18/06/2014 BBC London News

sunshine. The highest temperatures in the south. Now we join otr news

teams where you are. is accused of electoral fratd at the

High Court. If the court decides there should be a recount and the

numbers do not add up and are not consistent, then the court has the

power to order another election But Lutfur Rahman insist thd

election was free and fair. Also tonight, it is nearly two ydars

since Julian Assange sought refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy. We

investigate the cost to London taxpayers.

Demands that potential noisd pollution is looked at when plans

for airport expansion are considered.

I can see 10 Downing Street from here! And the cartoonist celebrating

15 years of lampooning London's most famous people.

Good evening and welcome to the programme. The mayor of Towdr

Hamlets could be forced to rerun last month's election if a High

Court petition accusing his party of electoral fraud, corruption and

political smears is successful. Lutfur Rahman insists the election

was above board, but some of his opponents claim voters were

intimidated at polling stathons and in some cases even told how to vote.

I declare that Lutfur Rahman is electoral as mayor of Tower Hamlets.

A second term as mayor, won after an acrimonious campaign. And for some,

the bitter taste in jewels. Four local people have served Lutfur

Rahman with a petition alleging a electoral malpractice. We h`ve

received allegations of corruption across the borough. We are dxamining

those allegations and our solicitor is collecting the information. Among

those allegations are that those swept caste in the name of people

not entitled to be on the electoral register, that voting papers

including postal votes were acquired and marked in favour of Lutfur

Rahman and that canvassers were gathered to `` paid to gathdr in

support for him. Tower Hamldts' returning officer is accused of

allowing agents for Lutfur Rahman to canvass for votes inside polling

stations to accompany voters into the compartment when they c`st their

vote and to leave campaign laterial in and around voting compartments.

It is also alleged that Labour's mayoral candidate was falsely

accused of racism. I was very angry with that. It was a cynical device

being used by them to polarhse opinion. I don't want to cole across

as a bad loser. I lost the election. But if serious qudstions

are being asked, they need to be properly explored. But would those

questions on things that genuinely might have if `` have affected the

result? People have a right to do this. Tower Hamlets today s`id it

was not appropriate to commdnt on the specific allegations. Tower

Hamlets council said the petition raised no new issues. A statement

said: doing to the High Court on dlection

matters is fairly rare, and this is very much the first stage of this

petition. What happens now hs that the people behind it have 28 days to

seek a hearing before a High Court judge, who will then decide whether

there are grounds to take this further. And if there were, that

might one day mean the ballot boxes being reopened and the counting down

again, and even rerunning the election.

Tim joins us now from both. What is the likelihood of succeeding?

Impossible to know that at this stage. It is very early stages in

this process, and these do remain just allegations. A couple of weeks

ago, the police said they h`d received a couple of weeks `go, the

police said they had receivdd 8 or so complaints about potenti`l

misdemeanours, and in only dight of those cases were they looking for

other. It is a difficult ond. Politics is done differentlx in this

area. Some say it is a pavelent passion, even outside polling

stations. Some will say no smoke without fire, others will wonder

whether this is increasinglx demonising this authority. @t this

stage, we need some perspective and we need to see a lot more ddtail and

the witness statements of the people making allegations. When those are

forthcoming, we need to givd Lutfur Rahman and his team a full chance to

respond to them. Lots more still to come on the

programme, including: free cash hidden somewhere in the citx, but

what lengths would you go to find it and who is hiding it?

Julian Assange, the founder of the website Wikileaks, has been holed up

in the Ecuadorian Embassy in Knightsbridge for two years now as

he tries to avoid being sent abroad to face trial. He set up Wikileaks

in 2006 to publish confidential documents, many of which have

embarrassed the US government. Miss Truss and is also wanted in Sweden

after allegedly sexually assaulting two women. Today, the Met rdvealed

that the cost of stationing officers outside the embassy to arrest him

has risen to more than ?6 mhllion. And there are few signs that he will

be leaving soon. For the offices outside the

Ecuadorian Embassy, it must feel like a never`ending circle. Watched

by Julian Assange's supportdrs across the road, the police have

been in this corner of excltsive Knightsbridge for two years now

ready to arrest the Wikileaks founder if he leaves the buhlding.

They are still waiting, and the Met is still paying. Police resources

are stretched. Now is the thme for the mayor to ask the governlent for

them to foot the bill. Therd needs to be more pressure behind the

scenes, both from the air on the government to resolve this once and

for all. The Met says the bhll for guarding us and, who is wanted for

questioning over rape alleg`tions of Sweden, has now topped ?6 mhllion.

Most of that came from the diplomatic protection budget, but

more than a million has been in police overtime. A couple of months

ago, Julian Assange spoke to the BBC from within the embassy. Others are

in a more difficult environlent But what is his life like in th`t, two

years on? Veterinary investhgative journalist Gavin Macfadyen knows. He

visited his friend last year. It is hard in there without the ahr, the

sunlight. It is difficult. Does he have a treadmill? He does. He has

got a bicycle, I think of a stationary bicycle to do exdrcises

on. He has a small group of Wikileaks supporters with hhm. There

is a lot of stuff that happdns, so he is busy. His morality is good.

Critics say Assad has endangered lives by publishing details of

top`secret military intelligence. Supporters say he is a fighter for

the truth, who could ultimately end up in prison in the US if hd leaves

the embassy. So he has been here two years. It has cost the Met lore than

?6 million, and there is no indication that Julian Assange will

be leaving here any time soon. And this form a government lawydr says

there is no chance that the officers will be withdrawn. The reason for

that? UK's responsibilities to Europe. 6 million is a relatively

small sum, considering that this is a very rare case involving

international obligations to other countries. So certainly, if I were

the Home Secretary or the m`yor of London or whoever is accountable for

that spending, I would think it was money well spent, rather th`n

expenditure that I needed to put an end to immediately. Or it Johnson

says the Met has not yet asked the government for extra money to cover

the security costs. That cotld change, depending on just how wrong

this particularly expensive resident remains here. `` how long.

Then there and had of the government's aviation commission

have met all those behind the short listed airport expansion pl`ns. The

end result? The mayor said he wants any plan to include regener`tion to

cope with huge increases in London's population. So How`rd

Davies wants an independent regulator to limit the impact of

noise pollution, whichever dxpansion plan goes ahead.

In the aviation debate, everyone thinks their idea for expansion is

the best. This is the man everyone including the mayor is trying to

convince, Sir Howard Davies. He will eventually make a recommend`tion to

government. Today, he again heard about expansion at Heathrow and

Gatwick and they got on an dstuary airport. We have to acknowlddge that

we cannot expand Heathrow while increasing noise pollution `cross

London. We need a flexible solution for the future. We believe Gatwick

is that solution. We need an airport. Don't mix it up with

developments or regeneration. The mayor wants to close Heathrow for

homes and redevelopment, and build a new airport in the estuary. He

believes that would regener`te the East, which would better cope with

huge population growth as predicted. Do you think Sir Howard is listening

to these arguments being made about development and linking it to an

airport? I hope so, because you can't look at aviation just in the

abstract. This is a massive piece of abstract. This is a massive

transport infrastructure. Transport leads housing and jobs. London has a

colossal shortage of housing. If we can get the aviation solution right,

we can address our housing problems both in the west of the citx and in

the EEC. Not everyone agrees an airport in the estuary is the

answer. And wherever expanshon happened, there would be fidrce

protests. But the head of the commission is trying to build some

agreement. We are going to have to make a very difficult balancing

decision. I hope we can produce a solution which attract broad

support. Businesses say thex want certainty in this debate. That is

unlikely in the short term, with no recommendation until after the next

election. A man who stole a woman's h`ndbag

after she was knocked over by a robber fleeing the raid at the

Dorchester has been jailed for eight months. Craig Edwards from Chapel

street in the West End pleaded guilty at Westminster magistrates on

Friday. An officer recognisdd the 35`year`old on CCTV footage released

the police. His victim has since been released from hospital. The Met

are still appealing for information about the Dorchester robberx.

Detectives investigating an illegal rave in Croydon over the wedkend

have released CCTV images of seven men they want to speak to. @bout

1300 people went to the event at a disused postal sorting office. Some

of the crowd threw fire extinguishers at the police as they

arrived. A 15`year`old boy, Rio Andrew, fell ill at the party and

later died, it is believed from a drug overdose. Elise say none of the

men pictured are to be conndcted to his death `` police. Our mahn focus

of the investigation is to hdentify the drug dealer that supplidd the

drugs to Rio. We want to iddntify that individual. We want to ask

anyone who was with Rio on the night what these drugs were and when they

were sold. We are going to prosecute the drug dealer. Still to come:

Happy birthday to Lord, the home of cricket is 200 not out this Sunday.

And to help celebrate, a very famous batsman will be playing herd.

And the story of late like hn Dagenham is turned into a Wdst End

musical. `` the story of a strike in Dagenham.

Next, are white children from impoverished backgrounds getting

enough support from London's schools? As you may have he`rd, a

group of MPs has released a report slamming the education systdm for

letting them down. Statistically, they do worse at school than any

other ethnic book. But the picture is not so bleak in the capital.

We have a question here abott a headteacher who wants to find out

how long his students spend doing their homework. The first ydar of

school can be tricky. This is when education starts to get

more testing, and the testing gets more frequent. MPs have said today

that some in our education system are being left hand. White children

on free school meals, they say, perform less well than their

counterparts from other cultures and much worse than rich childrdn. But

here in London, the divide hs not as bad as elsewhere. In the capital,

47% of children on free school meals get fired A*`C grades at GCSE,

compared to 35% for the rest of the country. And the gap between what

they get compared to richer pupils is 19% here and 27% for the rest of

the country. Our report shows that if you are on free school mdals

whatever category of ethnichty you are in, you are likely to do less

well than people in your colmunity who are not on free school leals.

But of those people on free school meals, it is the white Brithsh Huard

challenged. But if, as one of those children, you go to an outstanding

school, you are twice as likely to get your five A*`C English `nd

maths. The school has been `n improvement in the last year. They

run extended schooldays and extra less than is at weekends, as the

select committee has suggested. They say the improvement in performance

is not just about targeting different ethnic groups. Thd

assembly this week was on dhversity in our academy, which is fitting for

this topic at the moment. Otr students mix together. Therd is not

this notion of, we are one particular group or another. The

kids growing up in today's society, those issues are disappearing

because they are used to growing up in a mixed culture society. The

biggest thing the principle here thinks could improve perforlance and

extend school hours ` more loney to allow them to do it.

It is a craze which began l`st month in San Francisco. A wealthy man

began hiding cash in envelopes around the city and posting clues of

how to find it online. It ldd to thousands of people on a trdasure

hunt. It is now expanding to Europe, with the capital the first stop All

the millionaire behind the cash giveaway has said so far is that the

money will be hidden in a p`rk this weekend, somewhere in London. Tarah

Welsh is in one now. Any more clues? London park somewhere. The puestion

is how far would you search for ?100? This is how they hunt for cash

in the United States. In trdes, under bushes and every wherd. Clues

on Twitter hint where it will be found. It is a shaft and a beach.

Did you find the cash? Cash was being left anonymously, unthl the

man was unmasked as Jason Boosy I have done well and some of ly

friends have done well. We wanted to give back and we do that through

charity and I have said it hs not instead of charity. It was like a

fun way to give back. Hidden cash announced to 600,000 Twitter follows

that it is coming to London. So will the there be a stampede? If I was a

child I might be tempted. Are you not tempted now? No. Only one

hundred? I need more. We can't come for ?100. It is not worth gdtting

out of bed for? It is a fantastic idea. I will have to see how many

people will look for it. Whdre will you look. It could be anywhdre.

There will be a lot of ground to cover. The only clue is that the

cash is going to be hidden hn a large central London park, which

doesn't narrow it down much. Thousands of people will be watching

and waiting for the next clte. If you're planning to go out sdarching,

it is unlikely you will be `lone. My mum always said you don't gdt

anything for free. Others think this is being done for publicity. But it

started a anonymously. But ht is not the first time it has happened in

the UK. A copy cat started doing it a few weeks ago and he was

advertising where it would be in cities around the country and people

would have to take a picturd and post it online. Thois shows `` this

showers the power of social media and a lot of competition for

Saturday. But you never know you might grab yourself ?100. So good

luck. Thank you. This Sunday marks 200 years to

the day since Lord's staged its first ever cricket match.

To celebrate, the two teams who met then will play each other again

although this time, as Chris Slegg reports, there will be one very

famous face at the crease. Lords, calmer today than in the

final stages of England's g`me with Sri Lanka on Monday. They h`ve been

doing high drama here for 200 years since the MCC played Hertfordshire.

Cricket has changed a lot. We rely on the paintings for an ide` of how

the game was played. You had a very heavy bat that was used mord like a

hockey stick. It changes our ideas about cricket. This Sunday, 200

years to the day, the MCC t`ke on Hertfordshire again. Helping Lords

celebrate is a man who once scored five`in`one innings, playing for the

MCC, the Great Brian Lara. What makes this ground so special? When

the West Indies played in the 7 s and the World Cup finals and

listening to Clive Lloyd whdn I got into the team and others talk about

Lords and how they looked forward to the occasion. It grew on me

definitely. The at fear herd is special. Lordings will have a

different feel about it this Sunday. For the first time, since 1866 you

don't have to be a member to be here in the pavilion and for the first

time since 1987, people will be able to sit and watch the match here on

the outfield. They can have their picnic on the hallowed pitch.

Although with Brian Lara sm`shing the ball around you should be

careful chl What have the tdam made of the fact they're facing Brian

Lara? There is great excitelent If you're a cricketer at a minor county

and get the chance to play one of world's greats at the best ground in

the world, what could be better It should be a special birthdax for the

home of cricket as Lords re`ches 200 not out.

famous face at the crease. It was a strike by women at

Ford's Dagenham car plant in the 1960s that transformdd the

way female workers were tre`ted As a result the Equal Pay Act was

introduced in 1970, ensuring men and women doing the same work were

given the same pay and condhtions. The machinists' story has already

been made into a film ` now it will be a West End mtsical

as Lizo Mzimba reports. It is a production based

on the true story of a group of women in the 1960s whose strike at

Ford led to the 1970 Equal Pay Act. The feel good story has alrdady

been made into a film. This new stage version stars

Jemma Arthurton, her first lusical I've done lots of different

things, but I think this is Because it's not just singing and

acting at the same time, which is something

in itself, but also it is the sort of you know you have to be

very fit and vocally fit to be Right now

the musicals market is more competitive than it has ever been,

with some of music's biggest names It's a tough time, because several

shows have closed back`to`b`ck. I Can't Sing is the biggest

example at the Palladium. It wasn't a show I fancied,

but the critic liked it. The public didn't and that hs

the most important thing. Tickets are expensivement,

some tickets are ?70 plus. I sat next to a woman who p`id 85,

including services. That is a lot of money to go

and see a show. When musicals do connect with the

audience they can huge succdsses. Book of Mormon has been

playing to house for months. But the cinema version of M`de in

Dagenham was only And the team behind the show are

hoping their musical will h`ve as much impact on the box office as

the Dagenham women's determhnation Colin Firth has pulled out of

voicing the character of Paddington Bear. The actor was supposed to

voice the bear, who travels to London, but he and the director have

agreed his voice didn't fit. Another actor has yet to be found.

They are cartoons which have captured event's

in London over the last 15 xears ` lampooning politicians

and other national figures. But now

for the first time the colldcted work of the cartoonist Marthn Rowson

is on show in Bloomsbury. Today he's been creating

his latest work there and Gareth Furby had a sneek prdview.

When you're a political cartoonist, it helps if you're inspired by your

subject. Boris Johnson's hahr. There is something about it. It is this

preposterous thatch! This is the latest from Martin Rowson, showing

the mayor as King Kong. What? I can see Downing Street from herd! This

exhibition is the first timd his work lampooning London politics has

been on show in one place. @re you sure they're loud enough se`ts for

the newt racing? From Ken Livingstone reign and mraior. This

is the clean air and there he is. I Neville realised it was there until

the fumes cleared. And sincd 20 8 the reign of Boris Johnson. I am

committed to protecting London's views. He claims the deal for being

London's unofficial politic`l cartoonist was meant to be one pint

of beer a year. He hasn't bden paid. There is still a contract somewhere

in city hall saying the mayor has to pay me a pint of beer. Ken hs six

years in ray rears and Boris Johnson is six years in arrears. Tonight Ken

Livingstone opened the exhibition. So will he pay up? I think H owe him

about three years worth. So we might get hammered tonight. But someone

missing is Boris Johnson. Apartly he turned down the invitation. I don't

know why he doesn't want to come. I Stipes suspect he doesn't lhke other

people getting the laughs. But the organisers say the invitation to the

mayor remains open and the exhibition in Bloomsbury opdns to

the public tomorrow. Worth ` look. And now the weather with Chris. It

wasn't a promise day with some cloud and drizzle. But you can sed the

cloud melted away and a glorious afternoon. In the North Sea we have

a sheet of clued and oept `` cloud and this cloud will come back in

across East Anglia and then London and the south`east as well. It

should stay dry. That cloud will help keep attempts `` temperatures

up. Lows of around 14 degreds. That takes us into tomorrow and we are

looking at a mild start and any cloud should break up and wd should

see sunny spells develop. It will feel warmer again. Perhaps on the

humid side as well. The reason for the increased temperatures hs we

have an area of high pressure and we have had that hot air across

Scotland and the winds are wafting that air into the south`east and

temperatures should rise. Cloud will break up through the afternoon with

sunny spells breaking outment and in the sunshine it will feel w`rm. Top

temperatures up to 25 degreds in London. That is 77 Fahrenheht. The

warmest weather we have seen this week. That weather continues into

Friday with high pressure in charge. The winds will stay light and any

morning cloud on Friday will break up with sunny spells. In thd

sunshine up to 24 degrees. Perhaps cooler towards the north Kent coast

and this fine weather looks set to last into the weekend as high

pressure still is in charge. So we should see sunshine and temperatures

into the mid 20s around London. Thank you. Our head looichs.

Extremist are battling for control of Iraq's largest oil refindry.

David Cameron said the extrdmists are a threat to the United Kingdom.

The mayor of Tower Hamlets could be forced to rerun last week's

election. That is it. I'm b`ck later. But for now a very good

evening.