It’s funny how the prospect of two, as yet unallocated parliamentary seats, inspires people to come in to support Newham Labour in their campaigning.

We learn from The Workers Party, that they will be supporting an ex-Labour Party member, one Tahir Mirza in his bid to become the MP for East Ham. Those wishing to support his campaign can do so via Crowdfunder. It does appear that he needs some help.

It was only two years ago that the Labour Party managed to hand-pick its councillors and return an obviously unpopular candidate as mayor.

Having alienated much of the Labour Group and become something of an embarrassment to Labour in London, we learn that Labour is about to take action.

Readers will be aware that a former mayor of Newham, on Robin Wales recently stood as the Labour candidate, for the post of Police and Crime Commissioner in rural Suffolk. Alas, for Labour, Wales was unsuccessful in his bid to overturn a 50,000-vote majority. He did however, see a substantial swing to Labour, reducing the majority to just over 11,000. (Con 40.2%; Lab 31.6%.)

Sadiq Khan is adamant. He has no intention of introducing pay-per-mile road charging. This is the allegation made by Tory mayoral hopeful, Susan Hall. One can see her point, in a book published in his name in 2023, (Breathe. Tackling the Climate Emergency), he made reference to “plans to introduce a new, more comprehensive, road-user charging system”.

Overall effectiveness : Inadequate

Leadership and management : Inadequate

Having been slammed in the local government review of her leadership and finding out that her budget has been wrecked with a £25 million pound overspend in temporary housing. It has been a bad two weeks for the Mayor of Newham.

In December 2003, the cabinet agreed to demolish 10 Victoria St, (Brimstone House) and rebuild on the same site.

We reported that Newham Council did not seem to know which streets were in which wards. Hathaway Crescent was supposedly in East Ham Central. It isn’t.

The Labour Group has recently been lucky to have met twice. Amidst all of the items up for discussion, the looming financial crisis caused by a massive overspend on temporary accommodation was not mentioned.

Finding an extra £25m was evidently not of sufficient importance.

A special meeting of the cabinet was called on on 2nd April 2024.For some reason, when you click on the video link, it goes to a special meeting of the cabinet in February. Because of this we have had to rely upon the accounts that emanate from those present.

At the weekend, members of the Labour faithful turned out to campaign for Sadiq Khan and the Assembly candidates, Unmesh Desai and James Beckles.

They were supported by some of Newham Labour’s party big-wigs.

We have had a response to the inquiry about the publication of the Report for the Standards Advisory Committee. Readers will recall that the mayor and Cllr T Paul had an exchange of words back in December 2022. This resulted in cross-complaints and the local authority spent, we are told, a sum in the tens of thousands of pounds to investigate and make recommendations.

Readers will recall that Cllr Mirza and the Independent Group campaigned for a change of policy regarding the Stratford Village Market. They introduced an amendment to the budget to that effect.

In a process that any remaining members of the Labour Party in Newham will be familiar with, the members of the Ilford South Labour Party chose to have an open selection in deciding who would represent them on the ballot for the next general election.

We reported on the hissing directed at a Jewish councillor when he got up to speak at council. The hissing came from the public gallery. It is not unknown for members of the public to express their disapproval of their elected councillors by means of gestures, heckling and rude noises.

It seems that there are moves afoot to make some changes in the Whip’s office.

Sources tell us that early in March, the mayor met with her ‘political cabinet’, (cabinet members without council officers present). Amongst the things they discussed were two related issues. Firstly, the forthcoming AGM and secondly the discipline, or lack thereof in Labour Group.

We hear that West Ham MP, Lyn Brown is no longer quite so keen on representing Labour in the north of the borough. The cosy relationship she had with the members of the West Ham party seem unlikely to be replicated with Tower Hamlets party members in Bow. It is our understanding that she has no desire to leave politics just yet and that she has set her eyes on the new seat of West Ham and Beckton.

While the mayor is recovering from the failure to get the Borough of Culture Award, the residents of Newham are still occupied with their everyday problems.

It was all high drama at the council meeting on 18th March 2024.

The Independent Group had submitted an emergency motion. The officers of the council, not apparently the politicians, took the view that the demand to publish the report into the behaviour of the mayor and councillors at the Budget Working Commission in December 2022 “was inappropriate and out of order”.

In the wake of the Report for the Standards Advisory Committee, which focused on the behaviour of the mayor at Scrutiny in December 2022 and the subsequent clash between her and Cllr Paul, the Independent Group have tabled an emergency motion seeking to have the report published. Details available on their Twitter/X page.