It's time to rid our borough of this tired administration, stumbling from low expectations to scandal, from tax hikes to slashed services, failed Ofsted inspections to closed roads.
Voters need this campaign to be about our policies for the future. So as for the past I will say this, before spending the remainder of this campaign focussing on setting out a forward-looking agenda for Tower Hamlets. I always learn lessons from experience. Although the disproportionate investigations failed to find evidence for the claims used to justify them, they did identify flaws which I'd naturally seek to correct. have never ever acted dishonestly, but to those who think I didn't exercise enough oversight over campaigners in the last election, I apologise. I couldn't afford to appeal the election tribunal's report, but I am heartened that police subsequently cleared me of wrongdoing, after investigations costing £3m of public money.
The electorate has rejected time and again the smears about our borough, instead drawing conclusions from personal experience. Voters I speak to long for the days of a high performing council. Against a backdrop of austerity, my administration invested in public services while freezing council tax. We embraced the campaign to reopen Poplar Baths and built more council housing than any other council in the UK. As other councils closed up to ten libraries we kept all ours open and even opened a new one. We were the last council not to charge for social care for the elderly. Every year we were rated the top council in London for Equality and Diversity. School results soared, Ofsted beamed. We commissioned the Whitechapel Masterplan which will reignite our town centre, with the magnificent new Town Hall in the former Royal London hospital now nearing completion, at its heart.
People round here need a council that speaks up for and is in touch with those it governs, that safeguards and expands our public services, that looks after the elderly and has the highest ambitions for our children's future. That is why I'm putting my name forward to be elected as the People's Mayor and in the coming weeks I will be outlining Aspire's plans to Rebuild Tower Hamlets, and Rebuild Our Future.