A new spoof Twitter account has surfaced recently: @TH_Litter_Party. Geddit? Its creator is evidently attempting to draw attention to the latest bizarre twist in the war of hate in Tower Hamlets.
We’ve reported before on what seems to drive the local Labour party in this East End London borough. But it’s always seemed pretty serious up to now. The plots and topplings could be out of Shakespeare; the violence out of Wuthering Heights.
But it seems like the days when they attacked each other with dodgy dossiers alleging Islamic extremism are over. Since July 20th, the Tower Hamlets Labour official Twitter account (@TH_Labour_Party) has devoted itself almost exclusively to broadcasting pictures of rubbish.
Now we’re all for the bread and butter issues here at Left Futures, but we do slightly look in amazement at the approach of such official web pages posting “ironic messages” (as the East London Advertiser put it) on such a regular basis.
It’s as if the local party is slightly stuck in how to respond to a mayor who has managed pretty well compared to many Labour boroughs in protecting citizens from cuts. A limited form of EMA has been re-introduced in the borough. But did they really intend to create a web page to rival “Kim Jong Il looking at things” and “Nick Clegg looking sad”? Except it’s not even Lutfur Rahman looking at litter. It’s their own members, seemingly.
And now this Twitter joker has come up with a few “ironic messages” of their own:
I love being in @TH_Labour_Party all we have to do is walk round streets taking pictures of rubbish #cleanuptowerhamlets #lols
Marx springs to mind:
Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.
Maybe it’s a bid for attention. Still, I might suggest that whoever runs the local party’s Twitter account take note of how obsessive this looks. But in the spirit of Tower Hamlets Labour, they might well reply: “I’d rather stick hot needles in my eyes.”
Local Labour party starts campaign highlighting effect of cuts to council service shock horror.
If the author were to walk down a street or even (perish the thought) knock on a door in Tower Hamlets they would see how its an issue that people are fed up of and an issue exacerbated by the cuts Lutfur Rahman has imposed on the council.
Its not helped by the ridiculous claim that 98% of the borough’s streets are litter-free either
Anyway, thanks Leftfutures for spreading the campaign to a new audience and highlighting how Labour in Tower Hamlets is attempting to focus on issues that affect real people 😉
You really think Wuthering Heights is all about violence?
Sure you haven’t picked up one of those [insert Victorian or Regency writer name] With Zombies spoofs instead?
Sure there is plenty of smouldering, running, galloping and yelling by Heathcliff and Co. but the characters are primarily self-destructive rather than the sort of choleric wife-and-child-beating, duelling and brawling types you get in say Thackeray or the bleaker parts of Dickens.
D- on English Lit I am afraid…..
What a strange post from Keith Wright. Mayor Rahman has invested in extra street cleaning and the Labour Party, under campaign officer James King, and Labour Group, with the assistance of part-time campaign worker James King, have tried to prove this hasn’t worked by taking pictures of litter. I doubt this is because the Party compares its campaign slogans with world class English literature or the sayings of socialist philosophers.
Your semi-anonymous commentator James K has incidentally provided a greater insight into the approach of the local party and group leaderships by writing about the cuts which Mayor “Rahman has imposed on the Council.” The cuts were, of course, imposed on the Council by the Tory Government. The Labour Group largely agreed with how Mayor Rahman dealt with government cuts, having offered no substantive alternative or critique and only minor amendments to his last two budgets. Nonetheless, the Labour Group and Party leaderships concentrate on campaigning against Rahman, fuelled by their personal hatred of him, to the point where they forget who is politically responsible for what. The hatred leads them to neglect alternative strategies, such as working with Rahman to implement the Labour Party manifesto (on which Labour and Rahman both stood for election) or influence his policies – although in other parts of the country Labour co-operates with other political parties to secure improvements, even from Tory administrations.
Enough. What is important is issues that affect real people. Unlike James K, I doubt that the litter problem, which is not huge, is as serious a concern for most of us as the difficulties we are experiencing with social landlords in the Borough. The Borough’s Tenants Federation has produced a Charter for improvement, http://th-federation.org.uk/residents-charter/, to address this. Labour supported the Charter at the Council meeting, but was the architect of the strategy of transferring the Borough’s housing stock to housing associations in the first place (and has to face up to the fact that its policy has been an almost unmitigated disaster). Mayor Rahman’s Administration is pressing social landlords to sign up to the Charter (but has also facilitated One Housing Group’s hostile takeover of Island Homes). Real people will decide, at the next elections, which politicians are doing best at solving our real problems – not which party is best at petty schoolboy politics (or has James K not read “Lutfur Rahman ate my hamster” – http://www.eastlondonnews.com/?s=at+my+hamster&.x=0&.y=0?).