The Spectator’s Coffee House Evening Blend reports that Tower Hamlets was  “a council ruled by a ‘medieval monarch’ that was ‘riddled with cronyism and corruption’. That was how Eric Pickles’ described the local authority ruled by Tower Hamlets’ First’s Lutfur Rahman. The Communities Secretary sent in three commissioners to take over the authority after a report by accountancy firm PwC found contracts were awarded without the appropriate paperwork and Rahman picked preferred companies. It said Tower Hamlets’ ‘current governance arrangements do not appear to be capable of preventing or responding appropriately to failures of the best value duty of the kind we have identified’. This is Pickles’ first intervention in a council since he sent commissioners to monitor Doncaster in 2010. His statement in the Commons today drew support from Labour, who are calling for Rahman to resign as Mayor. His way of governing and the rotten borough practices of the council leave him with no friends in other parties

http://us6.campaign-archive2.com/?u=b7034b6517cfdcc8d4d4e60e9&id=19fa52a048&e=725a6d17bb