Before Gaza began to dominate the byelection, Mirza’s Independents actively highlighted the problems faced by Newham Council. Residents experienced increasing costs and lower standards of service.

The issue of Plaistow North byelection has dominated our posts for the past month. That does not mean that other things were not happening.

This is one of those stories that you couldn’t make up.

Naqvi has been active over the past week, appearing on Islam TV, (hosted by a familiar face) and joining the protest for Gaza. A number of memes have surfaced supporting her campaign as have a number of old-fashioned posters and placards.

In what appears to be a spin off from the by-election, 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.

In a story that you couldn’t make up, Newham Council issued a parking penalty against itself. Unable to resolve the matter internally, the case went all the way to appeal. And then the council dropped the case… against the council.

In what must be one of the more unusual twists in a local byelection, Mehmood Mirza has called upon Labour councillors to resign from the Labour Party because of their disagreements over Gaza.

Despite the feelings aroused in Plaistow North, the events stemming from the October 7th attack are not central to issues affecting the delivery of services from the council in Newham.

We said that we would wait until after the election, but the public demand for the memes has been significant, so, we have changed our minds. Below we show some of the memes adopted by the campaign to support Sophia Naqvi.

We concluded the report on the connections between Labour and quasi-independent candidate Anas Khan, with the remark, “It seems that every party represented in the byelection is required to hold some sort of event for Gaza. “

In a letter to residents, Labour candidate felt the need to open his appeal with his involvement in organising “Eid Prayer in the Park” over the last four years and let it be known that the proceeds were donated to local mosques.

Newham Independents have suggested that all is not true in this letter (see below) and,

News leaking out of the campaign suggests that the battle for Plaistow North will not be won on the doorstep, but in the mosques.

Various community leaders are making comments along the lines of “it's time for a change”, and repeating the line from Naqvi’s election material, “Labour isn’t working”.

The Mirza/Naqvi team put out the following. Oh, the irony!

The Mirza camp has been generating some amusing memes during the by-election campaign. We made a decision to compile and publish them all, but only after the campaign.

We learn that the mayor and some 30 Newham councillors have signed a letter to the Leader of the Labour Party, Keir Starmer. The inclusion of some names suggests a desire of some parliamentary hopefuls to burnish their credentials in advance of the West Ham and Beckton selection.

When Open Newham charted the influence of Tablighi Jamaat in the selection of Rokhsana Fiaz as the Labour candidate for mayor, we noted that one of the key organisers of the youth faction within the Tablighis, (Anas Khan) was also the key individual within Newham People’s Alliance.

Comments on social media suggest that residents are not seeing the improvements the mayor promised.

Just when you thought that things couldn’t get any worse, they suddenly do.

The Standard reported that IT Boss Jagdeep Nagra, an “Assistant Director of Operations and Interactions” is alleged to have pocketed some £250,000 worth of phones, laptops and tablets bought with council, this is to say , council-tax payer’ money.

To reflect the dire situation, it is believed that Newham is considering replacing its ship and crossed hammers coat of arms, with the ten axes.

The race begins in earnest and the candidates are announced.

The photos above were posted by a well-known local antisemite and member of Newham Council.

She assures readers that “the majority in Latinoamerica is in solidarity with Palestine”.

Amid allegations that four shadow cabinet members are threatening to resign, eight (or maybe nine), Newham councillors joined some 150 Muslim councillors from across the UK with a view to getting Keir Starmer to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. (For some reason Salim Patel is recorded twice, but this may be a mistake and the second should have been Miraj Patel).