Shamsul Haque, a witness who failed to tell the truth in a High Court trial about his support for Tower Hamlet’s disgraced mayor Lutfur Rahman, has been given £250,000 of taxpayer cash by the resurgent politician’s town hall. Rotten Rahman was elected in 2010 though was banned from public office and stripped of his status as a solicitor after he was convicted of election fraud in 2015. He was then voted back into power after the ban was lifted with help of Haque. Now Rahman’s old friend’s charity has been awarded a whopping quarter of a million…

Rahman’s council has created a contract for “mosque engagement”, the small charity which Haque runs Tower Hamlets Council of Mosques being the beneficiary. The taxpayer’s £248,950 will go toward the project of “the community and mosque”. An extravagant contract in a borough where rubbish piles high and so do child poverty rates…