I left the ‘Housing for All‘ march at East Ham station and took the District Line to Aldgate East, in the neighbouring borough of Tower Hamlets. Like Newham, this also has a directly elected mayor, but a very different character. For a couple of years Lutfur Rahman was the leader of the Labour council here, but was replaced by the party when he became controversial over media allegations about his links to the Islamic Forum of Europe, a group with an important place in the Bangladeshi community in Tower Hamlets. IFE supporters say it works actively to oppose extremist groups, while the right-wing press accuses it of extremism.
After much infighting among various groups in the Labour party Rahman was finally elected by Tower Hamlets Labour Party as their candidate for the first elected mayoral elections by a large majority. But the Labour National Executive Committee removed him, replacing him by the man who got the least votes of the three candidates, a decision that, along with the published account of what actually happened in the meeting, puts the party in a very bad light.
Rahman considered legal action to get reinstated, but then decided to stand as an independent candidate instead and got elected – and this year elected again for a second term. But his ‘Tower Hamlets First‘ party are a minority on the council, with around half of all councillors still being Labour. A great deal of ill-feeling still appears to exist between at least some of the Labour group and the Mayor, with non-cooperation and allegations of malpractice being fed liberally to the media, most of which have been only too pleased to report and distort it.
To an outsider, Rahman appears despite the problems to have done a very good job as mayor and to be very open to the people of Tower Hamlets – and indeed to put them first. He has turned up at several events I’ve photographed (and sent along others with his apologies and a message of support when unable to come personally) and seems to have supported projects across the many communities in the borough. I’ve not known another mayor who is as visible and accessible to local people and wish other mayors were more like him at least in this respect.
Like most people in Tower Hamlets the Mayor is greatly concerned to the threat to the surgeries in the area (and in other deprived areas) of the withdrawal of the support they currently get because of the extra needs of the area. They fear these will be unable to continue, and will be replaced by cut-price services run by large health companies and providing only a low level of health care. The date chosen for the Save our Surgeries rally and march was the 66th anniversary of the founding of the NHS.
Of course the Mayor was just one of a number of speakers, including the local Labour MP, Rushanara Ali as well as doctors and other health professionals and a patient. I tried to photograph them all, but it mainly their audience that attracted me, very much a reflection of one of London’s multicultural boroughs. The placard too is one of the more decorative I’ve photographed, though rather less graphic than most, and reflects something of the diversity of the area, with its small island of business wealth at Canary Wharf, old buildings and the recent mosque, though it does rather lack the bustle of its streets.
It is perhaps a reminder that when taking photographs we too need to be aware we are creating representations, and we need to be aware of the message that our pictures convey, not just of who or what we see as the subject of our photograph. At the end of the march as it went past the old Royal London Hospital building were an elderly couple, walking slowly and with some obvious difficulty. I took several pictures, including the one above, including some showing their faces, taking care not to disturb them, but this is the one I chose to use. At first I wondered why I had deliberately chosen to include that disturbing red light which to me looks like a distorted mouth sliming its way across the rear of the car so prominently in the frame. But now I’ve grown to rather like it, though I’m not entirely sure why.
______________________________________________________
My London Diary : Buildings of London : River Lea/Lee Valley : London’s Industrial Heritage
All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.
To order prints or reproduce images
________________________________________________________