Why won't the police act against anti-gay thuggery in Tower Hamlets?

by Paul Goodman

Anna Farquhar is the Chairman of Wiltshire Involvement Network (WIN).  At a meeting of the organisation, she referred to gossip about NHS changes spreading within the Health Service, saying "You ­cannot help the jungle drums".  Sonia Carr, a member of Wiltshire Race Equality Council was present.  She complained, Mrs Farquhar apologised, but Mrs Carr remained unsatistfied.  She complained to Conservative-run Wiltshire Council, which launched a investigation.  After producing a ten-page report, the council barred all members of WIN from council premises and meetings.  It also withdrew funding to cover the group’s administration costs.

Imagine what would have happened if Mrs Farquhar, a respected former chief executive of the Citizen’s Advice Bureau and St John Ambulance in the Devizes area, had done something which really would cause offence - such as turn up at a council meeting, and yell "Poofter" at any councillor who happens to be gay.  Mrs Carr would surely have had a fit of the vapours. Mrs Farquhar would certainly have been despatched for training on equality and diversity issues, and any funding WIN gets from the council would have been cut off altogether.  The police would probably have been called in.

Let's now shift our scene from rural Wiltshire to Tower Hamlets.

Anna Lynch is a Labour councillor.  At a recent Council meeting, she complained to the Chairman that someone in the public gallery had shouted "poofter" when Peter Golds, the openly gay leader of the Conservative group on the council, was speaking.  Here's part of the rest of an account of what happened from Labour List -

"Some people had already been evicted from the meeting for disruption by the chair of council, Motin Uz-Zaman. Motin tried to evict the person who had made this comment. An adjournment was called. Anna and Motin were both then threatened by members of the public in the gallery, with shouts that they would “get them”. Some of those involved in the fracas were amongst the Independent Mayor’s most prominent supporters. When the members of the public in question refused to leave Motin cleared the whole public gallery and we continued with our meeting with only the press, councillors and council officers present.

Councillors were told by police that the police would not act without the authorisation of the chief legal officer. If the police had got involved the people who had been homophobic and made threats could have been thrown out, leaving the rest of the public present. We will do more to find out why authorisation for police action was not given.

In the debate that followed, the Independent Mayor said absolutely nothing. When an anti-cuts campaigner interrupted his speech earlier in the meeting he was furious, and demanded she be expelled. When homophobia was reported and the meeting was thrown into chaos and aggression, some on his side, including one of his cabinet members, questioned and denied the existence of homophobia in the room. He said nothing at all."

Over-reaction to a solitary heckle?  An incident blown out of all proportion?  More Labour spin?

Something rotten in Tower Hamlets

Private Eye has a regular feature called Rotten Boroughs. The latest issue has an interesting item about Tower Hamlets:

"Congratulations to Tower Hamlets new assistant chief executive, Lutfur Rahman Ali. The 'diversity' guru becomes No 2 on the council and its highest-paid Bangladeshi officer, on £125,000 plus a year. the only fly in the ointment is the Tory opposition leader Cllr Peter Golds, who has made a formal complaint to the Standards Board for England about the selection process.

"Even the headhunters hired by the council had doubts about Ali's suitability, declaring him a 'marginal' candidate. But new Labour council leader Lutfur Rahman (no relation) thought differently and added him to the shortlist. Four members of the seven-strong selection panel duly voted that he get the job. All four happened to be Bengalis and fellow bigwigs at the East London Mosque - council leader Lutfur Rahman, his deputy Siraj Islam, Ohid Ahmed and locl 'Respeck' leader Abjol Miah...."

The piece goes on to detail other dubious connections via a consultancy called the Tribal Group and a false claim in Ali's CV. Some Conservatives might be happy to challenge Labour cronyism when it involves white people but be nervous of the sensitivities when there is a racial element. Golds is to be congratulated for his colour blind approach.