It’s a story about what we want for our children and it goes to the heart of modern politics.

NewVIC (Newham Sixth Form College), was set up to offer sixth form opportunities to young people in Newham. For many years it did sterling service. But it has had its problems, not least of which was a damning Ofsted report which labeled its management and leadership as inadequate.

Squalor and despair.

The temporary Housing Budget is overspent. Money is spent on street homeless, without any lasting effect. Streets are becoming run-down and lives are being ruined as homeless left to fester on the sidewalk.

Word has reached us that Cllr Shaban Mohammed is facing an internal Labour inquiry regarding antisemitic remarks he is alleged to have made. We are told that this is not a single complaint, but consists of multiple complaints of antisemitism.

Back in the days when Newham didn’t stumble from financial crisis to financial crisis, Cllr Brayshaw served as Chief Whip on Newham’s ruling Labour Group.

Times change and when Wales was evicted, so was Brayshaw. He stood for the post in 2018 but lost out to Anamul Islam, who had been instrumental in getting Fiaz adopted as candidate.

One of the marks of a healthy political party is that they share a general outlook about the way a society should be organized. The other is that there is healthy competition for posts of influence.

Alas, neither seems to be true of Newham Labour Group.

That’s right. Fifty in every thousand households are in temporary accommodation. This is double the figure for the next highest borough.

In the last reshuffle, Cllr Shaban Mohammed was charged with sorting out the temporary housing problem. Instead, the problem seems to have got worse.

It does appear that we have a little more information about parliamentary candidate for the Workers Party, Halima Khan. It appears that she is a former staff member of the Labour Party, and we presume a former Labour Party member.

Newham’s attempt to find temporary housing has caused problems for councils outside the capital. Various publications have alighted on the agreement Newham has with regard to Anchorage House in Chatham, Kent.

We noted the change in the name of the Mayor’s favoured faith body, Newham Muslim Forum, noting that it was now to be known as Faith Space London.

This seemed a little unusual to us, given the particular support of some individuals connected to the Newham People’s Alliance Facebook page with the NMF, we submitted an FOI to understand the connection that this new organisation had with the council.

We submitted a request for the publication of the report into the behaviour of the mayor and councillors at a meeting of the Budget Sub-Committee, a meeting that occurred over 18 months ago.

The Independent Group have selected Councillor Sophia Naqvi, as their candidate for the forthcoming parliamentary elections.

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.