The Lutfur Rahman era is over. Now John Biggs has to rebuild trust in Tower Hamlets

Occasionally, there are moments when politicians of all persuasions welcome a result. As David Cameron noted at PMQs this week, Naz Shah’s victory over George Galloway in Bradford West was one of these moments. This morning’s news that Labour’s John Biggs has been elected Mayor of Tower Hamlets is another. Biggs won decisively, with 32,754 votes (including second preferences) to 26,384 votes for the independent Rabina Khan, a former member of disgraced mayor Lutfur Rahman’s cabinet, who stood as an independent. There was clearly tactical voting, with Biggs taking an impressive 90 per cent of the second preferences.

This result will hopefully mark the end of the toxic Rahman era. After the result was announced at the Excel Centre last night — which had a significant police presence, as with all Tower Hamlets elections — Biggs said it was time for the borough to move on, while still remembering what went wrong:

‘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.