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I wish to thank all those who came out to participate in our democracy. I am honoured to have been elected as your next mayor of Tower Hamlets.Thank you for your support. Let’s get to work rebuilding our borough and our children’s future.
The cost of living crisis raging nationally is hitting people around here particularly hard. But by working together, we can ensure that no child will go hungry and no pensioner will go cold for the next four years.
There is a social housing crisis in Tower Hamlets. Having a roof over your head is a basic human right, but at the moment we cannot house the people who want to live here and too many live in housing that doesn’t meet their needs or struggle with unresponsive landlords.
Education is very close to my heart and supporting lifelong learning in Tower Hamlets will be a priority for my administration. Prioritise learning in schools, further education and university entries as our youngsters’ route to successful careers.
My administration will tackle climate change — the biggest threat to the world we know — as a matter of urgency. We shall deliver actions, not just words
When you vote for me on 5th May, I am asking you to support my administration for the next four years. I want you to tell me when the Council has done something well, and I want you to tell me when it needs to do better. And I promise I will listen.
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.
First Mayor
London
Former Chair of Amnesty International
Author, Playwright, Former Labour Party Member
US Civil Rights Icon
First Black Presidential Candidate
Baroness
House Of Lords
Social Justice Activist
Teacher
Community Activist
Secretary, Aspire party Chair, Poplar Baths Steering Committee
Former Chair, Tower Hamlets Labour Party