London

    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...

    Mark Carney warned the City of London that the “age of irresponsibility is over” as he unveiled a host of new sanctions and procedures designed to cleanse financial markets that have been tarnished by a tidal wave of rate rigging scandals. Speaking at the annual Mansion House dinner, the Bank of England’s Governor promised that traders fired for misconduct would have their full history made available to prospective employers. He also called for criminal sanctions to be “updated”, with longer maximum prison terms for rate-riggers. Mr Carney added that a “senior managers’ regime” would be extended beyond banks to cover asset managers and hedge funds, meaning that all those in charge of traders active in markets vulnerable to abuse will find themselves personally “on the ...

    The election of a new mayor for Tower Hamlets, prompted by the ejection of the last incumbent for widespread fraud, is already the subject of 16 separate allegations of electoral irregularities, police have confirmed. Four days before voters in the east London borough choose a successor to Lutfur Rahman, Britain’s first directly elected Muslim mayor, Met officers are assessing claims of the harvesting of postal votes, the use of “ghost” voters and the improper distribution of election literature, officials have told the Guardian. Mayoral candidates from the major parties say the fraught contest, to be held on Thursday, is far from a foregone conclusion. Some political pundits had predicted it would be an easy victory for Labour after an election court six weeks ago forc...

    Tributes have been paid to an aspiring young musician who was stabbed to death in the street in north London. Lukey Maxwell, 22 from Tottenham, was stabbed in the back in Northumberland Park, N17, in the early hours of Friday morning, police said. Mobo Award-winning rapper Chipmunk has paid tribute to his late friend on Twitter. Chipmunk, whose real name is Jahmaal Fyffe, wrote: Can't sleep or think straight. This one doesn't seem real. Friend: number one selling pop star and rapper ChipmunkHe later tweeted: Praying for their loved one's strength. RIP Lukey man. He always vouched for me. Another Twitter user, Malachi, tweeted: You know that's a clean hearted man when the whole of Tottenham and more are sending condolences. Rest up Lukey. Maxwell was found collapsed in ...

    Is there a shift or split within the hitherto solid Bengali Lutfurite vote? I ask this because over the past couple of days I’ve received the following three texts: 1. TOWER HAMLETS COMMUNITY LEADERS ENCOURAGE POLITICAL CHANGE IN THE BOROUGH The Stake holders and the community activists conference is taking place tomorrow the 3rd June 2015 at 6.30pm in the Amana Centre, 251 Commercial Road, E1 2BT (opposite Watney Market) Senior Tower Hamlets community leaders have come together to declare their support for mainstream political engagement in the borough ahead of the upcoming by-election for Executive Mayor on 11 June 2015. United Tower Hamlets task force has been set up to undertake and lead a campaign to re-unite the currently fractured community relation which is dam...

    The Queen will receive a 15% rise in her Sovereign Grant because of a clause in a piece of legislation that was negotiated by UK Chancellor George Osborne in 2011. However, this will be under review, after this year's Autumn statement, because she is essentially making too much money. Three years ago, the government forged a deal for Buckingham Palace, which meant they'd be shielded from any public funding cuts. The deal also agreed that the Monarchy would receive 15% of  the profits of the £9.9 billion Crown Estate, and the amount the Queen would receive would never be less than the amount received in the previous year. This saw a massive rise in what the Queen received over the last three years. She got £40 million in the last financial year, which is 29% above the ...

    A rogue tweet by a BBC reporter after an “obituary rehearsal” led several major international news organisations to wrongly report that Queen Elizabeth had been admitted to hospital. Buckingham Palace has denied any suggestion the monarch is unwell, after erroneous breaking news reports said she was staying at the King Edward VII’s hospital, a private facility in Marylebone, London. The BBC said it was carrying out a “category one obituary rehearsal’ when the reporter mistakenly sent the tweet. The news of her hospitalisation originally came from the Twitter account of a BBC Urdu reporter, Ahmen Khawaja. She later deleted the original tweet and called it a false alarm. A few minutes afterwards, she tweeted that she had left her phone unattended and said the tweet had ...

    Rabina Khan, the Muslim independent candidate for mayor of Tower Hamlets, has vowed, if elected, to reopen a gay venue in the borough. According to a report in the GayStarNews, Khan said the Joiners’ Arms, which closed its doors suddenly in January, should become a hub to provide advice for young people struggling with their sexual or gender identity. “The Joiners’ Arms has long been an important venue for the LGBTI community and its future should carry on in that tradition,” she said. “I believe the Joiners’ Arms would make a fantastic community hub offering support services for the LGBTI people and the wider community too.” Charlotte Gerada, a member of the group “Friends of the Joiners Arms,” said: ‘The Joiners is an incredibly crucial and valued community space, o...