A 'wake-up call' or 'witch hunt'? Inside the Tower Hamlets inquisition

Government envoys have landed in east London. They are navigating decades-old political tensions, resentments and rivalries

Photo credit: Stephen Chung

Morning — for the past month or so, a group of outsiders has been embedded in east London’s corridors of power. The team were dispatched by Whitehall in January, following an inspection that reported “serious concerns” about a “toxic” culture at a borough council late last year. These government envoys are quietly observing day-to-day business, hoping to answer a question that carries years of baggage: what exactly is going on in Tower Hamlets?

Today we’re bringing you a report by journalist Sam Gelder, who’s been trying to get to the bottom of that too. We’ve covered turmoil at Tower Hamlets council many times before, but, thanks to Sam, we’re excited to bring you our most in-depth look yet. He’s spent weeks speaking to sources across the vast array of factions in the borough, within both the council and the wider community. For many, it is their first time speaking publicly. Some insisted on anonymity.

His story begins, like so many in this patch of the city, with Lutfur Rahman, a character who has loomed large for over a decade.

Sam’s report is below.

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‘They never got over being defeated by a socialist, Muslim independent politician’: Envoys meet old rivalries in east London

By Sam Gelder

Lutfur Rahman (left) defeating John Biggs (right) in the 2022 Tower Hamlets elections. Photo credit: PA Images

Lutfur Rahman, the populist leader of Tower Hamlets council, began this January’s cabinet meeting with a 25-minute prepared statement.

Introducing the upcoming financial budget, the local mayor first detailed a host of service cuts carried out “in the name of efficiency” by his Labour Party predecessor John Biggs, explaining each time how there was “nothing efficient” about them.

“I could go on,” he said after six minutes and 12 examples. “However, I want to leave the past to the past.”

Rahman – reading from a printout – then shifted focus to his administration, explaining how it will continue its financially stable yet “ambitious” investment into Tower Hamlets. He rattled off a long list of his headline-grabbing progressive policies: school uniform grants, a winter fuel payment for local pensioners, bursaries for students, reopened youth clubs, free swimming and free parking.

Though this pointed speech was delivered to a half-empty room at 5.40pm on a Wednesday, it had an audience at the heart of the government. Present in the chamber was Kim Bromley-Derry, an envoy from Angela Rayner’s communities department, who had arrived in Tower Hamlets days earlier to help tackle “deeply rooted and persistent issues” uncovered at the east London council during a “best value inspection”.

One senior town hall source tells me: “It was, not unsubtly, trying to say: ‘Yes, there are envoys here, but look at what we deliver. If that is the price of delivering this programme then so be it.’”

To critics, the envoys symbolise Rahman’s inability to run a council properly. To his supporters, they’re a sign that he and his Aspire party are a thorn in the side of the establishment – a populist administration being punished for daring to deliver progressive policies on Westminster’s doorstep.

This public relations tug of war has been playing out for more than a decade at Tower Hamlets council – one of the country’s most high-profile and controversial local authorities. But town hall insiders and local community leaders on all sides who spoke to me for this piece, some breaking their silence for the first time, say it’s not so simple.