Nationally Labour is riding high. It seems that the fears shown by voters are being dispelled and the electorate are beginning to think that Keir Starmer might make a decent prime minister.

The picture, shared on Twitter/X just days before the election, seems to sum up the difference between the two campaigns.

On 24th November, Mehmood Mirza announced that Newham Independents would be seeking candidates to fight the local elections in June 2026. This may sound a little premature, particularly as Labour and the other parties have lately tended to select their candidates after the election is announced. But the momentum (no pun intended) is with the Independents and they are clearly intent on keeping up the pressure.

If there is one issue that Mehmood Mirza has campaigned on consistently over the past four years, it is the state of the roads. He has persistently highlighted the issues of litter and fly-tipping. It seems that all of his efforts have at last paid off.

In a corner of east London today, a by-election is taking place in Plaistow, part of the London Borough of Newham. Labour won this seat by a landslide in 2022 by a 1500 vote margin. But things are now totally different after one of their councillor’s stepped down at the start of the Israel-Hamas war.

At a time of austerity, we expect a bit of belt tightening. Most staff might be unhappy, but it’s better to be in a job with a minimal pay rise than unemployed.

In a move that will shock Newham Labour, Cllr Zuber Gulamussen resigned from the Labour Party two days before the by-election. First elected in 2014 (to East Ham North), Gulamussen resigned citing two main themes. The first was the appalling state of the roads etc. He makes clear that he is dissatisfied with the way in which Mayor Fiaz has failed the borough.

It does appear that the candidate blamed the mayor’s £20 charge for increasing rubbish on the streets. He may be right, but it is not the sort of candid statement you expect to hear from a candidate about his future boss.

This article is published before the results of the Plaistow North by-election are known. If Labour storms through with a substantial victory, we’ll have egg on our collective faces. We suspect that this will not be the case and that the best Labour can hope for is to hold on with a massively reduced share of the vote.

Some 19 mosques and Islamic centres have combined to demand that Newham councillors back calls for Keir Starmer to resign.

The Plaistow North byelection campaign has been conducted on social media in a way that no other election has seen in Newham. The use of social media has been spearheaded by the Independent group supporting Naqvi. The election has allowed other players to get in on the act.

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. “