Andrew Gilligan

There was a fascinating private meeting earlier this month at the Bancroft Library in Tower Hamlets. Paul Harrington, the operations director of the London Labour Party, came to persuade the borough’s Labour councillors to support a Labour candidate.

Unusual, yes – but then that candidate is Ken Livingstone. As well as all his other negatives, Ken is the man who sabotaged the Tower Hamlets Labour Party last year, campaigning against the Labour candidate for the mayoralty of the borough and backing instead an independent, Lutfur Rahman, sacked by Labour for his links with Islamic extremism. Lutfur won; Labour lost.

Next year, Ken will be trying to regain a mayoralty of his own – London. It’s not going terribly well at the moment – despite the Tories’ national unpopularity, the latest poll puts Ken further behind Boris Johnson than when he lost in 2008 – so he’ll need all… Read More

The East London Mosque - the extremists' flagship

The Islamists of East London, led by their flagship the East London Mosque, have been loudly condemning a proposed march by the English Defence League through Tower Hamlets on September 3. Actually, of course, they are thrilled.

The EDL is wrong in so many ways – look at this video for how one of its previous marches, in Leicester, ended – but not least because they hand their supposed enemies, Muslim radicals, the perfect way to build support and legitimacy. The Islamists’ attempts to blame the EDL for the Norway massacre are perhaps a bit of a stretch – but who could dispute that the EDL are a racist rabble? Who could possibly object to campaigning against them?

The mosque has duly placed itself at… Read More

Sources at Tower Hamlets council tell me this evening that the council’s chief executive, Kevan Collins, has resigned. He is moving to head the Education Endowment Foundation, a new body to improve social mobility through education.  

This is another huge blow for Lutfur Rahman, Tower Hamlets’ directly-elected mayor – kicked out of the Labour Party for his links with the extremist Muslim group, the Islamic Forum of Europe. It is the second permanent chief executive Lutfur has lost in just over two years. As council leader in 2009, he controversially forced out Mr Collins’ highly-respected predecessor, Martin Smith, an act that cost the council a six-figure sum in compensation.

In a statement to councillors, Mr Collins said: I am grateful for the support and guidance I have received from Councillors from all political groups…the role of Councillors is critical your role as community leaders, insights, knowledge of our communities and democratic mandate… Read More

It hasn’t been a great week for Alastair Campbell, has it? Last Thursday, a senior MI6 official called the great persuader an “unguided missile” and said the spooks had concerns “from the outset” about the way their intelligence was presented in his and Tony Blair’s famous Iraq dossier.

Then, earlier this week, over Hackgate, Alastair could be seen touring the TV studios in his new role as an apostle of truth, arbiter of good journalism and enemy of Rupert Murdoch. This has provided much-needed amusement, at a difficult time, for both politicians and journalists – but does the poor man not have even an atom of self-awareness?

I have done some telly too during the crisis – we very nearly bumped into each other a couple of times – and to my horror I’ve yet again provoked this normally calm and mild-mannered ex-spinner to uncharacteristic anger. “Helped by his frequent… Read More

Johann Hari looks like he will keep his prize

The following story appeared in Monday’s print edition of the Daily Telegraph:

A man interviewed by Johann Hari says the celebrated Left-wing writer “twisted,” “misquoted” and “misrepresented” his words in an article which won him a major journalism award.

Usman Raja, a counter-extremism expert for the Government’s “Prevent” initiative, was interviewed by Hari in 2009 for an article on those who have renounced extremism. He was described as a man who had “begged to become a suicide bomber” and quoted as calling himself a “papier-mâché Muslim.”

Mr Raja told The Daily Telegraph: “I did it very trustingly. But he twisted the facts around to [make] a point that I wanted to be a terrorist. Part… Read More

Tom Watson was a better questioner than some

Having myself been subject to select committee interrogation amid a media firestorm, I developed a low opinion of the format. During the David Kelly affair the Foreign Affairs Committee, under a Labour toady chairman, Donald Anderson (since rewarded with a peerage), allowed itself to become Alastair Campbell’s tool in attempting to hound David and discredit my story. The questioning was low-grade, unfocused and grandstanding. Typically, they would suggest some phrase they had dreamed up to get a soundbite on the news and invite you to agree with it.

Today, however, the questioning is much better – mostly sensible and specific. And what has been striking has been the poor performance of those being questioned. Rupert Murdoch’s hesitations, and his clear (and probably genuine) difficulties of recall must mark the final end of his authority. James has been… Read More

There are three polls out tonight which show that Labour is not getting all that much of a boost from the phone-hacking scandal, and has indeed gone down in two out of the three.

ICM for the Guardian has the Tories (37%, no change) in the lead for the first time since March (Labour is on 36%, down 3.) In Populus, Labour has a 5-point lead (39%, down 1) over the Tories (34%, down 5.) YouGov’s weekday series shows Labour on 42%, unchanged and the Tories on 37%, up 1. The main beneficiaries in two of the three polls appear to be the Lib Dems.

What this suggests to me is that voters recognise that, for all Labour’s superior attack, both main parties were snuggled equally deep beneath the duvet with Murdoch and only the Lib Dems emerge with… Read More

One of the risks for Ken Livingstone, lacking as he is in self-awareness, is that he becomes a figure of fun. The old boy’s dogged determination to stick it to Boris Johnson for his links to Murdoch – even though Ken himself had far closer links – gave the Tories an open goal at Wednesday’s Mayoral question time in the London Assembly.

With Ken looking on from the gallery, this was supposed to be the moment when Labour finally nailed the evil Johnson regime. Instead, after a serious 20 minutes about the awfulness of News International’s behaviour, it became a double-act between Boris and the Tory assembly members at the expense of that much-loved vaudeville turn, K.Livingstone Esq.

Andrew Boff (Tory AM): I think it’s very important to ensure that the mayoralty cannot be compromised by undue influence. Bearing in mind when [the hacking] took place [during Ken’s term of… Read More

As we all obsess with the forthcoming inquiry into the press, the inquiry into something slightly worse than hacked telephones – the deaths of 150,000 people in Iraq – continues to produce startling revelations.

Today it published the redacted testimony of a senior MI6 officer who stated that “there were from the outset concerns” in the intelligence service about “the extent to which the intelligence could support some of the judgments that were being made” in Tony Blair’s famous WMD dossier.

Note those words: from the outset. This directly contradicts the testimony of Sir Richard Dearlove, then head of MI6, and John Scarlett, then chair of the joint intelligence committee, to Hutton.

To my mind, it is even more damning than the quote that’s making news today: the officer describing Alastair Campbell as an “unguided missile” about whom MI6 had “concerns.” (What those concerns exactly were has been helpfully blacked-out from… Read More

For Lutfur Rahman, the extremist-backed mayor of Tower Hamlets, nothing is too good for the workers. First he spent £115,000 of taxpayers’ money to treble the size of his office. Now, as the East London Advertiser reports, the public is forking out £72 a day to drive Lutfur around in an E-class Mercedes.

If the vehicle is used five days a week, that is just under £19,000 a year. If it is used seven days a week, it is £26,000. This appears to be the leasing cost for the vehicle (and a quota of petrol) only. Lutfur also has a chauffeur, who appears to be taken from a pool of council-certified drivers. With salary, pension and employer’s NI, this could bring the annual cost of the Lutfurmobile to as much as £60,000.

At the same time as increasing spending on himself, Lutfur is making cuts of £70 million… Read More