7 PM
Tuesday
5 May 2009
EAST LONDON PRESS continuing the investigation into the ‘baroness of Bethnal Green, Wapping and Maidstone’ news and the supporting role to her career as played by the ‘East London Advertiser’ to date
East London Press reporting on the odd absence of any news on the East London Advertiser 'web site' about the 'Baroness of Bethnal Green’.
The ‘East London Advertiser’ was not this coy in the past. However!
Just under 10 years ago, as the then embattled Keith Vaz was struggling against allegations concerning misleading claims he had made and allegations of abuse of his positions as a Minister and as an MP, the ‘East London Advertiser’ treated Keith Vaz with manifest sympathy!
Very very odd.
Vaz is not an MP from Tower Hamlets. Not even from London. But the ‘East London Advertiser’ found it possible to treat him as if he were one!
How was that done?
By the ‘East London Advertiser’ imposing its own designation of the ‘Asian community’ in Tower Hamlets that the facts did not support.
The ‘Asian community’ never supported ANY of the Keith Vaz sleaze. Nor would it if a vote were taken.
But the ‘East London Advertiser’ made that claim regardless.
And in effect the ‘East London Advertiser’ put on its record a lie that collectively defamed the entire community by associating the community with the sleazy behaviour as being then alleged against Keith Vaz.
And who was involved in that ‘campaign for the ‘protection of the honour’ of the sleaze row MP from Leicester?
Why Baroness Pola Uddin of ‘Bethnal Green’, Wapping and Maidstone, of course. Neitehr Wapping nor Maidstone had yet caught the imagination of the INSIGHT Team down the road off the Wapping Highway at the Sunday Times.
And the odd, temporary ‘colleague’ picked up from the then active ranks of the ‘Asian community’ ‘councillors’ installed on the Blair-leaning Tower Hamlets Council joined ‘the Baroness’ in her ‘Asian duty’ to inform the ‘local media’ that the Leicester East MP Keith Vaz was not a sleazy person at all.
And that all the allegations that were being made against Keith Vaz had been got up by racist elements .
The ‘East London Advertiser’ did Pola Uddin’s bidding. A little while later, here was nothing in the ‘East London Advertiser’ when Keith Vaz in fact himself resigned as a Blair Minister carrying the Euro baggages and the very full bags of unresolved allegations..
Th question is: Is there any point in the ‘East London Advertiser’ being kept in ‘circulation’ by Archant?
By all ACCOUNTS the ‘East London Advertiser’ is experiencing consistently diminishing circulation.
In all senses of that term.
But who would have thought that they would also curtail the circulation of the residues of the truth that survived in the issues they allegedly covered?
COVERED UP, more like.
Tuesday, 5 May 2009
EAST LONDON PRESS bringing on real insight in following up SUNDAY TIMES insight piece on ‘Baroness Uddin of Bethnal Green’, Wapping and Maidstone!
0740 Hrs London Tuesday 5 May 2009
EAST LONDON PRESS bringing on the real insight in following up the SUNDAY TIMES insight piece on ‘Baroness Pola Uddin of Bethnal Green’, Wapping and may be even Maidstone.
"Baroness of Bethnal Green" was feted and hyped by London Evening Standard in 1998. The Standard had not checked its facts.
The REASON why the word Bangladeshis is preferred to bengali is to do with the fact that the UK Bangladeshi population is not Bengali. It is from the Sylheti speaking regions in Bangladesh. NOT Bengali.
The EVENING STANDARD also swallowed the lie that Pola Uddin was the first bengali woman to sit on a local Authority.
How could the EVENING STANDARD publish such a lie?
The EVENING STANDARD had at least two regular staff members attending the former County Hall. Mostly to cover the former GLC.
Mike King, who is no longer on the staff. And the recent Transport Editor Dick Murray.
The Inner London Education Authority was based there. The ILEA had a community-elected part that it described as ‘the Ethnic Minorities Section’. On that section was a Bengali woman with a Ph D who was also a Councillor on a South London Council.
That was more than ten years before Tony Blair made Pola Uddin a baroness.
And almost a decade before Pola Uddin got anywhere near Tower Hamlets Council as a member.
"
Baroness Pola Uddin
The Evening Standard (09.09.98) has a feature article on high-achieving female Londoners. One of those included is Baroness Uddin (see BMMS for June and August 1998), of whom it says: "The first Muslim to sit in the House of Lords, 38-year-old Baroness Uddin is a committed campaigner for the rights of oppressed Bengali women in London’s East End. Married with five children, she became the first Bengali woman to sit on a local authority in Britain when she was elected a Labour councillor in 1990, and became deputy council leader from 1994-1996. Currently equality manager at the London Borough of Newham, she was made a working peer this summer." [BMMS September 1998 Vol. VI, No. 9, p. 7]
EAST LONDON PRESS bringing on the real insight in following up the SUNDAY TIMES insight piece on ‘Baroness Pola Uddin of Bethnal Green’, Wapping and may be even Maidstone.
"Baroness of Bethnal Green" was feted and hyped by London Evening Standard in 1998. The Standard had not checked its facts.
The REASON why the word Bangladeshis is preferred to bengali is to do with the fact that the UK Bangladeshi population is not Bengali. It is from the Sylheti speaking regions in Bangladesh. NOT Bengali.
The EVENING STANDARD also swallowed the lie that Pola Uddin was the first bengali woman to sit on a local Authority.
How could the EVENING STANDARD publish such a lie?
The EVENING STANDARD had at least two regular staff members attending the former County Hall. Mostly to cover the former GLC.
Mike King, who is no longer on the staff. And the recent Transport Editor Dick Murray.
The Inner London Education Authority was based there. The ILEA had a community-elected part that it described as ‘the Ethnic Minorities Section’. On that section was a Bengali woman with a Ph D who was also a Councillor on a South London Council.
That was more than ten years before Tony Blair made Pola Uddin a baroness.
And almost a decade before Pola Uddin got anywhere near Tower Hamlets Council as a member.
"
Baroness Pola Uddin
The Evening Standard (09.09.98) has a feature article on high-achieving female Londoners. One of those included is Baroness Uddin (see BMMS for June and August 1998), of whom it says: "The first Muslim to sit in the House of Lords, 38-year-old Baroness Uddin is a committed campaigner for the rights of oppressed Bengali women in London’s East End. Married with five children, she became the first Bengali woman to sit on a local authority in Britain when she was elected a Labour councillor in 1990, and became deputy council leader from 1994-1996. Currently equality manager at the London Borough of Newham, she was made a working peer this summer." [BMMS September 1998 Vol. VI, No. 9, p. 7]
"Baroness of Bethnal Green" has provoked some very racist comments. The racists are targetting the Bangladeshis in Britain
"Baroness of Bethnal Green" has provoked some very racist comments. The racists are targetting the Bangladeshis in Britain
EAST LONDON PRESS report
The “Baroness of Bethnal Green” has been receiving some very strange ‘backing’. Her ‘backers’ are calling the SUNDAY TIMES insight report as the work of a ‘right wing British media’. Next they will say that the ‘Baroness was on the verge of solving the global economic crisis’ but for this crude interruption by the jealous; British media’.
In fact the ‘Baroness’ has a record of confusing her ‘home’ address.
We reveal here that ten years ago, the self same ‘Baroness of Bethnal green” was desperate about the media.
She was very cross indeed.
Why?
Because the ungrateful BBC of all the media., failed to recognise her talents. They gave space instead to some very insignificant people. Those even from Brick Lane Bangladeshi community.
How dare the BBC do such a thing? And ignore the ‘baroness’ who claimed to be living in the Brick Lane area!
Inquiries produced evidence that she was not living in Brick Lane at all.
And that she was living not far from Wapping!
Even in 1999!
And the occasion for the ‘Baroness of Bethnal Green’ being so annoyed with the media?
Why the nail bombing outrage, What else!
And how did she think that she had anything to contribute?
That Pola Uddin was allowed to become a ‘baroness’ is a remarkable example of just how irresponsible Tony Blair was.
Nobody in Bethnal Green would have voted for Pola Uddin to become ‘baroness’!
Whatever for?
To get blamed for her behavior?
Behaviour that ordinary people find so hard to understand.
How could Pola Uddin even go to Carter-Ruck the solicitors?
What reputation was she imagining she was defending on the facts?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6211535.ece
From The Sunday Times
May 3, 2009
The deserted Kent flat that earned baroness £100,000
A ‘main home’ outside London meant Lady Uddin could claim £29,000 a year, but the neighbours tell Insight that nobody lived there
Insight
THE small two-bedroom apartment in a quiet corner of Maidstone had been a mystery to its neighbours for years.
As far as they could see, it had been vacant and unfurnished since the day it was bought. Nobody had ever attempted to let it. However, after darkness fell last Sunday night a BMW 4x4 entered the gated apartment block and parked outside the flat.
A neighbour saw four people, including two women in saris, apparently carrying something into the house. “They were there for about half an hour,” said a postman who lives next door but one to the flat. “They did take in something: it was either a television or a computer screen.” By the next morning thick curtains protected the two bedrooms that had been visible from the street, a light was on in the hallway and a striped mat had been placed outside the flat’s front door.
“I thought, ‘There’s a mat. Someone must have moved in’,” said Yvonne Adams, whose own front door is a few feet across the corridor. “No one’s been living there.”
RELATED LINKS
Tory buys flat round corner on expenses
Home Secretary faces inquiry over expenses
Geoff Hoon caught up in row over second home
What the neighbours did not know was that the property is owned by Baroness Uddin, 49, a Labour peer. She has designated the flat as her “main address” so she can claim almost £30,000 in accommodation expenses a year from the House of Lords while continuing to live in her London home.
The flurry of activity in the flat on Sunday night came after The Sunday Times had asked the baroness questions about her “main address” the previous day. Neighbours also report a brief visit by the same car the previous night.
Yesterday MPs and a peer called for a full investigation into the baroness’s expenses claims. She has received more than £100,000 (this figure includes an estimate for last year) since buying the Maidstone flat. She also claimed a further £83,000 for the same allowance from 2001, four years before she bought the flat.
Despite repeated questions, she has declined to discuss whether she actually owned or rented a main home outside London during this period.
Angus Robertson, the SNP’s leader in the Commons, said: “I will be writing to the House of Lords authorities and the police and asking them to investigate this report.”
Lord Oakeshott, the Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman, said: “The system stinks. Peers should get a simple taxable daily rate instead of these allowances. An empty property can’t be a peer’s main residence. The Lords authorities must investigate.”
Born in Bangladesh, Manzila Pola Uddin came to Britain as a teenager and went on to become a community worker and social services officer while pursuing a political career that saw her rise to be deputy leader of Tower Hamlets borough council in the early 1990s.
She was made a peer by Tony Blair in 1998 and took the title “Baroness Uddin of Bethnal Green in our London Borough of Tower Hamlets”. Aged 38, she was the youngest woman in the Lords.
As a campaigner on women’s and ethnic minority issues she has become part of the new Labour establishment, befriending Cherie Blair. Her Facebook friends include the cabinet ministers Harriet Harman, Hazel Blears and David Miliband and Alastair Campbell, the former spin doctor.
However, she has never forgotten her roots. Her Facebook entry lists London as her home town and she has continued to work and live there. She and her family have resided in the same three-bedroom house in Wapping since the early 1990s.
A page entitled “my back-yard” on her personal website says: “I have a great sense of belonging to the East End which has been my home for over 30 years . . . it is where my professional and political career has taken shape, where my children have grown up, and also where I served as a local councillor for eight years.”
Yet she designated the family house in Tower Hamlets – where her children lived and went to school – as a “second home” and this allowed her to claim the cost of overnight accommodation in London.
The purpose of the allowance is explained in a House of Lords guidance note that says: “A member whose main residence is outside greater London and who maintains a residence in London for the purpose of attending sittings of the House may claim this allowance towards the cost of maintaining such a residence.”
In the Commons a “main residence” is considered to be the home where an MP spends most nights, but in the Lords there is no fixed definition. Mary Morgan, director of public information at the Lords, says: “A member will know what his main residence is. It’s where they live . . . For the purpose of claiming expenses, it’s where they travel to and from. There is no official definition.”
The Sunday Times began looking into Uddin’s expenses claims as part of an inquiry into peers who clock in to the House of Lords chamber briefly so as to claim overnight allowances. We photographed her going into the Lords through the peers’ entrance, saw her appear in the chamber for less than a minute and then leave the building. The whole visit took just three minutes.
In the latest published list (the year to March 2008) she claimed £29,600 from the Lords for overnight subsistence – one of the highest sums for any peer. She gave the location of her main residence as Kent.
This was curious because there appear to be no public documents linking the baroness to the county. The only reference is a speech to the Lords in 2006 which she began with the words “I am a resident of Maidstone borough council”. She is listed on the electoral roll at the Wapping address from 1996 to the present.
She has been a director of seven companies in the past 10 years and each time has said she lives at her Wapping home. The Companies Act says directors must give their “usual” address.
Uddin has a brother, Rousseau Khan, who lives in Bromley, south London. Khan owns the house and a neighbour said Uddin did not live there.
When a reporter rang her London home, her husband Komar picked up the telephone. He appeared confused about his wife’s “main residence” in Kent.
Reporter: “Have you lived there [the Tower Hamlets family home] for a long time?”
Husband: “Yeah, We came here in ’93.”
Reporter: “Ninety-three, I see. Am I also right in thinking you have a place down in Kent?”
Husband: “Sorry?” Reporter: “Do you have a place in Kent?”
Husband: “Kent?” Reporter: “Kent, as in the county Kent? No?”
Husband: “No.”
Minutes later the reporter spoke to Uddin about her three-minute visit to the House of Lords that day. She said she had been working on Lords business outside the building and had gone to the chamber but left quickly after realising she had another meeting.
The reporter attempted to broach the subject of her overnight expenses claim but she put the phone down. That evening she instructed Carter-Ruck, the libel lawyers, to speak on her behalf.
At the same time a reporter went to her London home. It is a three-storey building in a block of about a dozen flats built by Spitalfields Housing Association. The association’s housing stock is for people requiring affordable housing and the average rent for one of the association’s three-bedroom houses is £500 a month. The baroness is claiming more than £2,000 a month for running and maintaining a house in London.
Neighbours confirmed that the baroness shares the home with Komar, two of her sons and a daughter. Komar was outside the house smoking a cigarette.
When asked where his home was, he said, “I live here”, apparently surprised by the obvious question. When reminded about the home in Kent, he added: “I live in both places.” Later Carter-Ruck said that he had initially answered “no” when asked on the telephone whether he had a property in Kent because it belonged to his wife.
Fozlu Miah, 28, lives next to the Uddins in the same building, having moved in with his parents in the early 1990s, about the same time as the baroness. “As far as I know she lives here,” said Miah. “I see her most days through the window, coming in and going out. I sometimes talk to her . . . I call her auntie.”
Rafique Uddin (no relation), another neighbour, has known the family for years: “We all moved in at the same time. I don’t know anything about a house in Kent. I’m surprised to hear that because almost every day when I’m parking my car I can see their car. The mum [baroness] is going in and out. They are continuously living here as far as I know.”
Her daughter Masuma Siddiqah, 17, is best friends with the baroness’s daughter. She said: “[The baroness] is always there. I hear her beep her car every day when she gets home.” Siddiqah added that Uddin’s daughter had never told her anything about the family having a home in Kent.
In a statement last Saturday, Carter-Ruck confirmed the baroness owned a property in Maidstone which is registered as her main address with the House of Lords. The solicitors also offered to disclose the Kent address if The Sunday Times undertook not to publish details or approach members of the baroness’s family at the address. We declined.
Where was it? Overlooking a nature reserve on the fringes of Maidstone’s central shopping area lies a block of apartments built in 2005. Land registry searches confirmed that Uddin owns a street-level flat there.
She bought it for £155,000 in September 2005, nine months after peers’ expenses claims for overnight subsistence were made public for the first time. There is a mortgage on it.
It has two small bedrooms on the roadside and a lounge incorporating a kitchen area at the back. It is part of a group of six apartments that all share the same main entrance.
The Sunday Times has interviewed residents from all five of the other flats and others living nearby. They all said they had never seen Uddin, who cuts a distinctive figure, at the property. The neighbours said the property had been left empty since it had been bought. Three remembered peering into the two bedroom windows at the front and noting the rooms were unfurnished.
The windows now have thick curtains drawn across them after last weekend’s visit. The postman said some of the people who entered the flat on Sunday had arrived in a BMW four-wheel-drive. His description of the vehicle, including two letters from its registration plate, match Uddin’s car.
He said: “Nobody has ever lived in there. If you’d have come down a week ago you could have peered in and said nobody lives there.”
Adams has lived across the corridor from the baroness’s flat for three years. “I can’t emphasise enough how no one has lived there. I know that for a fact,” she said.
“There was a time when they had a sheet or something at the window which had fallen down and the security light was coming on, just shining into a completely empty flat . . . No, there has never been a stick of furniture in there.”
Matthew Hollis, whose flat is directly above the baroness’s property, confirmed there had been no furniture in the bedrooms. When initially asked about the flat, he responded: “I don’t think anyone does live there. I’ve never seen anyone in there . . .”
Stuart Brown and his girlfriend Gemma Fox lived directly below Uddin’s flat for three years before leaving recently. He said: “We never had anyone living above.”
The other ground-floor neighbour, who requested her name be withheld, said: “I thought it was empty, too. I posted a note through there about two months ago because my friend was interested in renting.”
A woman in a house that looks directly onto the back of the flat said she often saw people on the balconies above and below the baroness’s flat. “That sweater has been hanging over that middle flat balcony probably since the end of last summer,” she said.
“Every few months some people would just visit, but you are talking 10 minutes max,” Adams said.
On Friday evening the baroness issued a solicitors’ statement saying: “I do not believe that I have done anything wrong or breached any House of Lords rules. Should the relevant House of Lords authorities wish to investigate the matter I will, of course, co-operate fully.
“The Wapping house is rented, while I own the property in Maidstone. The Maidstone property is furnished and I strongly deny that I have never lived there. Indeed I have stayed there regularly since buying it.”
Yesterday evening a reporter spoke to Mark Ryan, a plumber who had entered the flat last weekend to fix the boiler. He described how the property was covered in dust and sparsely furnished.
“I’ve been in more flats than I care to remember, but this place looked like someone had left it ages ago,” he said. “It was very dusty. There were odds and sods of furniture around. There was an old mattress on the floor of one bedroom. It wasn’t made up. There was a fold-up clothes dryer in the other bedroom.
“It didn’t look lived-in. It certainly didn’t look like a family home.They told me they were just moving in.”
Insight: Jonathan Calvert, Claire Newell, Kevin Dowling, Solvej Krause
BARONESS UDDIN
— Born Bangladesh 1959
— Arrives in east London 1973
— Begins working for Newham social services 1988
— Deputy leader of Tower Hamlets 1994-6
— Fails to become Labour parliamentary candidate for Bethnal Green 1997
— Made Labour life peer 1998
— Starts Jagonari Centre to train and educate Asian women 1999
— Meets Blair as part of delegation to tackle Islamic extremism 2005
— Made chairwoman of ethnic minority women’s taskforce 2008
Main address
Maidstone
Two bedroom flat
Bought three years ago
Neighbours have never seen her there and say flat was "empty" and "unfurnished"
Not registered to vote
Second address
Wapping
Three bedroom house
Lived there for 15 years
Children went to school in the area
Neighbours see her regularly
Registered to vote at address
HAVE YOUR SAY
Hope that something is finally done about this level of abuse. If the allegations are correct and were made in a corporate environment, the individual would be guilty of gross misconduct and sacked. However no doubt Labour needs every peer it can get - regardless of integrity...
Hamish T, Dollar, Clackmannanshire
Very sad to see that the person who got the rare opportunity to behave and act as role model for the BME community of Great Britain, failed so badly.
Dr. Hasanat Husain, London, UK
As a foreigner, I would say, Tony Blair was a professional politician.
He already knew this woman’s maturity, mentality, attitude, philosophy and morality when he appointed her 11 years ago. He appointed her because he cares for people and the nation more than his party.
Gunmo Gu, Newcastle, Uk
The full extent of Blair's debasement of the Constitution is now becoming apparent. This apparently corrupt and thieving woman was ennobled only because she failed to win a seat in the Commons. Hereditary Peers may have been 'privileged,' but they were never dishonest or fraudulent. Bring them back!
Bill, Suzhou, China
This is blatantFRAUD.Utility bills will show the full story,plus the many statements by neighbours,so it will be easy to get at the truth, however much she lies.Also-what about the 3 bed flat for deprived people in Tower hamlets for £500 per month?
ROBBERY.Serving the community? I think NOT!
Liz Roberts, Northwich, Cheshire
Disgusting! She should be made to pay back what she illegally claimed (with interest) and pay a fine to help the British economy, the taxpayer who she has robbed!
Harpreet, Leeds,
Ccha! Don't you people know that a peer simply HAS to have a place in the country? How DARE we question that?
I've lived in Tower Hamlets for years and never heard of this lady before; no evidence of emancipation of Asian ladies or seen reduction of fundamentalism. We've been milked AGAIN.
Helen, London, England
Utter disgrace - she should be made to return all the funds claimed - this belongs to the taxpayer not her !!
Philip Low, London, UK
I cannot wait for July, IF the list of all financial 'expenses' and abuses is published. All those guilty of abuse should be made to repay and chucked out of the government. Labour can NEVER survive this. Those with titles should have them taken away. What a mockery.
alice hudson, quimper, france
We need to have a major investigation into Parliament from an independent authority. It would then be possible to draw up a list of the names of every member of the House of Lords and Commons who has abused the system. Those people should then be removed for fraud and we could hold bye-elections.
Alexander Clark, Wokingham, United Kingdom
Investigate, prosecute and send her to jail. While the hardworking taxpayer struggle to keep up mortgage repayments and families are having their homes repossesed to due extreme taxing and general incompetance by the government, we are paying for this thief to line her pockets. What a farce.
Paul, London,
Just how many more Peers and MPs are there with their snouts in the trough? This is not sleaze, this is pure dishonesty and those practising it should be criminally prosecuted for it, like anybody else. How dare they show such arrogance and contempt for the taxpaying public they serve!
Dave, Holmer Green,
Yet another case of public service (questionable in this instance) for personal gain!
Great investigative journalism - please keep it up until the expenses and allowances of our political 'masters' are properly documented, supported, audited and totally transparent.
Bill Basham, Marmaris, Turkey
Disgusting,criminal behaviour .This woman should be in prison for theft.
What will happen? NOTHING.
She is in a minority group (well maybe ) and is well connected
So nothing will happen.
Gormless knows it goes on and B LIAR actively encouraged it! Nothing will change and nothing will happen!
charles holmes, chester, U.K.
It's the same trough and the majority look like they are browsing..
Andy Bond, London, uk
Dave H, Alexandria, USA - Apart from violence, we can do nothing. Believe me, most of us hate the government, ministers, MPs and the Lords. These 'lords & ladies' are not voted in they are friends of the PM - we are powerless. And membership of the EU has made us even weaker. The UK is finished.
Anthony Farrar, Worthing, UK
Seems lords and ladies are above the law.
twas ever thus.
ronnie, Bridego Bridge, UK
A number of the MPs claims exposed so far have been morally dubious, but "within the rules". However, this one sounds like outright fraud.
Stephen Lee, St Albans, Hertfordshire
These people sicken me. If it is not actiual corruption then it is so close as to make no difference morally. Strip "Lady" Uddin of her title (awarded for what?) & let her go back to whatever form of 'work' sustained her and her like before she decided sponging off taxpayers was the thing to do.
Phil, London,
'Lady' Udin should be stripped of her title and jailed for theft, how can these disgusting political worms claim to represent the people? They're theives, plain and simple, stealing from taxpayers, they must be made an example of. This level of rampant corruption cannot be tolerated.
Howard, London, united kingdom
THey should throw this woman out of the Lords IMMEDIATELY - take her to court, send her to prison as is comensurate with her crime, fine her and remind her with a smile that she will have a criminal record to her name for the rest of her life.
Welcome to the real world Labour cronies.
Drew, Nottingham,
Can someone explain how Stephen Hawking has still not been knighted or been made a lord yet this woman with her impressive 2 years as deputy leader Tower Hamlets manages it within one year of FAILING to become a labour candidate. It's not like it's a particularly high bar to jump.
Dave M, Bristol, UK
I assume sometime next week Baroness Uddin will be visited by the police and asked to explain the possible case of fraud and theft. Just in this story there is enough for the police to start an investigation. I suppose now it just needs someone to make a formal complaint.
Stephen, St. Ives, England
What a fantastic article! Beautifully written! As the excuses got worse, the evidence got better!! What a savage piece of journalism. We need more of this. Take these fraudsters away.
Mike, Ipswich, UK
This looks like a simple case of fraud: it should be reported to the police and investigated thoroughly.
Jocelyn Wood, Arequipa,
Another absolute disgrace!
Andy, Glos,
Is this newsworthy ?
I'm not shocked and not surprised... It's exactly what you would expect ! Poor woman is so inept she is well and truly caught.
It's so unusual for an associate of Blair !!!
Next episode will see her exhonerated !
There is so much of this... and it will continue to increase.
Stuart, Tiverton, UK
On the make and on the take. Politicans then wonder why the public think that most of the occupants of the Palace of Westminster are in it for themselves. The fact that MP's/Lords have the audacity to say we haven't broken the rules merely the spirit of them shows how corrupted the lot of them are.
Rupert, London, UK
How on earth does someone become a lord (lady) for being a social services officer and deputy leader of tower hamlets council? We go from admiral LORD Nelson to former prime ministers, to this woman, this fraudster, who is only there because of tony blairs desire to fill the lords with his croonies!
will, grimsby, uk
Please, please, please - find one honest MP or peer and report on them just for a change. I really am beginning to think there isn't one.....
charles, Congleton,
How many more? I did not know peers could claim ALA as well as MPs. These people takes us for fools. Great piece of investigative journalism. Thanks
Ian, Newtownabbey, N. Ireland
Why don't you Brits get angry at the thievery of your politicians?? I don't get it......you should be hanging your political leadership from the lampposts that light up the Thames river. Why do you suffer in silence?? Are you all sheep?
Dave H, Alexandria, USA
A very interesting & detailed piece of investigative journalism there, well done, keep it up.
Tim, Hillsborough, Great Britain
She should lose her title,job and be made to pay back every penny if these facts are true. yet another politician abusing the system
paul, clayton, staffs
Raping the taxpayer. Can we send her and her brood back from whence they came. And let her cheat her own countrymen rather than leeching from the UK Taxpayer. And by the by, what exactly has this person done / achieved to be honoured with a peerage. Oh, forgot she was a community worker..
Oliver Corning, Tunbridge , UK (Used to be Great Britain)
Greed and more greed. Throw them all in Jail I say.
This system needs to stop. If she is found to have not lived in this place and just used it to claim expenses she should be stripped of her position and slung in Jail. Disgusting.
Anthony Stewart, Chicago, USA
This is very naughty by the looks of things - I do hope she will be required to repay the 100,000 pounds she has received as a result of not knowing where she lives.
Joe, Kiev, Ukraine
I despair.
Remind me again why I pay huge amounts of tax?
And remind me further - are these allowances, which our "peers" and MPs receive, taxable (snort)?
Diana, London, UK
I wonder what the response to the Sunday Times investigation will be?
Will you be accused of racism, sexism, or both?
Fred Kite, Notts,
A greedy cheat abusing a position of authority...how surprising!
Kevin, San Francisco,
Show fewer comments
HAVE YOUR SAY
EAST LONDON PRESS report
The “Baroness of Bethnal Green” has been receiving some very strange ‘backing’. Her ‘backers’ are calling the SUNDAY TIMES insight report as the work of a ‘right wing British media’. Next they will say that the ‘Baroness was on the verge of solving the global economic crisis’ but for this crude interruption by the jealous; British media’.
In fact the ‘Baroness’ has a record of confusing her ‘home’ address.
We reveal here that ten years ago, the self same ‘Baroness of Bethnal green” was desperate about the media.
She was very cross indeed.
Why?
Because the ungrateful BBC of all the media., failed to recognise her talents. They gave space instead to some very insignificant people. Those even from Brick Lane Bangladeshi community.
How dare the BBC do such a thing? And ignore the ‘baroness’ who claimed to be living in the Brick Lane area!
Inquiries produced evidence that she was not living in Brick Lane at all.
And that she was living not far from Wapping!
Even in 1999!
And the occasion for the ‘Baroness of Bethnal Green’ being so annoyed with the media?
Why the nail bombing outrage, What else!
And how did she think that she had anything to contribute?
That Pola Uddin was allowed to become a ‘baroness’ is a remarkable example of just how irresponsible Tony Blair was.
Nobody in Bethnal Green would have voted for Pola Uddin to become ‘baroness’!
Whatever for?
To get blamed for her behavior?
Behaviour that ordinary people find so hard to understand.
How could Pola Uddin even go to Carter-Ruck the solicitors?
What reputation was she imagining she was defending on the facts?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6211535.ece
From The Sunday Times
May 3, 2009
The deserted Kent flat that earned baroness £100,000
A ‘main home’ outside London meant Lady Uddin could claim £29,000 a year, but the neighbours tell Insight that nobody lived there
Insight
THE small two-bedroom apartment in a quiet corner of Maidstone had been a mystery to its neighbours for years.
As far as they could see, it had been vacant and unfurnished since the day it was bought. Nobody had ever attempted to let it. However, after darkness fell last Sunday night a BMW 4x4 entered the gated apartment block and parked outside the flat.
A neighbour saw four people, including two women in saris, apparently carrying something into the house. “They were there for about half an hour,” said a postman who lives next door but one to the flat. “They did take in something: it was either a television or a computer screen.” By the next morning thick curtains protected the two bedrooms that had been visible from the street, a light was on in the hallway and a striped mat had been placed outside the flat’s front door.
“I thought, ‘There’s a mat. Someone must have moved in’,” said Yvonne Adams, whose own front door is a few feet across the corridor. “No one’s been living there.”
RELATED LINKS
Tory buys flat round corner on expenses
Home Secretary faces inquiry over expenses
Geoff Hoon caught up in row over second home
What the neighbours did not know was that the property is owned by Baroness Uddin, 49, a Labour peer. She has designated the flat as her “main address” so she can claim almost £30,000 in accommodation expenses a year from the House of Lords while continuing to live in her London home.
The flurry of activity in the flat on Sunday night came after The Sunday Times had asked the baroness questions about her “main address” the previous day. Neighbours also report a brief visit by the same car the previous night.
Yesterday MPs and a peer called for a full investigation into the baroness’s expenses claims. She has received more than £100,000 (this figure includes an estimate for last year) since buying the Maidstone flat. She also claimed a further £83,000 for the same allowance from 2001, four years before she bought the flat.
Despite repeated questions, she has declined to discuss whether she actually owned or rented a main home outside London during this period.
Angus Robertson, the SNP’s leader in the Commons, said: “I will be writing to the House of Lords authorities and the police and asking them to investigate this report.”
Lord Oakeshott, the Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman, said: “The system stinks. Peers should get a simple taxable daily rate instead of these allowances. An empty property can’t be a peer’s main residence. The Lords authorities must investigate.”
Born in Bangladesh, Manzila Pola Uddin came to Britain as a teenager and went on to become a community worker and social services officer while pursuing a political career that saw her rise to be deputy leader of Tower Hamlets borough council in the early 1990s.
She was made a peer by Tony Blair in 1998 and took the title “Baroness Uddin of Bethnal Green in our London Borough of Tower Hamlets”. Aged 38, she was the youngest woman in the Lords.
As a campaigner on women’s and ethnic minority issues she has become part of the new Labour establishment, befriending Cherie Blair. Her Facebook friends include the cabinet ministers Harriet Harman, Hazel Blears and David Miliband and Alastair Campbell, the former spin doctor.
However, she has never forgotten her roots. Her Facebook entry lists London as her home town and she has continued to work and live there. She and her family have resided in the same three-bedroom house in Wapping since the early 1990s.
A page entitled “my back-yard” on her personal website says: “I have a great sense of belonging to the East End which has been my home for over 30 years . . . it is where my professional and political career has taken shape, where my children have grown up, and also where I served as a local councillor for eight years.”
Yet she designated the family house in Tower Hamlets – where her children lived and went to school – as a “second home” and this allowed her to claim the cost of overnight accommodation in London.
The purpose of the allowance is explained in a House of Lords guidance note that says: “A member whose main residence is outside greater London and who maintains a residence in London for the purpose of attending sittings of the House may claim this allowance towards the cost of maintaining such a residence.”
In the Commons a “main residence” is considered to be the home where an MP spends most nights, but in the Lords there is no fixed definition. Mary Morgan, director of public information at the Lords, says: “A member will know what his main residence is. It’s where they live . . . For the purpose of claiming expenses, it’s where they travel to and from. There is no official definition.”
The Sunday Times began looking into Uddin’s expenses claims as part of an inquiry into peers who clock in to the House of Lords chamber briefly so as to claim overnight allowances. We photographed her going into the Lords through the peers’ entrance, saw her appear in the chamber for less than a minute and then leave the building. The whole visit took just three minutes.
In the latest published list (the year to March 2008) she claimed £29,600 from the Lords for overnight subsistence – one of the highest sums for any peer. She gave the location of her main residence as Kent.
This was curious because there appear to be no public documents linking the baroness to the county. The only reference is a speech to the Lords in 2006 which she began with the words “I am a resident of Maidstone borough council”. She is listed on the electoral roll at the Wapping address from 1996 to the present.
She has been a director of seven companies in the past 10 years and each time has said she lives at her Wapping home. The Companies Act says directors must give their “usual” address.
Uddin has a brother, Rousseau Khan, who lives in Bromley, south London. Khan owns the house and a neighbour said Uddin did not live there.
When a reporter rang her London home, her husband Komar picked up the telephone. He appeared confused about his wife’s “main residence” in Kent.
Reporter: “Have you lived there [the Tower Hamlets family home] for a long time?”
Husband: “Yeah, We came here in ’93.”
Reporter: “Ninety-three, I see. Am I also right in thinking you have a place down in Kent?”
Husband: “Sorry?” Reporter: “Do you have a place in Kent?”
Husband: “Kent?” Reporter: “Kent, as in the county Kent? No?”
Husband: “No.”
Minutes later the reporter spoke to Uddin about her three-minute visit to the House of Lords that day. She said she had been working on Lords business outside the building and had gone to the chamber but left quickly after realising she had another meeting.
The reporter attempted to broach the subject of her overnight expenses claim but she put the phone down. That evening she instructed Carter-Ruck, the libel lawyers, to speak on her behalf.
At the same time a reporter went to her London home. It is a three-storey building in a block of about a dozen flats built by Spitalfields Housing Association. The association’s housing stock is for people requiring affordable housing and the average rent for one of the association’s three-bedroom houses is £500 a month. The baroness is claiming more than £2,000 a month for running and maintaining a house in London.
Neighbours confirmed that the baroness shares the home with Komar, two of her sons and a daughter. Komar was outside the house smoking a cigarette.
When asked where his home was, he said, “I live here”, apparently surprised by the obvious question. When reminded about the home in Kent, he added: “I live in both places.” Later Carter-Ruck said that he had initially answered “no” when asked on the telephone whether he had a property in Kent because it belonged to his wife.
Fozlu Miah, 28, lives next to the Uddins in the same building, having moved in with his parents in the early 1990s, about the same time as the baroness. “As far as I know she lives here,” said Miah. “I see her most days through the window, coming in and going out. I sometimes talk to her . . . I call her auntie.”
Rafique Uddin (no relation), another neighbour, has known the family for years: “We all moved in at the same time. I don’t know anything about a house in Kent. I’m surprised to hear that because almost every day when I’m parking my car I can see their car. The mum [baroness] is going in and out. They are continuously living here as far as I know.”
Her daughter Masuma Siddiqah, 17, is best friends with the baroness’s daughter. She said: “[The baroness] is always there. I hear her beep her car every day when she gets home.” Siddiqah added that Uddin’s daughter had never told her anything about the family having a home in Kent.
In a statement last Saturday, Carter-Ruck confirmed the baroness owned a property in Maidstone which is registered as her main address with the House of Lords. The solicitors also offered to disclose the Kent address if The Sunday Times undertook not to publish details or approach members of the baroness’s family at the address. We declined.
Where was it? Overlooking a nature reserve on the fringes of Maidstone’s central shopping area lies a block of apartments built in 2005. Land registry searches confirmed that Uddin owns a street-level flat there.
She bought it for £155,000 in September 2005, nine months after peers’ expenses claims for overnight subsistence were made public for the first time. There is a mortgage on it.
It has two small bedrooms on the roadside and a lounge incorporating a kitchen area at the back. It is part of a group of six apartments that all share the same main entrance.
The Sunday Times has interviewed residents from all five of the other flats and others living nearby. They all said they had never seen Uddin, who cuts a distinctive figure, at the property. The neighbours said the property had been left empty since it had been bought. Three remembered peering into the two bedroom windows at the front and noting the rooms were unfurnished.
The windows now have thick curtains drawn across them after last weekend’s visit. The postman said some of the people who entered the flat on Sunday had arrived in a BMW four-wheel-drive. His description of the vehicle, including two letters from its registration plate, match Uddin’s car.
He said: “Nobody has ever lived in there. If you’d have come down a week ago you could have peered in and said nobody lives there.”
Adams has lived across the corridor from the baroness’s flat for three years. “I can’t emphasise enough how no one has lived there. I know that for a fact,” she said.
“There was a time when they had a sheet or something at the window which had fallen down and the security light was coming on, just shining into a completely empty flat . . . No, there has never been a stick of furniture in there.”
Matthew Hollis, whose flat is directly above the baroness’s property, confirmed there had been no furniture in the bedrooms. When initially asked about the flat, he responded: “I don’t think anyone does live there. I’ve never seen anyone in there . . .”
Stuart Brown and his girlfriend Gemma Fox lived directly below Uddin’s flat for three years before leaving recently. He said: “We never had anyone living above.”
The other ground-floor neighbour, who requested her name be withheld, said: “I thought it was empty, too. I posted a note through there about two months ago because my friend was interested in renting.”
A woman in a house that looks directly onto the back of the flat said she often saw people on the balconies above and below the baroness’s flat. “That sweater has been hanging over that middle flat balcony probably since the end of last summer,” she said.
“Every few months some people would just visit, but you are talking 10 minutes max,” Adams said.
On Friday evening the baroness issued a solicitors’ statement saying: “I do not believe that I have done anything wrong or breached any House of Lords rules. Should the relevant House of Lords authorities wish to investigate the matter I will, of course, co-operate fully.
“The Wapping house is rented, while I own the property in Maidstone. The Maidstone property is furnished and I strongly deny that I have never lived there. Indeed I have stayed there regularly since buying it.”
Yesterday evening a reporter spoke to Mark Ryan, a plumber who had entered the flat last weekend to fix the boiler. He described how the property was covered in dust and sparsely furnished.
“I’ve been in more flats than I care to remember, but this place looked like someone had left it ages ago,” he said. “It was very dusty. There were odds and sods of furniture around. There was an old mattress on the floor of one bedroom. It wasn’t made up. There was a fold-up clothes dryer in the other bedroom.
“It didn’t look lived-in. It certainly didn’t look like a family home.They told me they were just moving in.”
Insight: Jonathan Calvert, Claire Newell, Kevin Dowling, Solvej Krause
BARONESS UDDIN
— Born Bangladesh 1959
— Arrives in east London 1973
— Begins working for Newham social services 1988
— Deputy leader of Tower Hamlets 1994-6
— Fails to become Labour parliamentary candidate for Bethnal Green 1997
— Made Labour life peer 1998
— Starts Jagonari Centre to train and educate Asian women 1999
— Meets Blair as part of delegation to tackle Islamic extremism 2005
— Made chairwoman of ethnic minority women’s taskforce 2008
Main address
Maidstone
Two bedroom flat
Bought three years ago
Neighbours have never seen her there and say flat was "empty" and "unfurnished"
Not registered to vote
Second address
Wapping
Three bedroom house
Lived there for 15 years
Children went to school in the area
Neighbours see her regularly
Registered to vote at address
HAVE YOUR SAY
Hope that something is finally done about this level of abuse. If the allegations are correct and were made in a corporate environment, the individual would be guilty of gross misconduct and sacked. However no doubt Labour needs every peer it can get - regardless of integrity...
Hamish T, Dollar, Clackmannanshire
Very sad to see that the person who got the rare opportunity to behave and act as role model for the BME community of Great Britain, failed so badly.
Dr. Hasanat Husain, London, UK
As a foreigner, I would say, Tony Blair was a professional politician.
He already knew this woman’s maturity, mentality, attitude, philosophy and morality when he appointed her 11 years ago. He appointed her because he cares for people and the nation more than his party.
Gunmo Gu, Newcastle, Uk
The full extent of Blair's debasement of the Constitution is now becoming apparent. This apparently corrupt and thieving woman was ennobled only because she failed to win a seat in the Commons. Hereditary Peers may have been 'privileged,' but they were never dishonest or fraudulent. Bring them back!
Bill, Suzhou, China
This is blatantFRAUD.Utility bills will show the full story,plus the many statements by neighbours,so it will be easy to get at the truth, however much she lies.Also-what about the 3 bed flat for deprived people in Tower hamlets for £500 per month?
ROBBERY.Serving the community? I think NOT!
Liz Roberts, Northwich, Cheshire
Disgusting! She should be made to pay back what she illegally claimed (with interest) and pay a fine to help the British economy, the taxpayer who she has robbed!
Harpreet, Leeds,
Ccha! Don't you people know that a peer simply HAS to have a place in the country? How DARE we question that?
I've lived in Tower Hamlets for years and never heard of this lady before; no evidence of emancipation of Asian ladies or seen reduction of fundamentalism. We've been milked AGAIN.
Helen, London, England
Utter disgrace - she should be made to return all the funds claimed - this belongs to the taxpayer not her !!
Philip Low, London, UK
I cannot wait for July, IF the list of all financial 'expenses' and abuses is published. All those guilty of abuse should be made to repay and chucked out of the government. Labour can NEVER survive this. Those with titles should have them taken away. What a mockery.
alice hudson, quimper, france
We need to have a major investigation into Parliament from an independent authority. It would then be possible to draw up a list of the names of every member of the House of Lords and Commons who has abused the system. Those people should then be removed for fraud and we could hold bye-elections.
Alexander Clark, Wokingham, United Kingdom
Investigate, prosecute and send her to jail. While the hardworking taxpayer struggle to keep up mortgage repayments and families are having their homes repossesed to due extreme taxing and general incompetance by the government, we are paying for this thief to line her pockets. What a farce.
Paul, London,
Just how many more Peers and MPs are there with their snouts in the trough? This is not sleaze, this is pure dishonesty and those practising it should be criminally prosecuted for it, like anybody else. How dare they show such arrogance and contempt for the taxpaying public they serve!
Dave, Holmer Green,
Yet another case of public service (questionable in this instance) for personal gain!
Great investigative journalism - please keep it up until the expenses and allowances of our political 'masters' are properly documented, supported, audited and totally transparent.
Bill Basham, Marmaris, Turkey
Disgusting,criminal behaviour .This woman should be in prison for theft.
What will happen? NOTHING.
She is in a minority group (well maybe ) and is well connected
So nothing will happen.
Gormless knows it goes on and B LIAR actively encouraged it! Nothing will change and nothing will happen!
charles holmes, chester, U.K.
It's the same trough and the majority look like they are browsing..
Andy Bond, London, uk
Dave H, Alexandria, USA - Apart from violence, we can do nothing. Believe me, most of us hate the government, ministers, MPs and the Lords. These 'lords & ladies' are not voted in they are friends of the PM - we are powerless. And membership of the EU has made us even weaker. The UK is finished.
Anthony Farrar, Worthing, UK
Seems lords and ladies are above the law.
twas ever thus.
ronnie, Bridego Bridge, UK
A number of the MPs claims exposed so far have been morally dubious, but "within the rules". However, this one sounds like outright fraud.
Stephen Lee, St Albans, Hertfordshire
These people sicken me. If it is not actiual corruption then it is so close as to make no difference morally. Strip "Lady" Uddin of her title (awarded for what?) & let her go back to whatever form of 'work' sustained her and her like before she decided sponging off taxpayers was the thing to do.
Phil, London,
'Lady' Udin should be stripped of her title and jailed for theft, how can these disgusting political worms claim to represent the people? They're theives, plain and simple, stealing from taxpayers, they must be made an example of. This level of rampant corruption cannot be tolerated.
Howard, London, united kingdom
THey should throw this woman out of the Lords IMMEDIATELY - take her to court, send her to prison as is comensurate with her crime, fine her and remind her with a smile that she will have a criminal record to her name for the rest of her life.
Welcome to the real world Labour cronies.
Drew, Nottingham,
Can someone explain how Stephen Hawking has still not been knighted or been made a lord yet this woman with her impressive 2 years as deputy leader Tower Hamlets manages it within one year of FAILING to become a labour candidate. It's not like it's a particularly high bar to jump.
Dave M, Bristol, UK
I assume sometime next week Baroness Uddin will be visited by the police and asked to explain the possible case of fraud and theft. Just in this story there is enough for the police to start an investigation. I suppose now it just needs someone to make a formal complaint.
Stephen, St. Ives, England
What a fantastic article! Beautifully written! As the excuses got worse, the evidence got better!! What a savage piece of journalism. We need more of this. Take these fraudsters away.
Mike, Ipswich, UK
This looks like a simple case of fraud: it should be reported to the police and investigated thoroughly.
Jocelyn Wood, Arequipa,
Another absolute disgrace!
Andy, Glos,
Is this newsworthy ?
I'm not shocked and not surprised... It's exactly what you would expect ! Poor woman is so inept she is well and truly caught.
It's so unusual for an associate of Blair !!!
Next episode will see her exhonerated !
There is so much of this... and it will continue to increase.
Stuart, Tiverton, UK
On the make and on the take. Politicans then wonder why the public think that most of the occupants of the Palace of Westminster are in it for themselves. The fact that MP's/Lords have the audacity to say we haven't broken the rules merely the spirit of them shows how corrupted the lot of them are.
Rupert, London, UK
How on earth does someone become a lord (lady) for being a social services officer and deputy leader of tower hamlets council? We go from admiral LORD Nelson to former prime ministers, to this woman, this fraudster, who is only there because of tony blairs desire to fill the lords with his croonies!
will, grimsby, uk
Please, please, please - find one honest MP or peer and report on them just for a change. I really am beginning to think there isn't one.....
charles, Congleton,
How many more? I did not know peers could claim ALA as well as MPs. These people takes us for fools. Great piece of investigative journalism. Thanks
Ian, Newtownabbey, N. Ireland
Why don't you Brits get angry at the thievery of your politicians?? I don't get it......you should be hanging your political leadership from the lampposts that light up the Thames river. Why do you suffer in silence?? Are you all sheep?
Dave H, Alexandria, USA
A very interesting & detailed piece of investigative journalism there, well done, keep it up.
Tim, Hillsborough, Great Britain
She should lose her title,job and be made to pay back every penny if these facts are true. yet another politician abusing the system
paul, clayton, staffs
Raping the taxpayer. Can we send her and her brood back from whence they came. And let her cheat her own countrymen rather than leeching from the UK Taxpayer. And by the by, what exactly has this person done / achieved to be honoured with a peerage. Oh, forgot she was a community worker..
Oliver Corning, Tunbridge , UK (Used to be Great Britain)
Greed and more greed. Throw them all in Jail I say.
This system needs to stop. If she is found to have not lived in this place and just used it to claim expenses she should be stripped of her position and slung in Jail. Disgusting.
Anthony Stewart, Chicago, USA
This is very naughty by the looks of things - I do hope she will be required to repay the 100,000 pounds she has received as a result of not knowing where she lives.
Joe, Kiev, Ukraine
I despair.
Remind me again why I pay huge amounts of tax?
And remind me further - are these allowances, which our "peers" and MPs receive, taxable (snort)?
Diana, London, UK
I wonder what the response to the Sunday Times investigation will be?
Will you be accused of racism, sexism, or both?
Fred Kite, Notts,
A greedy cheat abusing a position of authority...how surprising!
Kevin, San Francisco,
Show fewer comments
HAVE YOUR SAY
Monday, 4 May 2009
"Baronness of Bethnal Green" - The Guardian has scant coverage.
News
Politics
MPs' expenses
Labour peer Baroness Uddin under fire over 'vacant' home
Ben Quinn
The Observer, Sunday 3 May 2009
Article history
A Labour member of the House of Lords has become the latest politician to be challenged over expenses amid suggestions that she has not been living in a flat outside London for which she has claimed an estimated £100,000.
Baroness Uddin, 49, claims that the two-bedroom property in Maidstone, Kent, is her "main address". But neighbours believe that the flat has been vacant for years and that the peer has continued to live in London.
She has designated a family house in Tower Hamlets, where her children went to school, as a "second home", according to the Sunday Times, allowing her to claim the cost of overnight accommodation in London.
Politics
MPs' expenses
Labour peer Baroness Uddin under fire over 'vacant' home
Ben Quinn
The Observer, Sunday 3 May 2009
Article history
A Labour member of the House of Lords has become the latest politician to be challenged over expenses amid suggestions that she has not been living in a flat outside London for which she has claimed an estimated £100,000.
Baroness Uddin, 49, claims that the two-bedroom property in Maidstone, Kent, is her "main address". But neighbours believe that the flat has been vacant for years and that the peer has continued to live in London.
She has designated a family house in Tower Hamlets, where her children went to school, as a "second home", according to the Sunday Times, allowing her to claim the cost of overnight accommodation in London.
Whatever did we do to deserve Baroness Uddin?"
1505 Hrs London Monday 4 May 2009
"Whatever did we do to deserve Baroness Uddin?"
The comment from the DAILY TELEGRAPH web site as published on Monday 4 May 2009
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/james_delingpole/blog/2009/05/04/whatever_did_we_do_to_deserve_baroness_uddin
"Whatever did we do to deserve Baroness Uddin?"
The comment from the DAILY TELEGRAPH web site as published on Monday 4 May 2009
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/james_delingpole/blog/2009/05/04/whatever_did_we_do_to_deserve_baroness_uddin
The "Baroness of Bethnal Green" - a comment from the Daily Telegraph web site
1450 Hrs London 4 May 2009
EAST LONDON PRESS noting that the 'East London Advertiser' has still not published anything about the matter.
We shall keepo vuers and svsitors posted on the cointining lack of jouralsm by the 'East L:onon advesrtir'.
In the mranti,e the follwoing comment is being produecd here dfrom the extetal web site mentoiend below. This is porely fpor reference. We are not staying any views on the matter to which they have linekd the 'baroness of Bethnal green' to.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/james_delingpole/blog/2009/05/04/whatever_did_we_do_to_deserve_baroness_uddin
Whatever did we do to deserve Baroness Uddin?
Posted By: James Delingpole at May 4, 2009 at 13:28:34 [General]
Posted in:
Tags:
Baroness Uddin, fluent in multi-culti, second homes, Tower Hamlets
Until this weekend's story broke about her expenses irregularities you'd probably never heard of Britain's first Muslim peer Baroness Uddin. I had, though, because a couple of years ago, I remember being particularly incensed while driving along listening to a Radio 4 programme about the disasters of multiculturalism.
On one side of the debate was an intelligent, articulate, well-spoken Muslim doctor who was talking about the damage multi-culti pieties had done to social cohesion in East London's Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities. Particularly rubbish, he said, was the policy of PC councils of translating everything into languages like Urdu and Bengali - rather than encouraging immigrant communities to learn English. This, he explained, did bullying Muslim husbands' dirty work for them by enabling them to keep their non-English-speaking, often-imported brides in thrall, and away from the tainting influence of the kuffar.
Baroness Uddin was speaking opposite him and though I can't remember exactly what she said, I do recall being so struck by the unutterable idiocy of her half-baked and ill-expressed views that I stopped the car to jot down her name. "Christ on a bike," I thought to myself. "What kind of world do we inhabit that someone like this gets a peerage?"
I'm still searching for an answer. She can't be totally stupid, for her response when the story broke about her having allegedly claimed £100,000 for a "main home" she doesn't live in was impressively swift: round she came in her BMW 4 x 4 to put some curtains up and a mat by the front door. Iain Dale has lots more comedy dirt on this, such as the claim that the house she DOES live in is Housing Association property with a subsidised rent supposedly designed for low-income families. Principled socialism in action, eh, readers?
Here is a video of Baroness Uddin in action.
Was your immediate thought: here is a woman whose intelligence, rapier wit, wisdom, commonsense and mastery of the English language in all its nuance and complexity more than justifies her elevation to the Lords?
Me neither.
She was elevated to the peerage by Tony Blair (says it all really) in 1998, though for which particular service to the nation is not immediately apparent. She has been a Labour councillor, a liaison officer for Tower Hamlets social services and is described on her Wikipedia entry as a "community activist."
Hmm. Sounds like perfect MBE material to me.
But a peerage?
[ 3 comments ]
Comments
Just another Nu-Lab kleptocrat. What I want to know is which Labour MPs might top themselves if their fraudulent expenses are revealed, and if there is anything we can do to expedite this topping oneself process?
Sebber
May 04, 2009
01:50 PM GMT
"Was your immediate thought:...?"
My immediate thought was she should be in prison, but that was for the second home claim. I'm not sure my temper could stand the video.
Sheumais
May 04, 2009
01:57 PM GMT
Labour MP/peer/councillor/whatever is now synonymous with 'thief'.
Chav Dad & Minger Mam
May 04, 2009
02:25 PM GMT
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EAST LONDON PRESS noting that the 'East London Advertiser' has still not published anything about the matter.
We shall keepo vuers and svsitors posted on the cointining lack of jouralsm by the 'East L:onon advesrtir'.
In the mranti,e the follwoing comment is being produecd here dfrom the extetal web site mentoiend below. This is porely fpor reference. We are not staying any views on the matter to which they have linekd the 'baroness of Bethnal green' to.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/james_delingpole/blog/2009/05/04/whatever_did_we_do_to_deserve_baroness_uddin
Whatever did we do to deserve Baroness Uddin?
Posted By: James Delingpole at May 4, 2009 at 13:28:34 [General]
Posted in:
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Baroness Uddin, fluent in multi-culti, second homes, Tower Hamlets
Until this weekend's story broke about her expenses irregularities you'd probably never heard of Britain's first Muslim peer Baroness Uddin. I had, though, because a couple of years ago, I remember being particularly incensed while driving along listening to a Radio 4 programme about the disasters of multiculturalism.
On one side of the debate was an intelligent, articulate, well-spoken Muslim doctor who was talking about the damage multi-culti pieties had done to social cohesion in East London's Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities. Particularly rubbish, he said, was the policy of PC councils of translating everything into languages like Urdu and Bengali - rather than encouraging immigrant communities to learn English. This, he explained, did bullying Muslim husbands' dirty work for them by enabling them to keep their non-English-speaking, often-imported brides in thrall, and away from the tainting influence of the kuffar.
Baroness Uddin was speaking opposite him and though I can't remember exactly what she said, I do recall being so struck by the unutterable idiocy of her half-baked and ill-expressed views that I stopped the car to jot down her name. "Christ on a bike," I thought to myself. "What kind of world do we inhabit that someone like this gets a peerage?"
I'm still searching for an answer. She can't be totally stupid, for her response when the story broke about her having allegedly claimed £100,000 for a "main home" she doesn't live in was impressively swift: round she came in her BMW 4 x 4 to put some curtains up and a mat by the front door. Iain Dale has lots more comedy dirt on this, such as the claim that the house she DOES live in is Housing Association property with a subsidised rent supposedly designed for low-income families. Principled socialism in action, eh, readers?
Here is a video of Baroness Uddin in action.
Was your immediate thought: here is a woman whose intelligence, rapier wit, wisdom, commonsense and mastery of the English language in all its nuance and complexity more than justifies her elevation to the Lords?
Me neither.
She was elevated to the peerage by Tony Blair (says it all really) in 1998, though for which particular service to the nation is not immediately apparent. She has been a Labour councillor, a liaison officer for Tower Hamlets social services and is described on her Wikipedia entry as a "community activist."
Hmm. Sounds like perfect MBE material to me.
But a peerage?
[ 3 comments ]
Comments
Just another Nu-Lab kleptocrat. What I want to know is which Labour MPs might top themselves if their fraudulent expenses are revealed, and if there is anything we can do to expedite this topping oneself process?
Sebber
May 04, 2009
01:50 PM GMT
"Was your immediate thought:...?"
My immediate thought was she should be in prison, but that was for the second home claim. I'm not sure my temper could stand the video.
Sheumais
May 04, 2009
01:57 PM GMT
Labour MP/peer/councillor/whatever is now synonymous with 'thief'.
Chav Dad & Minger Mam
May 04, 2009
02:25 PM GMT
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EAST LONDON PRESS Update on UK 'Work and pensions' cabinet minister James Purnell joining as a character in the sleaze and fraud news reports
0245 Hrs London ['Bank Holiday'] Monday 4 May 2009:
EAST LONPON PRESS report
EAST LONDON PRESS Update on UK 'Work and pensions' cabinet minister James Purnell joining as a character in the sleaze and fraud news reports his various 'Party' colleagues. Including 'Bethnal Green Baroness' Pola Uddin.
PURNELL heads the DWP the UK Department for Work and Pensions. On its books about Tower Hamlets, a large majority of persons reporting low income or no income are from the section of the population that Pola Uddin says she identifies with.
At the time of writing, we could not finalise verification of several details that have emerged during the weekend.
One concerns Ian Dale's reference to the 'Housing Association' that allegedly owns the property in Wapping in which Pola Uddin actually lives.
Other aspects of Pola Uddin’s claimed ‘political and community life’ have caused outpourings of mirth in the East End
DAILY MAIL, updated file on Pola Uddin as at 0142 Hrs 4 may 2009
Labour peer 'claims £100,000 on vacant flat she said was her home'
By DAN NEWLING
Last updated at 1:42 AM on 04th May 2009
Comments (15)
Add to My Stories
Baroness Uddin has been claiming expenses on a 'unoccupied' flat in Kent
A Labour peer faces a possible police investigation for fraud after she claimed £100,000 in expenses for a flat she appears never to have lived in.
Baroness Uddin received the money by claiming that the apparently deserted flat in Maidstone, Kent, was her 'main home'.
This meant the Baroness, Britain's first female Muslim peer, was able to claim nearly £30,000 a year towards the cost of staying at a separate London address while she attended Parliament.
Members of the House of Lords are entitled to a daily allowance of up to £86.50 for 'meals and refreshments' and travel around Westminster, up to £174 for overnight accommodation in London and office costs of £75 a day.
They are also entitled to £116 per night accommodation maintenance allowance for a second home and 'additional office costs' up to £75 for up to 40 days.
The accommodation allowance is available to any peer 'whose main residence is outside greater London and who maintains a residence in London for the purpose of attending sittings of the House'.
'Main home': The flat in Maistone, Kent, which neighbours say has lain empty
There is no official definition of a 'main residence' in the rules, but Mary Morgan, director of public information at the Lords said: 'A member will know what his main residence is. It's where they live. For the purposes of claiming expenses it's where they travel to and from.' However, neighbours at the Baroness's ground floor flat in Maidstone say that since she bought the property in 2005, they have never seen her.
A plumber who entered the apartment last month described it as 'uninhabitable' - covered in dust with just an old mattress on the floor to sleep on.
By contrast, neighbours at her other property - a three- storey house in Wapping, East London - said she is regularly seen there.
The Wapping address is where the 49-year-old peer brought up her five children and is registered to vote.
Her personal website describes the East End as her 'backyard' and 'my home for over 30 years'.
Every time she has registered as a director of a company, she has given her London address, which is four miles from Parliament. However, the Baroness has told the Lords' expenses authorities that it is only her 'second address'.
In the financial year to March 2008 she claimed £29,600 in overnight accommodation allowance. If she has done the same every year since buying the Kent flat, she would have earned more than £100,000.
More...
MPs' secretaries threaten to strike as even they are caught up in expenses row
Yesterday LibDem frontbencher Lord Oakeshott said: 'An empty property can't be a peer's main residence. The Lords authorities must check the facts of this case and investigate.' Baroness Uddin denies any wrongdoing and has instructed libel lawyers to represent her.
When approached in Maidstone at the weekend, the Baroness refused to allow a journalist into the flat to check it was being lived in.
In a statement she said: 'The Wapping house is rented while I own the property in Maidstone. The Maidstone property is furnished and I strongly deny that I have never lived there. Indeed I have stayed there regularly since buying it.'
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its within the rule book so why not, everybody does it so why not the Baroness. in the words of the song "you gotta pick a pocket or two oo you gotta pick a pocket or two.
ken moody
sheffield
- ken moody, sheffield uk, 03/5/2009 17:15Click to rate Rating 278
Just shows the level that greed can plumb to... After all the cases of false expences claims one would have thought that the trough feeders would have had the common sense to realise that sooner or later they would be rumbled.
- Mac, New Town, 03/5/2009 17:13Click to rate Rating 287
Just check the utility bills for the period
- timothy timberlake, dorset, 03/5/2009 17:13Click to rate Rating 347
Are we really supposed to be suprised.?
- Paul, East London, 03/5/2009 17:08Click to rate Rating 281
The answer is simple. Get her to pay back all the spurious claims. But of course with Jackie Smitch on her side she'll claim it was all legal. Legal, perhaps. Thoroughly contemptible - certainly. Another nu lab peer completely discredited. Its not just Lord Mandy that gives the party a rotten name. They're all at it!!! Socialists to their last bottle of champagne...and blow the rest of us. Tony's Brave New World is crashing down all around us. Oh dear.
- Atrie, Oxford, 03/5/2009 17:02Click to rate Rating 287
It seems that most of them are rotten to the core!
- George Philips, SE London, 03/5/2009 17:00
EAST LONPON PRESS report
EAST LONDON PRESS Update on UK 'Work and pensions' cabinet minister James Purnell joining as a character in the sleaze and fraud news reports his various 'Party' colleagues. Including 'Bethnal Green Baroness' Pola Uddin.
PURNELL heads the DWP the UK Department for Work and Pensions. On its books about Tower Hamlets, a large majority of persons reporting low income or no income are from the section of the population that Pola Uddin says she identifies with.
At the time of writing, we could not finalise verification of several details that have emerged during the weekend.
One concerns Ian Dale's reference to the 'Housing Association' that allegedly owns the property in Wapping in which Pola Uddin actually lives.
Other aspects of Pola Uddin’s claimed ‘political and community life’ have caused outpourings of mirth in the East End
DAILY MAIL, updated file on Pola Uddin as at 0142 Hrs 4 may 2009
Labour peer 'claims £100,000 on vacant flat she said was her home'
By DAN NEWLING
Last updated at 1:42 AM on 04th May 2009
Comments (15)
Add to My Stories
Baroness Uddin has been claiming expenses on a 'unoccupied' flat in Kent
A Labour peer faces a possible police investigation for fraud after she claimed £100,000 in expenses for a flat she appears never to have lived in.
Baroness Uddin received the money by claiming that the apparently deserted flat in Maidstone, Kent, was her 'main home'.
This meant the Baroness, Britain's first female Muslim peer, was able to claim nearly £30,000 a year towards the cost of staying at a separate London address while she attended Parliament.
Members of the House of Lords are entitled to a daily allowance of up to £86.50 for 'meals and refreshments' and travel around Westminster, up to £174 for overnight accommodation in London and office costs of £75 a day.
They are also entitled to £116 per night accommodation maintenance allowance for a second home and 'additional office costs' up to £75 for up to 40 days.
The accommodation allowance is available to any peer 'whose main residence is outside greater London and who maintains a residence in London for the purpose of attending sittings of the House'.
'Main home': The flat in Maistone, Kent, which neighbours say has lain empty
There is no official definition of a 'main residence' in the rules, but Mary Morgan, director of public information at the Lords said: 'A member will know what his main residence is. It's where they live. For the purposes of claiming expenses it's where they travel to and from.' However, neighbours at the Baroness's ground floor flat in Maidstone say that since she bought the property in 2005, they have never seen her.
A plumber who entered the apartment last month described it as 'uninhabitable' - covered in dust with just an old mattress on the floor to sleep on.
By contrast, neighbours at her other property - a three- storey house in Wapping, East London - said she is regularly seen there.
The Wapping address is where the 49-year-old peer brought up her five children and is registered to vote.
Her personal website describes the East End as her 'backyard' and 'my home for over 30 years'.
Every time she has registered as a director of a company, she has given her London address, which is four miles from Parliament. However, the Baroness has told the Lords' expenses authorities that it is only her 'second address'.
In the financial year to March 2008 she claimed £29,600 in overnight accommodation allowance. If she has done the same every year since buying the Kent flat, she would have earned more than £100,000.
More...
MPs' secretaries threaten to strike as even they are caught up in expenses row
Yesterday LibDem frontbencher Lord Oakeshott said: 'An empty property can't be a peer's main residence. The Lords authorities must check the facts of this case and investigate.' Baroness Uddin denies any wrongdoing and has instructed libel lawyers to represent her.
When approached in Maidstone at the weekend, the Baroness refused to allow a journalist into the flat to check it was being lived in.
In a statement she said: 'The Wapping house is rented while I own the property in Maidstone. The Maidstone property is furnished and I strongly deny that I have never lived there. Indeed I have stayed there regularly since buying it.'
Print this article Read later Email to a friend
Share this article:
Digg itDel.icio.usRedditNewsvineNowpublicStumbleUponFacebookMySpaceFark
Add your comments Comments (15)
Here's what readers have had to say so far. Why not add your thoughts below, or debate this issue live on our message boards.
Newest
Oldest
Best rated
Worst rated
View all
its within the rule book so why not, everybody does it so why not the Baroness. in the words of the song "you gotta pick a pocket or two oo you gotta pick a pocket or two.
ken moody
sheffield
- ken moody, sheffield uk, 03/5/2009 17:15Click to rate Rating 278
Just shows the level that greed can plumb to... After all the cases of false expences claims one would have thought that the trough feeders would have had the common sense to realise that sooner or later they would be rumbled.
- Mac, New Town, 03/5/2009 17:13Click to rate Rating 287
Just check the utility bills for the period
- timothy timberlake, dorset, 03/5/2009 17:13Click to rate Rating 347
Are we really supposed to be suprised.?
- Paul, East London, 03/5/2009 17:08Click to rate Rating 281
The answer is simple. Get her to pay back all the spurious claims. But of course with Jackie Smitch on her side she'll claim it was all legal. Legal, perhaps. Thoroughly contemptible - certainly. Another nu lab peer completely discredited. Its not just Lord Mandy that gives the party a rotten name. They're all at it!!! Socialists to their last bottle of champagne...and blow the rest of us. Tony's Brave New World is crashing down all around us. Oh dear.
- Atrie, Oxford, 03/5/2009 17:02Click to rate Rating 287
It seems that most of them are rotten to the core!
- George Philips, SE London, 03/5/2009 17:00
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Poverty of the MPs is in the grotesque shamelessness... and petty greed
EAST LONDON PRESS says at 0510 Hrs on Tuesday 31 March 2009: It is not just Harry Cohen, the east London MP who used to flaunt a faker beard and spout strings of calculated socialistic confections... Having lost BOTH in order to stay on the bandwagon, Cohen seems to have also lost any sense of rationality. And dignity. How else could he be saying those things, comparing himself to Churchill in that way? There were indeed many flaws in Churchill’s life and character. But Harry Cohen is not remotely convincing as a comparable Member of Parliament...Or as a member of society... What Cohen’s banal boast tells us about him is that he belongs to a parliament of political, mental, moral pigmies with no evident shame...
