Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Haringey Councillor Convicted for 'Intent to Supply' Class-A Drugs
Cllr Ishmael Osamor "admitted three charges of possessing drugs with intent to supply and a fourth charge of possession in a hearing at Bournemouth Crown Court last Friday."
I had no idea that this had being going on behind the scenes. His arrest was known before the selection process, but it seems Mum (Kate Osamor MP) managed to keep mum.
He remains a Councillor and keeps his job in mum's office in the Commons.
I couldn't find any mention in the Morning Star or The Canary, so please make do with this link.
***He finally decided to resign as a Haringey councillor at tonight's Labour Group meeting (Tues 30th)***
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by JHauptman on
-
John, your argument seems to be based on the strange idea that middle-class users of drugs only have themselves to blame. The dealers are no worse than the checkout staff at their local Waitrose.
I'm not sure the parents of Louella Eve Fletcher-Michie would appreciate your view. She died at Bestival, after taking 'middle-class' drugs.
The fact that the supplier of these drugs was her 28yr-old boyfriend from Enfield is worth noting.
-
-
Permalink Reply by Hugh on
-
John, The Guardian data (the only source I have right now) only singles out cocaine as being more frequently used by higher income groups. Nonetheless, without getting into the debate about who was at the festival and exactly what drugs were taken, in your comment to which I was replying, you referenced a statement that David Lammy made about drug use in general. You did not reference a statement about drug use at the festival. In so doing you lent credence to his statement that most drug use in the general population is "middle class".
Using income as the best available proxy for Lammy's notion of class, I'm trying to establish if that assertion is factually based. I suspect that it's not. Political grandstanding apart, there are all sorts of reasons why it's not desirable to misrepresent the data on this issue.
-
-
Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
-
Individually, it would be very poor of me to blame someone for their death under circumstances like this. Collectively, I think it's fine to say that the demand for these drugs at this festival is not from the same demographic that the drug dealers in West Green are supplying.
-
-
-
John, I think you're probably right. The drugs used and the drug users at the festival are probably not the same as those in the general population. I'm glad that's been clarified. But, to be clear, that's not what the comment you reproduced by Lammy appears to be saying. Perhaps there's context you omitted that explains his apparent misrepresentation of the facts.
-
-
Permalink Reply by Abi on
-
The more recent survey conducted by the Social Metrics Commission paints a very different picture: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/sep/16/middle-class-consum...
I'm inclined to trust this data, precisely because it was based on an analysis that didn't just use income as a proxy for class.
-
-
-
How on earth do you survey the young people of Haringey who are wasted on skunk half the time? I presume they're not telling their parents.
-
-
-
Thanks for the link to the data, Charlotte. I haven't had a chance to do much more than look at the contents page , but my immediate thoughts are that it seems to differentiate between those living in poverty and those not living in poverty.
It makes absolute sense that those living in poverty will have less income to spend on any sort of drugs. However, without having dived into the report I'm still not convinced that this supports the assertion that most drug use is "middle class". That assumes that everyone not living in poverty is either middle or upper class. Is that now the case? Are there no working class people not living in poverty?
It's interesting that the data is so different to the report The Guardian presented just five years ago. Another warning that we need to treat all data with great care.
-
-
Permalink Reply by Bob Ruggles on
-
Permalink Reply by Gordon T on
-
In the Register of Interests of Members' [of Parliament] Secretaries and R... [where you are meant to include matters such as being a councillor] he lists 'None'.
Oh well, it's right. Now.
-
Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
-
Thanks for checking that, Gordon T.
Out of curiosity I looked-up a dozen random councillors on Haringey's Register of Declarations of Members' Interests. Seems a little sloppiness in updating may have crept in - at least for a few. In the months since everyone signed their forms in the first fine careless rapture after the May election.
-
-
Noting various wild assertions and some counter insistence on data to back up those assertions, out of curiosity I looked up various random scriptures seeking some Ishmaelite relevance. Poor Ishmael, it seems, has been a sign and cause of contradiction and distress to his mother from the start. Nothing about Class A or Middle Class Drugs or even Skunk in any of these sources, but both the Torah and Bible have no doubt about how the story kicked off:
"Now the Angel of Yahweh said to Hagar: 'Now you have conceived and you will bear a son, and you shall name him Ishmael for Yahweh has heard your cries of misery. A wild-ass of a man he will be, against every man and every man against him, setting himself to defy all his brothers.'
In the Quran, however, Ishmael is Ibrahim's true son, ancestor of the Ishmaelite Arabs and of Muhammad, and builder of the Kaaba at Mecca. Abraham's other lad, Ishak, is the interloper.
It will take wiser heads than the magistrates of Bournemouth, councillors of Haringey or keyboarders of HOL to do justice to Ishmael. But why the Torah, Bible and Quran all call his mother Hagar rather than Kate is the real mystery.
© 2024 Created by Hugh.
Powered by
