Sebastian Payne

Eric Pickles interview: multiculturalism is to blame for Tower Hamlets electoral fraud

Sir Eric Pickles looks every bit the diamond Tory geezer. As we sit down in a room overlooking Big Ben for his first interview since leaving the Cabinet, the 63-year-old MP for Brentwood and Ongar has dressed for the occasion: purple braces, monogramed shirt cuffs, pocket square and a golden Rolex. Yet his demeanour does not match the bling. Pickles’ laid back Yorkshire conversational style and dry wit are not what you would expect from a politician responsible for slashing millions from the budgets of local councils.

But there is nothing relaxed about Sir Eric’s attitude towards his new assignment: tackling corruption, both in finance and politics. As the government’s new ‘anti-corruption Tsar/champion’ — ‘I can’t say I am very fond of either title’  — Pickles is now the man responsible for cleaning up the darker corners of public life. Sir Eric’s main focus is electoral corruption, in light of what happened in Tower Hamlets. He compares the lack of action taken over the behaviour of former mayor Lutfur Rahman to the child exploitation scandal in Rotherham.

‘What appears to have happened in Tower Hamlets is similar to what happened in Rotherham, in the sense that as with sexual exploitation, people just turned a blind eye because they were worried about community cohesion and the same seems to have happened in Tower Hamlets’. To clarify, I ask does he believe that politicians and officials were too concerned about multiculturalism and ignored the years of warning signs from Tower Hamlets? ‘Yes, of course’.

London’s rotten borough first came onto Pickles’ radar when he was put in charge of local government five years ago, but officials in his department were ‘very unhappy’ about the idea of an investigation. ‘It was regarded as a beacon authority,’ he says. ‘When I first arrived I was told I should go and have a look at it because it was a very well run borough.

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