East Ham Central
The line-up for the by-election has been announced. Having suspended the two Newham CLPs the Labour Party started the selection process again. Potential candidates were given 24 hours to submit applications. As a result, the Party selected former councillor Farah Nazeer to stand.
On the face of it, Nazeer is a safe choice. Intelligent and articulate though former colleagues did not praise her work ethic, referring to her as ‘pop-up’, noting her tendency to arrive for photo opps and disappear shortly thereafter. Nazeer is otherwise credible, recently being appointed as Chief Exec of Women’s Aid following the ‘cancelling’ of the former CE, who was unwise enough to express her support for UKIP, albeit four years before the howling mob demanded her ouster.
Nazeer represented Little Ilford ward until 2018, so her return to politics so soon is somewhat surprising. There are those who suggest that it signals her interest is less to do with representation of the residents of East Ham Central and more to do with one of the two, (maybe three) parliamentary seats that could become available in Newham shortly.
In addition the Lib Dems are standing Eduard Comaromi; the Conservatives, Zakir Hossain; and the Greens, Danny Keeling, (though his Twitter account still reads Danny Keeling for West Ham), perhaps someone should tell him that East Ham Central is in, err, East Ham. The CPA is standing a regular (unsuccessful) candidate in the shape of Paul Jobson, but despite his repeated attempts to get a seat on the council, we have very little information on him and the CPA site is silent as to his candidacy. Lois Austin has thrown her hat into the ring on behalf of TUSC.