Avoiding Scrutiny?

Readers will recall that Mayor Fiaz and her former Cabinet Member for Finance, Cllr Terry Paul have both lodged complaints with the Standards Advisory Committee.

Fiaz has asserted misogyny and racism on the part of Paul. Paul has asserted a consistent pattern of bullying by her.

We have no knowledge of the deliberations of the Standards Advisory Committee, but we do have some knowledge of the individuals concerned. On the basis of that knowledge, we have formed an opinion of the likely outcome.

This website has been critical of Cllr Paul in the past, and we will be critical in the future, IF and only IF, his actions deserve it. Despite all of our enquiries, we have found no suggestion that he is guilty of misogynistic behaviour and the same with regard to racism. Moreover, there is no rumbling on the back benches that suggests that his colleagues believe this. We have indicated in the past that suggestions of such behavior and attitudes go so contrary to our knowledge of the man as to stretch credulity.

The basis of the mayor’s complaint seems to be that in a heated argument Cllr Paul criticized her performance, most notably her lack of control of the finances. The mayor is a woman and she is Asian by descent. Paul is a man and of African/Caribbean descent. Ergo, because a Black man criticized an Asian woman, he is both misogynistic and racist.

Our opinion is that the complaint against him was an attempt to bully him and create an atmosphere in which his parliamentary aspirations were undermined; “there’s no smoke without fire”. We saw something similar, where either the mayor, or her allies, invented “complaints” against a sitting councillor that were presented to the candidate less than an hour before the selection interview. These “complaints” were sufficient to have him removed as a candidate.

And then, surprise, surprise, when the process was over, the complaints were found to have evaporated.

And what of Paul’s complaints. We gather that Cllr Paul has asserted that Mayor Fiaz has created an atmosphere of bullying and anxiety. This is aimed both at staff and political colleagues. Moreover, we understand that a number of previous staff have been relieved of the “confidentiality” requirement in their ‘compromise agreements’, in order to give evidence to the Standards Advisory Committee. The rumblings suggest that Fiaz is perceived as a bully who refuses to listen to opinions that do not confirm her own.

We will know the answer in July when the Standards Advisory Committee reports.

So here is our speculation.

Fiaz, like Boris Johnson, knows what they are going to say. Unlike Johnson, she won’t jump ship, but the Labour Party will have to make a choice. Will they retain her as a “Labour Mayor” or suspend her membership? They will be between a rock and a hard place. Suspend her and ‘lose’ the mayoralty, (remember Ken Livingstone), or don’t suspend her and be seen as complicit in, what we suspect will be found to be her high-handed and bullying behavior.

One way to avoid the situation for both her personally and the Labour Party is to make sure that as few people hear about the findings of the Standards Advisory Committee as possible. So, we wonder, will the July meeting of the council be cancelled.

The mayor has a record of cancelling meetings. The meeting for July 2022 was cancelled. The meeting for September 2022 was cancelled. The meeting from June this year was cancelled.

If the report is published (as late as possible) in July, in the knowledge that August is a dead month, the council will not have a chance to comment. There might be some comment in the Recorder and by Dave Hill, and of course on this site! But by mid-September, there will doubtless be other crises which demand the attention of the council members.

The mayor has lost the support of the majority of her Labour Group, and it is evident that even some of those on the mayor’s payroll (with SRAs) have little love for her. In the recent Group elections, her candidates were roundly defeated by a margin of roughly 2:1. The last thing that the mayor wants is for the full council to comment upon her behavior.

Our prediction is that the council meeting for July will be cancelled OR the report will be delivered AFTER the meeting.

We might be wrong. Let’s wait and see.