Spiral Notebook: David, Goliath and the sickening politics of scorn in Tower Hamlets

You may believe that Tower Hamlets mayor Lutfur Rahman is right to challenge the Government's investigation into alleged financial malpractice at the Town Hall.

You may believe that the council's publicly funded bid for a judicial review is a necessary David-and-Goliath battle to protect a fragile branch of democracy from Eric Pickles' Communities Department.

Spiral Notebook: What happens when local councillors play at international geopolitics

COMMENT

Pro-Palestininan campaigners clog up Blackwall tunnel in support of the victims of the Gaza confict. Jewish organisations report an increase in anti-Semitic attacks.

And what does the mayor of Tower Hamlets do? Tweet a picture of a Palestinian flag outside the Town Hall.

Spiral Notebook: Lutfur Rahman - here comes the new boss, same as the old boss?

COMMENT

By Giles Broadbent

Racked by weariness and relief, the new Mayor of Tower Hamlets wept. He was hurt, he said, by accusation that he was racist, that he was a disciple of division.

Spiral Notebook: Council newspaper reaching the end of its East End Life

COMMENT

By Giles Broadbent

East End Life, like the rest of the press, appears to be drinking in last chance saloon.

A Government bill to crack down on "town hall Pravdas" has cleared its final Parliamentary stage in the House of Lords.

Spiral Notebook: The mayor, the Murk and an embarrassment of riches

COMMENT

By Giles Broadbent

Sometimes the presentational contortions required to keep Tower Hamlets mayor Lutfur Rahman on the road are so convoluted, you wonder why it's worth the effort.

You can imagine his back room team, the Thunk-Tank, writing Big Ideas on small Post-Its and then writhing around the shagpile in constipated knots agonising over the good, bad and ugly of their latest wheeze.

Spiral Notebook: Why London's Left will be keeping an eye on New York Mayor Bill de Blasio

It's Eyes Left as Bill de Blasio takes up residence in New York City Hall with the promise of the kind of new socialism that Labour's Ed Miliband has been test-driving.

Combining tax-the-rich rhetoric with redistributive zeal, De Blasio, a former aide to the last Democrat Mayor (David Dinkins), arrived from nowhere in the 2013 primaries to take the most important municipal post in the US on the promise of aggressive remedies to close the "affordability gap".