defecting councillor accused of data theft

If a councillor defects from one party to another, what data should they be entitled to take with them? Surely not canvass returns?

Cllr Ben Curran, a Sheffield councillor who defected from the Lib dems to Labour, has been reported to the police for doing so. It is claimed he downloaded the information onto a memory stick just days before defecting. A Lib Dem councillor, Cllr David Baker is complaining to the police.

The Star reports:

In a letter to chief constable Meredydd Hughes, Coun Baker says the party believes Coun Curran's actions may constitute data theft and a breach of the Data Protection Act.

The database will include people's voting intentions, which had been volunteered to Lib Dem canvassers along with mobile phone numbers, email addresses and details of Lib Dem councillors' casework.

Such information would be very useful to rival politicians.

The Lib Dems are demanding that Labour pledges not to use any of the information if it falls into their hands.

Earlier this week, Labour leadership favourite David Miliband welcomed Coun Curran, who was only elected in Walkley five months ago, to his party and said he wanted 10,000 Lib Dem members to follow his lead.

Voter information is alleged to have been downloaded from EARS, a data storage system used to hold information collected by canvassers. All parties gather such information, which is crucial for identifying potential swing voters and pinpointing issues of concern.

Coun David Baker said: "Local people have the right to know their personal information may now be used without their consent.

"Clearly this is very serious, that's why we're asking the Labour Party to fully co-operate with police."

Bury Labour councillor suspended

Cllr Tamoor Tariq has been suspended as a Labour councillor after an incident involving the fly tipping of confidential election material. The local paper reports that documents dumped include "postal General Election ballot papers" as well as letters addressed to Cllr Tariq.

Cllr Tariq says he didn't dump the material - it was a member of his family.