Tower Hamlets — London’s rotten borough

What is going on in Tower Hamlets? Three days after the counting began, the borough has yet to return a complete set of results from Thursday’s elections. Counting for the Bromley South ward has been stopped for a second time today, resuming in the morning. Tower Hamlets Council explained in a statement ‘the result is looking very close in this ward and accuracy is of paramount concern’. Few would probably have noticed, were it not for Tower Hamlets holding up the rest of London announcing its results for the European elections.

While the rest of the country reported its results hours before, Tower Hamlets was delayed due to a new ‘local protocol’ introduced to address the Electoral Commission’s fraud concerns. A council spokesman said this evening:

‘This protocol produced the most stringent set of electoral measures in the capital, if not the country, to ensure that elections could be held in a transparent and fair manner.