Apsana Begum shows Labour's towering hypocrisy over housing - Carole Malone

Aspana Begum has been Labour MP for Poplar and Limehouse since 2019. She lives in a one-bedroom flat in Labour-run Tower Hamlets, an area where there are 23,000 desperate families on the waiting list for accommodation. And guess who is sitting in one of the local authority’s prime riverside properties?

Yep, Ms Begum – she of the £86, 584 salary PLUS a very generous £4,310 London waiting allowance PLUS her expenses. So all told more than £90,000 a year – nearly three times the average salary.

Two years ago when Ms Begum was asked why she was still living in the flat when she could comfortably afford to pay for her own, her response was: "I’m thinking is it something I need? And No, it’s probably not something I need. It’s something I should maybe think about moving on from.”

 
So why the Hell hasn’t she? Where are this woman’s so-called socialist principles? She knows more than most that people in the area are in desperate need and there is a HUGE demand for social housing yet she’s taking up space that she’s freely admitted she doesn’t need.

The selfishness and hypocrisy is towering. This is a woman who regularly attacks the Tories because "they have no solutions” to the housing crisis. Yet here she is – part of the problem.

How can this woman - a hard-left Corbyn supporter - even claim to have any kind of credibility after this? How dare she berate the Tories about housing policy where its greedy (well-paid) people like her cocking it up. In Tower Hamlets the waiting time for a one-bedroom flat is three to six years. And here we have a fat cat MP on a huge salary living in one of those much-needed flats.

It might come as a shock for most people to know that the income cap for those applying for social housing in the Tower Hamlets borough is £90,000. That in itself is shocking.

Why would anyone on a single income – or even a joint one - need social housing if they’re raking in £90,000 a year? However the point here is that Ms Begum’s is, according to the Parliamentary Standards Authority, entitled to a London uplift of £4,301 which, if she’s getting, would put her income at £90,894 - more than the £90,000 threshold for social housing in Tower Hamlets

 
But surely the point here isn’t just whether or not she might be breaking the income threshold? The fact is that as a Labour MP, she’s supposed to be someone who looks out for society’s poorest and most vulnerable yet she’s hogging living space that the very people she represents desperately need.
 

Where are her morals, her principles, her conscience, her decency? Or does she belong to that band of “snout in the trough” Labour MPs who have one set of rules for themselves and another for everyone else?

Begum’s time as an MP has been controversial. She was taken to court in 2021 accused of making fraudulent housing claims and of using her connections as a council house advisor to jump the queue. She was acquitted on all charges.

Twp years ago, she said the reason she hadn’t left the flat after she became an MP and her salary rocketed was that her marriage had just broken up. So what’s her excuse now?

I’m just waiting for her to come up with some reason to blame the Tories for her greed in depriving a poor family of accommodation.

In the meantime maybe someone at Tower Hamlets local authority ought to be looking at ways of making her vacate her flat.

Clearly, Ms Begum’s conscience isn’t troubling her on this issue and she’s not going to go without a push. So if this Labour-run council really cares about homeless people they should give Ms Begum, who can comfortably afford her own flat, her marching orders!