Political

Haringey Labour councillor Pauline Gibson found guilty of “reckless” racism slurs

The Tottenham & Wood Green Journal reports:

Pauline Gibson … [Labour] councillor for Noel Park ward in Wood Green was the subject of complaints from three people after she subjected them to “unfair, unreasonable and demeaning treatment” by sending “widely disseminated” emails containing “accusations of racism and discrimination against them,” Haringey Council’s standards committee has found.

It decreed that “neither the content of those accusations nor the choice of audience for them could be reasonably justified.”…

[The Standards Committee] asked that the matter be referred to Labour’s chief whip with a recommendation that he review her council appointments – particularly those to outside bodies.

The finding will also be published in the next edition of the council’s Haringey People publication.

Cllr Richard Wilson, Haringey Lib Dem Leader of the Opposition, called it “a great shame that a Labour councillor has failed to meet the standards expected of elected politicians in this borough,” adding: “Residents rightly expect their local councillors to treat people with respect and to behave properly. It is very disappointing that didn’t happen in this case.”

(Update: an ironic footnote I’d missed before – Cllr Pauline Gibson was a member of the Standards Committee herself.)

When not being embroiled over allegations of rigged selections to favour Ed Miliband’s staff, Haringey’s Labour councillors have a pretty inglorious record of behaviour, including most recently:

Haringey borough councillor Nilgun Canver found guilty of perverting the course of justice
Councillor Nilgun Canver was accused of lying to police after her son crashed the family’s car in Tottenham in January, 2013.

Not to mention:

A London mayor has apologised after claiming the riots of 2011 were ‘the best thing that’s happened in Tottenham for a while’.

Sheila Peacock, who was elected as the Labour mayor of Haringey Council earlier this year, made the comments in a documentary released in June.

They only recently came to light, however, when Tottenham councillor Alan Stanton posted the video on a community forum, prompting angry responses from local residents.

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