By©Muhammad Haque
1850 GMT
London Monday 1 October 2007


Gordon Brown has been quoted by the fanatically pro-Crossrail hole scheme-peddling London Evening Standard website this evening [Monday 1 October 2007] as saying “…. London businesses and developers who will benefit significantly from Crossrail."

This is from a reported talk Brown gave earlier today [Monday 1 October 2007] to the City of London.

This is not therefore a truthful statement. This must be – could only be, given Brown’s record of opposition to the very same CrossRail hole scheme - the Ken Livingstone mantra that Brown is using to create an image that he is concerned about transport in London. Another clear indication that Brown is now working up a scenario that he thinks is going to be conducive to his calling a general election in the UK, whatever the date of that may be.

And regardless of the vote-catching abuse of his position, Brown has already confessed, in the same talk to Big Business elements in the City of London today, that he has taken vital public money from other sectors to boost Livingstone's fragile and needy ego for yet another term as the megalomaniac holder of the post of mayor of London!

Brown's stance today as the ally of 'King newt' is not acceptable ‘news’ to the people in the East End of London whose homes, heath and the environment are the targets of the Crossrail hole attacks being invited to the East End of London by the ‘local’ Tower Hamlets Borough Council.

Even before any ‘news’ report of Brown’s talk today to Big Business interests in the City of London was published, East End residents of one target of the Crossrail hole noise, disruption and dislocation in the streets to the east of Vallance Road and to the north of the Whitechapel station were taking part in a Khoodeelaar! Demonstration against the Crossrail hole Bill [the ‘CrossRail Bill’ in the UK House of Commons] in the Hanbury Street, off Brick Lane.

The Crossrail hole attacks on the East End of London have been INVITED by the local Tower Hamlets Council which is the root of the attacks on the community that the Khoodeelaar! Campaign has been campaigning to stop from being implemented.

The residents and businesses in the two parts of the E1 area affected by the two CrossRail holes [in Hanbury Street/Spelman Street/Princelet Street and behind the Whitechapel station near the Durward Street]

In a constitutional law demand to the UK House of Commons [which is formally processing the present ‘Crossrail Bill’], residents from the BETHNAL GREEN South ward in Tower Hamlets [living in the Castlemain Street, Lomas Street, Trahorn Close and Wodeham Gardens] have called for a review of the current Crossrail Bill itself because they insist the Bill was introduced misleadingly and contains provisions that are incompatible with the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.

Texts of the East London residents’ formal demand for a constitutional review of the Crossrail Bill as addressed to the UK House of Commons


“We the residents, tenants and occupiers in the Castlemain Street, Lomas Street, Trahorn Close and Wodeham Gardens, London E1: Upon learning about the Crossrail Bill [now in the UK House of Commons] and upon being informed of the pans to dig a Crossrail hole in the vicinity of our homes and upon being informed of the 4 to 5 years [minimum length of time that the construction work in the area will take] dust, noise, digging and disruption to be visited upon us and on being informed that our local Council has refused to support our demand that the Crossrail plan as affecting our lives and our health be stopped, hereby and herewith confirm that we support the Khoodeelaar! Campaign against the Crossrail hole attacks on the East End and are backing all their representations and demands covering economic, environmental, social and community rights and relevance that they have made to the UK Parliament, to the UK Secretary of State for Transport and to the local Tower Hamlets Council and to the Greater London Assembly and to the Crossrail company [CLRL] and to the mayor of London.

We confirm that in the past years our local [Tower Hamlets borough] council has not sent to us a single item of relevant information about this attack by Crossrail on us.

We call on the parliament to abide by the ECHR and the European Conventions on the UK's constitutional duties to properly and manifestly consult us, the people in specific terms targeted for attacks by the Crossrail Bill provisions, before assuming that the ‘CrossRail Bill’ is compatible with the European Conventions.

We are expressly asking that Parliament reconsider the Secretary of State’s claim that the [Crossrail] Bill, as he put it in the House of Commons in February 2005, was compatible with the Conventions as we are also saying that the terms of the [‘ Crossrail Bill’] ‘select committee’ as approved in the House of Commons at the Second Reading [19 July 2005] of the CrossRail Bill, were themselves not compatible with the European Conventions. “