Results tagged “Labour”

By Tim Archer

A budget has to balance sooner or later; black holes cannot be financed forever and they cannot be ignored. It's therefore interesting that the Labour-run council chose to overlook the fact that its books contain a £54million gap. Putting that into context, council tax in Tower Hamlets would have to rise by almost 30 per cent a year for the next three years just to plug that gap.

By Tim Archer

It must be an election year as the Labour-run Tower Hamlets Council has proposed to freeze Council Tax.

Coincidentally, the last time Council Tax was frozen in Tower Hamlets was in 2006, also an election year.

Tower Hamlets Council cabinet member Anwara Ali has left Labour for the Tories, saying she has become "disillusioned" with the party's NHS reform.

The Bow West councillor's defection will come as a blow to the ruling party, as the GP was lead member for health and well-being in the borough.

The Government is refusing to bow to pressure in bringing forward an increase in retirement age following the recession.

At the Conservative Party conference, George Osborne unveiled proposals to raise the age of state pensions for men to 66 from 2016, eight years ahead of the current Government's proposals.

MP Jim Fitzpatrick held a press conference in Canary Wharf this week to refute allegations of Islamophobia. The Wharf reports from the East Wintergarden

The press conference was for Bangladeshi media only, but a small group of politicians were outside anyway.

Some were taking pictures against the window, hands outstretched in a show of mock confusion. One pushed away the blocking arm of a man at the door, and strode into the doorway.

By Tim Archer

Anyone who knows Tower Hamlets knows all about the major housing problems the borough faces.

There are some 23,000 people on the housing waiting list, with 14,000 on the list are living in chronic overcrowding. Housing is where the Government and the Labour-run council have let local people down the most.

Despite the success of Canary Wharf, the Docklands constituency of Poplar and Canning Town has one of the worst rates of unemployment in the country.

So you'd think that the Labour-run Tower Hamlets Council would be doing all it could to ensure that unemployment is going down not up.

A council committee skimmed through its authority's entire budget in half an hour - because some members had a party meeting to attend.

When Tower Hamlets Council's audit committee met at 6.30pm last Monday (June 29), chair Fazlul Haque announced that analysis of the 2008/9 accounts had to end by 7pm.

When Jim Fitzpatrick first became an MP for Poplar and Canning Town in 1997, he was representing a new constituency and a new Labour government.

More than a decade later, his constituency is changing again, and many speculate the Government will again change with it.

By Tim Archer

First there was disbelief. Then there was anger. Now we need action. I'm talking, of course, about MPs' expenses. The Telegraph blew the whistle on the abuse of this lax system by certain members.

But the real benefit of this exposure is now the whole political system is under review.

By Jim Fitzpatrick

I've always thought of this column as being an opportunity to convey a sense of the work and experiences of a local MP.

Certainly, I've not used the column for political point-scoring. Perhaps I've got it wrong, having read the Conservative councillor's column in last week's Wharf.

By Giles Broadbent live at the G20

If there are going to be heroes and villains at the G20, then no-one can accuse Labour of being slow to choose sides.

The hero? Obvious. Prime Minster Gordon Brown for maintaining a firm hand on the tiller and steering the world to calmer waters.

Tower Hamlets residents are set to see a 1.69 per cent rise in their council tax this year.

The ruling Labour party's budget was approved at last week's special budget meeting, increasing the Band D tax from £1,175.46 to £1,195.34.