“Manifesto Achievement” Disappears

In what appears to be a spin off from the byelection, Cllr Nate Higgins notes that Mayor Fiaz has enrolled a senior council officer in her publicity celebrating the “Achievement of manifesto commitments”. The post celebrating this has now been deleted. 

The internet, being the internet of course, means that we do have a copy.

Fiaz had used the image of a Newham director for what was clearly political self-congratulation on a Newham Council account. Had Mayor Fiaz simply “celebrated the achievement” or welcomed the progress made, there would have been no problem. It appears to be a laudable achievement.

But she wanted the political kudos as well, and used the machinery of the council to get it. As Cllr Higgins notes it was not appropriate to do this in the course of a by-election.

Thus far it is a faux pas. A minor mistake of little consequence. Umm? Yeah, perhaps.

We are aware that the Chief Exec has been actively involved in getting one of the opposition campaigns to remove material that features the faces of a succession of former chief execs, (there have been five in five years). We will return to this in due course. Our suspicion is that the current Chief Exec has overstated the position and who knows, if this is correct, a complaint might find its way to the Electoral Commission or the Ombudsman.

Either way, it seems like one rule for “us” and another rule for “them”.