Hackney Council To Investigate Itself

Two months ago I posted a piece on the "Little Manhattan" project to develop two monstrous towers in Dalston and ethnically cleanse the area in the process. Readers will recall that I had previously suffered from some confusion over the merits of this scheme until Linda pointed out to me that the sponsor is Red Ken's Transport for Plebians.

Unfortunately, several of my colleagues in the Labour Group took a somewhat different view of the matter and voted for the scheme to go ahead. Leading the drive to high-rise Dalston was that nice young chap Darren Parker who was so unpleasantly and needlessly outed by a fellow councillor from his Brownswood Ward.

When Planning Sub-Committee Chair Councillor Vincent Stops suffered an unfortunate attack of new variant TfL and was forced to step down from chairing the original planning approval session for Faulty Towers, Darren was able to fill the gap at short notice.

Not only did he chair the meeting but, when the vote was tied, he cast the deciding vote in favour.

Following this completely lawful and proper vote, some nasty little theatre-hugging anarchists, Trotsyists and LibDems have got together to attack Councillor Parker by pointing out that he is employed by CABE, the principal design advisory body in respect of the development project and an organisation that will benefit hugely if the scheme goes ahead.

How stupid can you get? This is not an undeclared personal interest. CABE is not a private company - it is a statutory body funded by Tessa's Department for Culture, Media and Sport and Prezza's Department for Communities and Local Government. How can an organisation of these Departments have a vested interest in a local planning decision? We're the bloody government, thickos! We were elected and you people weren't. So stick your personal interests up your a***s!

In any event, we made sure that the rabble-rousers from OPEN didn't exploit any loopholes in the law by holding the Planning Subcommittee again two weeks later and making sure that the decision was reinforced without Darren in the Chair. This is Hackney. We don't just plan. We plan, design and build.

So Darren is innocent. And that's what The Standards Board For England has concluded, or so my informants tell me.

They have quite properly referred back the two complaints about Councillor Parker to our internal Monitoring Officer Meighoiughk Gullivers-Travels, who I am sure will find Darren even more innocent after a full and proper investigation.