John Biggs is desperate to get elected. So desperate that he’ll knock down any of the borough’s achievements despite the national and international recognition we’ve gained.
In the last 3 years Tower Hamlets has received £50m in “New Homes Bonus” cash from the government- more than any other local authority- and topped every league table for house building. But Biggs is insulting the intelligence of local people by claiming we’ve only built 15 homes – not 4000.
That’s a big difference so how does he come to this figure? Simple, he moves the goalposts and applies a different definition of “housebuilding” to Tower Hamlets than that used by the whole of the rest of the country. He doesn’t attack Newham, who boast about building 2,000 new homes by the same measure we use, or even Mayor Boris Johnson who has aspirations to build 150,000 affordable homes across London.
But I am proud of my administration’s record when it comes to house building. These 4,000 homes were delivered because my administration took the policy decisions that made sure they were built – that’s what politicians are supposed to do – and we’ve delivered the most affordable homes in the UK by sticking to our 35 – 50 per cent target.
By playing with numbers instead of engaging in the more demanding job of actually delivering, Biggs has shown what kind of politician he is – all spin and no substance, willing to say whatever he needs to get into power and with no idea what to do once he gets there.
