Was it Pinocchio who was on the Today Programme?

On Wednesday 1st June, Mayor Fiaz was interviewed on the Today Programme. Above you can see a still from the video uploaded onto her Twitter account.

The interview with Nick Robinson appears on the Radio 4 website (though only available to the end of June).

We have transcribed her comments to Nick Robinson below. In short, her statement is that Newham is one of four boroughs providing free school meals to all primary and nursery children at a cost of £6m pa to Newham council tax payers. (The cost is actually shared between the council and schools and the net cost to the local authority is around £1.5m.)

When asked whether Newham had been planning to get rid of free school meals, we discover from Mayor Fiaz, that they weren’t trying to get rid of free school meals; they were looking at ways of spending the money more efficiently to more effectively target the increased poverty brought about by Covid. It was NEVER about saving money. Apparently.

Then they ended up keeping free school meals anyway. 

She noted how the actions of Newham Council were saving families in Newham about £500 pa for each child. Remarkably, she seemed to want the credit for this and managed to forget that the free school meals scheme was an initiative of Robin Wales, an initiative that she fought to scrap, though she now seeks to deny that.

In her own words; “When we weren’t going to be abandoned (sic) it, we were exploring theeeee way in whiiiich we could optimise in the face of heightened poverty as a consequence of Covid 19 and how we could better use of (sic) the £6m to target it even more efficiently to those families in need which also now begins to extend to young people in secondary schools.”

That’s clear then.

For those inclined to believe Madam Pinocchio’s statement about never wanting to cut free school meals, we’d suggest that you take a look at the following article on Open Newham. We also reported upon her U Turn when the members of the labour Group revolted.

Let us be clear. Scrapping free school meals was not a kite simply flown by officers to test the reaction. It was a choice that Fiaz made. To their credit, the Labour Group forced the mayor to change tack

Our gnomes tell us that the proposal was presented to members of the Labour Group at an All-Member meeting by cabinet member Sarah Ruiz and the cut, it was said, would save the council £1.5m. 

Tim Aldridge, the Director of CYPS apparently told the members of the Budget Party Working Group, that, “This was not something any other council was doing, why should we?” Why indeed? The mayor asks us to believe that senior officers were simply flying kites to test the wind, it had nothing to do with her. And it wasn’t about saving money.

Spin is to be expected in a politician. The rewriting of history is however, a step too far.