It seems that Newham has adopted an alternative, sort of DIY, strategy towards homelessness. Small tent-villages are springing up.

The members of London Councils met recently for their AGM and to elect their executive for the new year.

This is an organization well known to Mayor Fiaz, as she was already on the executive.

Not, alas, the final farewell.

One of the issues that this website has repeatedly returned, is the mayor’s obsession with pursuing her pet projects, regardless of the costs or the benefit to the residents of Newham. This is an issue that both her internal and external opposition have alluded to.

Amongst the changes at the cabinet meeting in February, the threatened cuts to the commissioned youth work were reversed. My London reported the U-Turn which will restore the money to commissioned youth work budget.

In 1997, Tony Blair took office to the strains of “things, can only get better”.

We see from the Newham cabinet papers that (some of) the results of the annual residents’ survey have been released. For reasons best known to themselves, the authors of the cabinet papers have chosen to show the movement between only two years.

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.

Figures from the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities show that the number of affordable homes built in Newham is dropping. In 2022-23 some 844 affordable homes were completed. This corresponds to a figure 1156 in the year before. This shows a drop in completed homes of almost 25% in a year.

The current balance of the council is as follows. Of 66 council seats

• The Majority Group. Labour has 60.

• The Main Opposition. The Independent Group has 3.

• The Green Party has 2.

• Non-aligned antisemitic independent, (wanting to get back in the Labour Party) councillor, has 1 seat.

Amidst all of the gossip that is floating around Labour Group in the light of Labour’s poor performance in recent elections, we came across some interesting snippets.

For reasons best known to herself (and her expensive Assistant Chief Executive for Marketing), Mayor Fiaz ‘launched’ her bid for Newham to become Borough of Culture in 2024 in the somewhat dank and run-down surroundings of Queens Road Market. What’s more, she chose to do it on a cold winter evening.

We noted in our article concerning the complaint that Cllr Godfrey has had lodged against him, that he has told people that his What’s App account has been hacked.

You have to be getting on in years to remember the embarrassing scenes of the British Foreign Secretary rolling in the gutter, in a “tired and emotional” state. The magazine Private Eye famously termed the phrase which has since become a euphemism for drunk and incapable.

Newham is hemorrhaging money. Council tax has been raised by 25%. A Refuse Workers’ strike has just been averted, even if it is only temporary. The streets are in the worst state in living memory. The Housing Department is censured for maladministration.

We have frequently reflected upon the mayor’s fixation on her pet policy programmes. Of themselves, there is generally not much of a problem with them, if taken in isolation. We are not keen on some, but so what?

The fellow above is probably not someone you recognise. This is Lard Parry, an entrepreneur, a businessman, a Labour peer and for five years was the chair of the Coexistence Trust. This is an organisation that seems to have gone out of business at about the same times as its former director, one Rokhsana Fiaz left.

Talk is Cheap.

We must give a hat-tip towards Newham65 for this item.

They have discovered that the mayor’s commitment towards building new council homes is a bit fragile.

We learn from the Newham website, that Mayor Fiaz is none too keen on housing asylum seekers in the Royal Docks. She echoes the statement from London Mayor, Sadiq Khan.

In the final minutes of the game, Jarrod Bowen secured the win for West Ham in the Europa Conference League.

A reader suggested that we compile an index to assist readers interested in the career of Newham Mayor, Rokhsana Fiaz. We have put together a short index that will take readers to some of the highlights.