Tower Hamlets new elected Mayor John Biggs
Labour's John Biggs has become the directly elected mayor of the London borough of Tower Hamlets, in an election called after the previous mayor was removed from office.
He lost last year to independent Lutfur Rahman, who was convicted of electoral fraud and told to stand down in April. Mr Rahman was banned from the new vote.
Mr Biggs won 32,754 votes, including second preference votes, to beat independent Rabina Khan. He said the borough now needed to move forwards. Speaking after the overnight count at London's ExCel conference centre, the new mayor said: "What is important in Tower Hamlets is that we recognise the events of the past year or more have caused enormous tension and friction in our great borough and we need... to pull things back together again.
The Labou...