In two decades of climbing Labour’s greasy pole, she became an untouchable. A Muslim from North Eastern Bangladesh. Tick. Named by The Guardian in the Most Powerful Muslims list. Tick. Worked for the Foreign Office on Human Rights. Tick. Worked for Home Office on ‘’community cohesion’’. Tick.
All classic ingredients to become a Labour MP especially in East London. As you might expect she then cantered home as an MP in Bethnal Green where 42 per cent of the constituency are Muslims. She’s been their MP for 15 years.
Today, I am delighted to report, her career lies in ruins and the real Rushanara Ali, 50, is exposed to the nation as it emerges, thanks to some good work by the I Paper, that as the Homelessness Minister she threw out her tenants from a four-bedroomed house she owns and then upped the rent by £700 a month.
With a little luck, she will also be thrown out herself, this time by a Prime Minister, although I suspect he will take his time, not wishing to be accused of Islamophobia. We can’t have that under any circumstances.
Her own hypocrisy is staggering. She has previously spoken out against ‘’private renters being exploited’’ and said the government, under their new Renters’ Rights Bill, which becomes law next year, will ‘’empower people to challenge unreasonable rent increases’’.
Homeless minister Rushanara Ali's colossal hypocrisy is the final nail in Labour's coffin - Kelvin MacKenzie
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This is the story of her hypocrisy. Last March Ali rented out her four-bedroomed townhouse (worth about £890,000) for £3,300 a month for £3,300 a month to four tenants.
The tenants received an email in November from the agents saying their lease would not be renewed and giving them four months to get out.
Weeks after they had left the property, one of the tenants saw the house had been put back on the market for £4,000 a month. The I Paper nipped round there and the new tenants confirmed they were paying £4,000 a month and had moved five months ago.
In the register of MPs’ interests, Ali discloses that this is one of two rental properties she owns. I am in favour of landlords as I’m one myself. For the record have never pushed out tenants to raise rents.
And it’s not a licence to print money either. My worst experience was renting to a taxi driver who wrecked the place, leaving me with a bill for £20,000 and a load of bailiffs turning up at the house demanding to know where the crooks who had rented there had gone. A nightmare.
As for Ms Ali, I urge her to go on Indeed to see what jobs there are for hypocrites. After all, it was only at the turn of the year that corruption minister Tulip Siddiq was forced to resign in an investigation over her financial links to her aunt, the Bangladeshi Prime Minister.
There can be no excuse for Labour keeping Ms Ali on. Her deeds, as distinct from her words, show that she is not fit for office. Personally, as distinct from politically, I would prefer her to stay, as I could hold her to account on X.
I would be fascinated to learn from a poll how the 42 per cent of Muslims in her constituency felt about her actions.
I have an uneasy feeling that their Muslim links would trump her hypocrisy.
To my mind, that would be a shocker but not out of the question.