THE leader of Tower Hamlets council doesn’t understand democracy and the media. We were granted the joy in last week’s East London Advertiser of seeing Labour’s Lutfur Rahman throw his toys out of his pram over criticism he had received at wasting yet more of our public money on a lavish away day’ in Tory-controlled Kent

THE leader of Tower Hamlets council doesn't understand democracy and the media.

We were granted the joy in last week's East London Advertiser of seeing Labour's Lutfur Rahman throw his toys out of his pram over criticism he had received at wasting yet more of our public money on a lavish 'away day' in Tory-controlled Kent.

Cllr Rahman, who regularly tells Opposition councillors to stop disagreeing with him in council meetings, stated, "The Advertiser is a serious paper, and I'd hope you would have a better understanding of the steps I need to take to get this council where it needs to be."

Well, anything is serious when compared to his own rag, 'East End Life.'

If Cllr Rahman cannot learn to take valid criticism, he needs to re-evaluate his political career.

If I were him, I would get out now. Public life in Tower Hamlets would not be any the less for it.

This man costs us �32,000 a year who recently illustrated his contempt for public money by sacking chief executive Martin Smith and landing the taxpayer with a massive �400,000 bill.

He doesn't seem to understand the role the local media plays in enhancing democracy.

All the propaganda that comes out of the Town Hall, whether in 'East End Life,' press releases or the council's own website, now seems so stale it is like seeing a Communist era apparatchik rolling out the party line, time after time.

When democracy is so sparse in Britain at the moment, we need only look at Cllr Rahman's own Labour party to see where he gets his contempt for democracy from.

It is now more than two years since Labour thrust an unelected Prime Minister on the country.

That unelected Prime Minister has just put an unelected peer in charge this week while he's away.

If it wasn't for the East London Advertiser, we would be in a very sorry state in the East End.

The next time Cllr Rahman wants to take his cabinet off on an 'away' day, I suggest he contacts Labour's Baroness Uddin. I hear she has an empty place in Kent.

Matthew Vaughan

Caledonian Wharf, Cubitt Town, Isle of Dogs