London’s most controversial mayor? Inside the complex world of Lutfur Rahman: power struggles, corruption… and extreme popularity
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“Toxic” was the standout word from a recent damning report into Tower Hamlets council and how it is run under independent mayor Lutfur Rahman. A secretive culture permeates a town hall where “many good managers" have quit as a result of "speaking truth to power”, was the thrust of a government ordered investigation.
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One councillor told the Standard that the atmosphere inside the local authority was "often dysfunctional and, at best, childish". Amid concerns about whether the council was providing value for taxpayers, then communities secretary Michael Gove drafted inspectors into the borough in February last year.
Now the new Labour government is set to act on their findings. It pledged to consider appointing "ministerial envoys" in November, but there has been no further announcements on who these officials that will address “serious concerns” about the management will be.
For many in the borough it is a case of history repeating itself. When Mr Rahman, a former solicitor, was re-elected the independent mayor of Tower Hamlets in May 2022 it was a comeback that the political establishment dreaded. Sensationally forced out of government seven years earlier, a specialist court found him guilty of vote-rigging and religious intimidation which resulted in 2014 local elections being annulled.
