Taking her lead from the Tories!

In 1997, One of the Blair government flagship policies was to roll out Sure Start Centres across the country to give children the ‘best possible start in life’.

For several years, a large building in Stratford has been the subject of considerable attention.

Residents, first in the form of the “Focus E15 Mums” and now simply the Focus E15 Campaign have petitioned the council about the state of the buildings.

The response to the failure to manage the budget properly is as follows:

£22 million Cuts in Services.

£16 million from the sale of Sale of Assets.

It was only a couple of years ago that Newham was branded in My London as London’s dirtiest borough. However, it has recently trumpeted its spectacular improvement in reducing fly-tips.

My London reported that Lambeth (Lab) headed the league for traffic and parking penalties. They were followed by Westminster (Lab). Newham made a creditable showing, coming in third.

The £29 million that should come in will bolster the somewhat shaky budget.

We reported some years ago, that a small number of younger Tablighi Jamaat activists, had won favour with Mayor Fiaz for the way in which they had orchestrated the social media campaign in the race to get her selected as the mayoral candidate.

There is a well-known phenomenon at Newham Council. Councillors have been kept in the dark until the date of a meeting and then had papers, numbering in the hundreds of pages, tabled for their consideration.

Reports have come to us that Newham Council’s Labour Group is struggling financially.

It may simply be that things are quiet on the home-news front, but we are beginning to see again, reports that Jeremy Corbyn MP is planning to start his own political party. The reports are said to emanate from ‘friends’ close to Corbyn.

By our count, roughly 80-100 people turned up for the Galloway event. In the end, it seemed a bit of an anti-climax. It was not at the (Afro-Caribbean) Community Centre. Apparently, the booking was suddenly cancelled on the day of the event. He knows who was behind the decision, “the mayor was behind it”.

It seems that the bid to become the Borough of Culture has been strengthened with a new appointment to the bid team. The new appointee comes with a wealth of journalistic experience which seems to focus, almost exclusively on LBGTQAA+ issues.

There was a time when Newham Labour was a bastion which sent out canvassers to neighbouring boroughs to bolster their election attempts. We can recall dozens of activists from Newham supporting Labour candidates in Redbridge, Barking and Dagenham and further afield into deepest Essex.

Labour Party members will have been lucky enough to receive a New Year’s message from the Mayor.

We have been challenged!

We were asked point blank, “did we want to see the Galloway event cancelled?” We’d be delighted to see him bugger off to one of the more repressive regimes that he seems to favour. But pending that, we would NOT like to see his talk cancelled.

We see that Newham Independents have chosen a second candidate for Plashet Ward. This brings the running total of male/female declared candidates to 6:1. They have, as yet, chosen not to select any trans or non-binary candidates.

On this occasion they have chosen a former Tory activist and candidate.

A short while ago, we raised the point that Newham has failed to start any new council or social homes for the past three years. We understand that this revelation caused several members of the executive to be upset. So they should be.

Readers will recall that, over a year ago, Cllr Terry Paul and the mayor had something of a contre temps.

In short, at a meeting of the Budget Working Commission, Cllr Paul questioned the mayor on her budget plans. Mayor Fiaz felt “unsafe” when being questioned. Fiaz accused Paul of racism and misogyny. Paul accused Fiaz of bullying.

Twitter has been buzzing with the news of Galloway’s impending appearance along the Barking Road.

It does seem that not everyone is quite as keen as the event organisers to see him back in Newham. Several have asked why Newham Council is allowing their venue to be used by someone they accuse of being antisemitic.

A ceasefire, like the ceasefire that was in place on October 6th 2023? Or a ceasefire like the one Mohammed negotiated with the Quraysh?

The conflict in Gaza has brought back a nationally well known, though not necessarily well-loved, face to Newham. The Newham Independent Group are advertising an event in Newham with George Galloway.