Incompetent Councils

The Labour-run Slough council, a Berkshire local authority declared a a section 114 notice in July l (bankruptcy) last year 2021 .....

Slough Borough Council

..... as a result of its £760m borrowing debt (much of it channelled into property investment), and a cumulative budget deficit of at least £174m by 2025 - I can't recall a UK local authority going bankrupt before.

School Kid Voters

Ed Milliband wants 16-year old's to be able to vote in elections by 2016 ..... this cunning ploy, which was also adopted by the Scottish National Party as part of the Independence referendum, is the sort of sleazy politics which we have become all to accustomed to in the current atmosphere.

The Labour Party face a very tough time in Scotland, from a powerful, nay triumphalist SNP, and may well lose most of its chances of Westminster power there, without entering into a Westminster 'arrangement' with them (or the offer of another referendum). So this little electoral stunt is designed to ensure that in any future election after 2016 (and there is a good chance that a hung Westminster Parliament could result in some sort of weak Liberal / Labour coalition, and therefore another election within 18 months), the Labour Party can harvest the semi-politically literate teen voters in urban areas.

Of course the Liberal party have also often debated this kind of idea themselves, and for much the same reasons, so they would probably favour it ..... but its the Labour Party who could actually deliver it. To be fair, Milliband has also launched a campaign to get students to register for votes, but possibly for the wrong reasons, as he is desperate to try and garner the 'youth' vote ... probably as he feels only they are daft enough to cast a vote for him ...

Ed Milliband Wooing Teen Voters .... Not

Bowing Our Necks To The Black Flag

From Syria ....

From Outside The Town Of Dabiq in Syria

To Iraq

To The Plains of Iraq

To Kenya

The Carnage Of A terror Attack

To Nigeria

Boko Haram Parading The Flag

To Tower Hamlets in London

Even Tower Hamlets Pays Homage ....

 
 ... the same black flag and the same Shahada message inscribed in white, displayed for the same reason. To strike terror in the enemies of the forthcoming world Caliphate that Islamists expect to come soon from a force that they consider to be not as a marauding band of terrorists but as brave defenders of Sunni Islam against the encroaching forces of Iran and its Shia allies. And its that goal that IS propaganda is aimed .. .... IS wants to project an image of itself as a group which has done away with nationalism. 

IS believes it is divinely commanded to adopt particularly savage tactics, because there is a verse of the Quran, which issues a command to "strike terror into [the hearts of] the enemies of Allah".  Its this easy literalism of the IS (and Boko Haram) approach to the Quran, which  explains why the group films and disseminates grisly videos and to such a wide audience amongst Muslims in Western Europe.

The basis of true Islamic identity, they want to argue, comes from the fraternity of faith ... the Ummah. For that reason the self-styled Caliphate of IS (and to a greater degree than its brothers in Algeria, Mali and Nigeria)  aspires to be a sort-of "United Nations of Islam", a melting pot for all Muslims - provided, of course, they are strictly Sunni Muslims, who subscribe completely to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's narrow construction of the faith. Any who don't are the wrong type of Muslim.

The Hadiths suggest that the Prophet Muhammad said that "the last hour will not come" until Muslims vanquish the Romans at "Dabiq or Al-A'maq" (which are both in the Syria-Turkey border region) on their way to conquer Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul) .... now technically the Ottomans archived that aim but of course the last hour didn't come, so obviously the Turks are not the right sort of Muslims. 

Which is why the recent execution, of an American convert to Islam, was carried out in the IS controlled town of 'Dabiq' ... to both taunt the US, and send a subliminal message to all 'good' Muslims everywhere, for whom the significance of the town wouldn't fail to register. 

To put this threat into context, the BBC has reported that in just one month this year, Islamists have murdered over 5,000 people and maimed many many more ..... All the while the same black flag flutters over the conquered towns and villages in many areas in the Muslim world, and across the rest of the worlds video screens.

Londonistan Thrives

Over the years, I have posted a number of times on the apparent infiltration and corruption of the political processes by an Islamic clique in Tower Hamlets, London.

• In March 2010 I posted that an investigative journalist had suggested that a major London mosque, run by extremists, had also taken over the local Labour Party in Tower Hamlets.
• In November 2013 I also posted on the re-emergence of Rotten Boroughs in UK politics and that leading the way was Tower Hamlets. Included in the post were serious allegations of both vote rigging and financial mismanagement.   
• Finally, in June this year I alluded to the electoral malpractices that meant the European election results were delayed for 3 days because of dubious goings on at the vote counting stations in Tower Hamlets ~ including apparently threats and intimidation to the counters.  

The fact that a clique originally used the local Labour Party to achieve all this, has meant that both the national Labour Party, and successive governments just apparently ignored it. What was even more worrying was that all the local checks and balances, that are supposed to stop local political corruption without the need of a government intervention, apparently failed under the system of political correctness.

The Mayor Shows His Affiliations

Well finally it seems that this last voting scandal has finally embarrassed the powers that be (possibly because it was reported on overseas), in to some sort of action.

Lutfur Rahman, the Mayor of Tower Hamlets has finally (the string of allegations he has rung up is impressive), been served with High Court papers under the Representation of the People Act 1983, alleging that his campaign as an independent for the 'Tower Hamlets First' (prior to 2011, he was in the Labour Party) was a fraud, with claims of people voting who were not entitled to (not for the first time in that borough), and promises of council housing given to the Bangladeshi and Somali communities in return for their votes.

Flag Flying Is Popular In Tower Hamlets .....
The ISIS Flag (or Rayah), Was Later Taken Down By A Catholic Nun

Apart from the claims of straightforward corruption, the allegations also include the claim that he used 'spiritual influence' (presumably backed by the Mosque), by telling 65,000 Muslims that if they voted for the Labour party (they don't vote for Liberals or Conservative, so no need to mention them), it would be a 'sinful act' and that 'Allah would punish them'. The threats also included the promise from a few friendly Imams, that Muslims who voted for the very halal Lutfur Rahman, would be rewarded in paradise for this 'virtuous and Islamic act', and he backed this up with an earthly pleasure, by holding banquets for various Muslim groups. These are all unproven allegations and the case will be heard in court in the Autumn.

However in the meantime Mr Rahman has made no move to step down until the case is heard .... something that would be expected of the Mayor in any other area of the country, which is a sure sign of how far from 'British standards' these backward ghetto communities have been allowed to drift ..... but the Labour Party, who must have been aware of what was happening over the years did nothing. Possibly as he was the Labour leader of Tower Hamlets London Borough Council from 2008 to 2010, but they finally acted, when he allegedly used ghost voters to try and win the selection as Labour Candidate for the post of directly elected mayor. He was finally rejected from the process, and left the Labour Party to stand as an 'Independent' in 2010 .... he won, but with further allegations about his methods, including claims that he threatened council officers.

As one national newspaper commentator put it. "We spend far too much time protecting the culture of those who join our country. And far too little defending the culture they have chosen to replace".

UPDATE April 2015:

Mr Rahman was found guilty of numerous malpractises by the Electoral Court. However apart from ordering a new election and barring Mr Rahman from one election, he has got off easily. Corruption in public office should result in a prison sentence, and its a surprise that in this example it hasn't .... or perhaps its not a surprise at all. The end result of this leniency is that Rahman's confederates are carrying on with the same illegal racial claims ..... we are fools.

 

UPDATE April 2022: Mr Rahman was re-elected by Muslim voters of Tower Hamlets and he and his all male Muslim cronies are back in power again .... we reap what we sow.

  

Rotten Boroughs

A long time ago we had in the UK what were called 'rotten boroughs', which were parliamentary electoral seats that had a very small electorate, and could easily be bought by a prospective Member of Parliament in elections. These boroughs were eventually abolished and a reformed House of Parliament was elected, but we have developed in the 21st century a new version of these 'rotten boroughs', and that is the 'one party rule' borough councils.

These councils are a feature of the landscape in many areas of England, and also in Wales and Scotland (although in Scotland the rise of the SNP, has both lurched politics further to the left - if that's possible - and stirred up a brew that had long been becalmed for decades. And which the Scottish Labour Party totally misread when they adopted Scottish devolution as a vote winning policy). But where they particularly thrive is in the heady mix of a virtually one party dictatorships, combined with racial vote politics, that so many of the London councils now exhibit.

Welcome To Tower Hamlets

Take for example the London council of Tower Hamlets, something of a byword for political correctness driven incompetence, and now seemingly financial mismanagement. Recently they have been faced with having to make cutbacks of £100 million over the next three financial years, out of a £1.2 billion budget.

So what did they decide to do? Well one 'trick' was to consider axing the post of Chief Executive Officer, but in the meantime they needed someone to take the role of CEO on a temporary basis, while it was decided whether to phased it out .... but instead of taking someone from outside to cover the role for about 6 weeks, up steps one of their own, a man who was already on a reported salary of £119,000 pa in his role as 'corporate director for development and renewal' - what the hell that is in a council such as this, its hard to guess. It's in such a state that it even while it operates 'Foodbanks' for the poor, a councillor from another London council (Newham), has claimed that the Mayor of Tower Hamlets, is still "maintaining a personal limousine that collects his dry cleaning.” ... so much for cutbacks at the top.

Anyway, their (ex) corporate director for development and renewal, takes on the role for a total of 46 days, and is reported to have been paid £115,000, which in itself is obscene for a council making cuts, but then, when the decision was confirmed that the temporary role had ended, he threatened to sue for (racial?) discrimination because he hadn't been given the role on a full time basis - even though Labour councillors were amongst those who blocked his appointment. Rather than dismiss his claims, the council paid him another lump sum to drop the case, to take the total payout he received to a reported £256k for just 46 days work. Then to crown a miserable set of actions, they gave him back his pensionable role of 'corporate director for development and renewal'' .... nice work if you can get it.

In another council and another age, this sort of activity would likely have resulted in the council being suspended, maybe the police being called in, and probably the wipe out of the ruling party in new elections .... but this is 2013, London, and Tower Hamlets, where the normal rules of probity hardly apply ... so nothing has happened, and apart from a few raised eyebrows, this sort of dubious financial management is just accepted ..... By the way, this is not the first time the corporate director for development and renewal and Mayor have been in the news. In May 2012 their were allegations of electoral fraud in Tower Hamlets. In fact four separate news organisations – the newspapers, the Daily Telegraph, and the Evening Standard, and TV channels the BBC, and City AM – all reported to have uncovered evidence of postal vote harvesting, ghost voters, impersonation, or all of the above, in Tower Hamlets - both gentlemen featured in the reports.

What does this all lead too, apart from the obvious management issues and lack of accountability? Well Tower Hamlets is also becoming known for its production of 'Jihadists' such as "Talha," a Muslim from Tower Hamlets who was killed last November, while fighting for the Somali Islamist militant group al-Shabab .... before his death, he appeared in a recruitment video aimed at others in the borough. "All the Muslims in Britain, especially the people of Tower Hamlets, the citadel I was born in. I call upon you to come to jihad" was the video message .... no doubt others will go. Apparently one of the drivers for this, is the complete lack of development projects and jobs in Tower Hamlets, as one Muslim resident said "Growing up in Tower Hamlets, there wasn't much to do. No-one had any money. There were hardly any youth centres. Young men just hung around on the streets getting into mischief. It was like no-one cared about us." .... and the corporate director for development and renewal continues to get a handsome salary as 'corporate director for development and renewal'' ... hmm.

We need a root and branch reform of these new rotten boroughs, but while some political parties continue to derive some support from these areas, you'll see nothing happen soon ...... Welcome again to 'Broken Britain'.

Gilligans Islamic Island

This blog has remarked before that our political leaders seem to connive in the spread of the creed that aims one day to rule this country. This supine compliance is not just because the PC ideology that infects the body politic, has paralysed any effective response to threats from aggressive minorities, its also because, despite all the evidence, and the obvious distrust of many of the public, they keep trying to negotiate with a 7th century creed that has always spread via force.

So it should be no surprise that once again a TV journalist for Dispatches (Andrew Gilligan) has exposed the fact that a fundamentalist Muslim group - the Islamic Forum of Europe (IFE) - operating under the cover of a large Mosque, has infiltrated the British political system via a local Labour Party.

Based at the East London Mosque in Whitechapel, the IFE has allegedly received millions of pounds of tax payers money through the mosque they control, which has also been visited by government ministers and royalty.

However, despite claiming (with some past justification) to support tolerance and community spirit, the Journalist claims that the Mosque and the IFE also play hosts and cover to extremist speakers and the stocking of radical books.

Actually, its hardly new story, as Channel Four ran a similar story last year, and after many complaints the program was proved to be correct, however already Muslim posters on the Channel 4 web site are defending both the mosque and the IFE against the allegations.

However, there was one thing on the mosques website that made me pause ..... they apparently offer sessions on how to secure a Security Industry Authority licence by offering 'Security Training - Screening Sessions' which is not something the local churches, temples or synagogues offer. Why are they doing this, are security jobs the best ones that Muslims can go for?

It seems a very strange thing to offer in these suspicious times.

The programme also alleges that the Labour Party has been subverted in Tower Hamlets and that recent attempts to have a referendum for a Major in Tower Hamlets has been run by the IFE, and included a large proportion of illegitimate names and addresses, yet despite this, the referendum will go ahead. So once again a Labour constituency is named in an alleged vote rigging amongst an Asian community.

The Labour Party started playing a very dangerous game, both for themselves, and democracy in this country when it opened the floodgates of immigration ...... only time will tell if they (and us) are not damaged by the game.