The Guardian reported that Jamie Driscoll, a Tyneside Corbynista has been barred from the long-list of candidates for the prospective candidate for Mayor of the North East.

A variety of political parties will be vying for the two seats, up for grabs in the forthcoming by elections. We thought that we’d like to take a look at how the various political parties advertise themselves.

We reported a year ago, on the increasingly nepotistic appearance of the Newham Labour Group, in the remarkable number of close relations on the council. Well, it seems that Labour has done it again.

Gone are the days when simple councillor, Fiaz could side with any protest group and lament the awful goings on under Mayor Wales. All that was needed was a change of mayor and all would be well. Councillor R Fiaz was clearly an ally of protesters and the Focus E15 Campaign in particular.

It may or may not be known to readers, but the ruling Labour Group collects subs from its members. These are not insignificant sums and are drawn down as a percentage of the councillors’ incomes from their work on the council.

Luke Charters and Cecelia Welsh are standing down, having served a full one year on the council.

After receiving over 200 applications from party members to stand for council, the Labour Party managed to interview almost a third of them and selected sixty plus, outstanding candidates to fight the seats for Labour in 2022.

Our thanks to all of those members of the Labour Group (and others) who kindly sent in the information that appears below. This was more than we have had for any topic. We’d like to thank you all personally, but of course, we won’t.

Now that the dust has settled from the local elections, we thought that we’d take a look at any lessons for Newham.

Nationally, the Tories have done their level best to make themselves unelectable and Labour has been the main beneficiary, picking up over 500 of the 1000 plus seats the Tories lost. As commentators have noted, this puts Labour on track to become the largest party in a hung parliament.

The above picture comes from an article in August 2022. We have noted the failure of Newham Council to address the issue of street homelessness on several occasions.

Mayor Fiaz (pronouns: she. her) and the Green Coalition?

In an approach which seems to have the active support of the two Green councillors and the Mayor, (but precious few Labour councillors), Newham has announced its change of policy for the control of prostitution; to a policy of not controlling prostitution.

Firstly, they are both MPs elected under the Labour banner.

Secondly, they represent north London constituencies.

Third, they were both lovers.

Jeremy Corbyn might have tried to justify his comments when he equated Jews and Zionists, but it didn’t really work. Readers will recall that in 2013, when Corbyn was speaking at a conference, he stated that Zionists had, “no sense of irony” despite “having lived in this country for a very long time”.

Having scaled the political heights and becoming the unexpected leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn discovered how slippery the greasy pole was. Not only did he lose his position as leader, but he found himself without the whip of the party he had been leading, only months before.

The Recorder reported upon a clash at Plashet School between “religious and secular staff” with regard to a new equalities policy. It might otherwise be described as a clash between those who adhere to a traditional understanding of sex and gender and those who don’t.

We have previously noted Labour’s attempt to smear the Tories over high taxes, (here). Well, it’s just politics and no-one should need to feel sorry for the Tories.

But somewhere, someone must be feeling just a little embarrassed when Newham’s Mayor Fiaz and London Mayor Sadiq Khan, hike their council taxes by almost 15% in one year, (see here).

In a table of the worst councils in England and Wales for repairing potholes, Newham has managed to take the top place, yet again.

It seems that our correspondent has fallen into the same trap as that which caught out poor Cllr Vaughan. It was entirely accidental. 

Mayor Fiaz (Pronouns: She / Her), has announced her new cabinet line-up.

She informed colleagues that she would be delivering “those services that matter the most to our residents in line with our sound Budget plans”.

There are holes in Newham’s draconian parking regime. It seems that law abiding drivers, who pay their fines get stung. Those who evade the penalties, get away with it.

We are indebted to The Spectator for much of the following.

As Cllr Keeling noted, the census revealed that significantly less than half of one percent of the population in England and Wales identified as transgender, that is to say, some 262,000 people plus say roughly 40,000 nor so (to account for N. Ireland and Scotland.