Three Years In. The Dunning-Kruger* Effect?
We thought that we’d take a look at the progress Mayor Fiaz is making after three years in office. In her campaign she asserted that she was “Building Newham’s Future”. Let’s see how she is doing.
We accept that not everything has moved as speedily as she had hoped and we are aware, because she has repeatedly told us, that this is because of either the Tories or Robin Wales. You’d have thought that the latter excuse was beginning to wear thin now, but apparently not.
We will look at her leadership in four areas:
Delivering on her promises
Financial Management
Leadership and Cohesion of the Labour Group
The State of the Labour Party in Newham
1.Delivering on her Commitments
A Failure to Deliver and Broken Promises
In short, as a candidate Ms Fiaz was big on promises. In office, she has developed a modus whereby she fails to deliver and blames other people for her failure.
By way of example, let’s look at some of her most high profile promises.
Fiaz inherited a massive windfall of £100m that came from the Tories, via the Mayor of London. Despite this she has struggled to meet her commitments. Those schemes that have started all seem to be schemes planned under the Wales regime. Those in the public sector seem to be at ‘affordable’, not ‘social’, rents. And we are pretty sure that not a single developer has agreed to a 50/50 private/council split. If we are wrong, please tell us and we will be delighted to print a correction. Our observations suggest that the true figure is closer to 35%, not in itself bad, but why couldn’t the mayor be honest? On top of this she has subtly changed the wording of her pledge from ‘build’ to ‘start’, which it seems doesn’t need bricks and mortar and which seems to encompass everything down to a drawing on a bit of paper.
This is the more egregious of the ‘pledges’. Not only have Newham increased parking charges but they now rely upon the increased income stream to offset their overspends. Far from being a programme that is not run as a business, by 2022, Newham plans to raise an additional £3.5m from parking fees and this is key to balancing their budget. Residents and shoppers are penalised. Far from being fairer and more consistent, residents and shopkeepers have complained that it is more rapacious, (see here and here, and here). And Newham now tops the country for parking fines. There is little wonder that voters are cynical towards the promises of politicians.
Well, we have to admit that Mayor Fiaz did hold a referendum. Eventually. And only kicking and screaming after being forced to by the twin prods of a campaign from Newham councillors and a petition from Labour members in East Ham. She also exhibited an enormous degree of political dexterity, managing to adopt every single position on the question at different times, however contradictory they were. In opposition she was vehemently against the post of Directly Elected Mayor. After three years in power she decided, on a point of principle, that taking the £80k pa was more important than abolishing the post.
Mayor Fiaz promised to
Instead she increased the number and increased the rate at which SRAs were paid. It is difficult to believe that she ever had any intention of honouring this commitment. Of course, the cynics might be right and the only reason for increasing the number was to buy the loyalty of sufficient councillors to maintain her position.
It has to be said, politicians are notorious for promising much and delivering little, so that is the context in which we will judge this section. Even so, she grossly over-promised and has found the actuality of office far more difficult than the fantasy of campaigning. It is not very inspiring. We would give her a C-minus.
2. Financial Management.
Incompetence and the Avoidance of Difficult Decisions
Upon accession to the post, Mayor Fiaz immediately began dismantling the Transformation Programme. This was possibly because it used the word ‘business’ frequently and possibly because the creation of business units as mutual or co-ops sounded wrong to her then backers in Momentum who seem to have had an ideological obsession with state control.
Whatever the reason, she squandered the opportunity that the programme offered both to save costs and generate income. A programme which had already brought in savings of some £27m pa and was on course to deliver additional income to the tune of £5m pa was jettisoned, for what seems to be nothing more than ideological opposition.
The programme was still in its infancy with the greater part of the council having yet to be considered. If she had done nothing and taken the savings, she would have saved much of the financial pain that the council is currently experiencing.
After a decade in which Newham residents saw a zero rate increase in their council tax, the last three years have seen increases in the region of 20%. One of the mayor’s pet complaints is that under Wales, council tax was not increased; if he had increased it she would have more money to spend. Quite at what point the mayor begins to take responsibility for her own actions, we are not sure.
Ironically, at the same time as hiking up taxes she is cutting services, to the tune of £40m plus. It is little wonder that key service areas, such as Children’s Services are now under such strain. All it will take is for the Daily Mail to get hold of one case of abuse or neglect that is linked to the Fiaz cuts and Newham and Labour will be in the dock of public opinion. And maybe they should be.
By focussing on her pet projects and ignoring the core functions of the council, she has allowed the council tax collection rate to drop from 96% to 89%. In cash terms this means that Newham loses an additional £8m in council tax every year.
She bends to political pressure rather than making the right decision. In visiting the case of Canning Town Library we have explored how her capitulation to a dozen activists has cost Newham 20 new jobs, £1m of inward private investment; Newham taxpayers are lumbered with continued additional maintenance and caretaking costs of £144k pa, and a loss of income of £350k pa. On this one site, in addition to the social cost of lost jobs, Newham has lost almost £2.5m. This has one cause; the Mayor’s predisposition to capitulate to whoever is shouting the loudest.
Undeniably the Tories have cut back on support to local government, we can expect them to continue to hit London hard as they seek to buy support in places like the North East. But that is nothing new. They have been cutting support to London local government since 2010. The question is, how do you respond?
Mayor Fiaz seems to have a single default mode, to whine about it. “It’s not my fault”.
“The Tories hate us and Robin Wales left only £54m in balances, it wasn’t enough!”
We have explored her financial record in greater depth in this article. Struggling with difficult decisions is not the problem. Her inability to accept responsibility is.
We would award her a D, bordering on Fail.
3. Leadership and Cohesion of the Labour Group.
Antisemitism, Islamophobia, Bullying, Discord.
Labour Party Groups can be fractious affairs, but by any standard Newham’s current Group must be amongst the most dysfunctional.
Take for example a formal complaint submitted to the General Secretary of the Labour Party, a complaint which appears never to have received a response. In the complaint some 26 councillors (number tbc), that is almost everyone who is not on the SRA payroll, allege that Mayor Fiaz has resorted to ‘bullying’, ‘harassment’ and behaviour that is ‘intimidating’ towards her colleagues.
Also, she has clearly fallen out with her previous deputy and architect of her successful campaign for the mayoralty. We understand that she has reported Cllr Gray to the Labour Party for bullying her. After she got rid of him.
On top of this she has been loose with her words at London Labour gatherings informing any of those who would listen that she intended to get rid of 30 councillors in the next round of selections. A move hardly likely to endear her to her colleagues.
Fiaz came into the role with the backing of groups that some members of the party felt were a little dubious. On the one hand there were the assorted Trotskyists that sheltered under the Momentum umbrella. In addition, there were Islamists of a very socially conservative hue. Two main groups appear to have been her primary supporters and providers of the political foot soldiers. There are those who effectively control East Ham CLP and ‘Grassroots’ Momentum and there are those, probably more aligned with West Ham from Newham People’s Alliance, (NPA). It was the NPA that campaigned to defeat Muslim Labour candidates that they felt were too liberal at the same time as they were urging Muslim Labour members to vote for Fiaz, whilst at the same time asserting that they “were not politically loyal to any party”, (Beckton was the seat of one of several Muslims councillors that the NPA took exception to).
One of the unplanned, but totally predictable consequences of this was that candidates sympathetic to these groups would not necessarily share the historic core values of the Labour Party. We have seen the results here, where some eight members of the Labour Group are apparently under some form of investigation. We know that there have been repeated antisemitic outbursts (here, and here, and here, and here). We are told that Labour is investigating some, but not all of these. But the point at issue here is that Fiaz relied upon some very suspect backers to get selected; some of them have come on to the council and others have taken leadership roles in the Labour Party locally. Labour is suffering the embarrassment of their actions. In her one chance to make a stand, she tried to sweep the whole matter under the carpet.
Lastly, three members of the Group have been reported to the Whip for Islamophobia. We understand that one of them has been suspended by Labour.
This level of open racism is unprecedented. This must be a Fail.
4. The State of Labour in Newham
Two CLPs Suspended. Antisemitism. Allegations of Entryism and Widespread Fraud Amongst the Membership
Not since the days of erstwhile Newham NE MP, Reg Prentice has the Labour Party in Newham been in such a turmoil. The Labour Party has launched an investigation into the membership, we believe that this is the second one in three years. Both CLPs have been suspended by the Labour Party.
The source for this confusion is twofold. The first has little to do with Newham and stems from the decision at a national level to engage non-members in the leadership election at a discount price. This led to the entry of a number of left leaning individuals whose allegiance up until that time, (and arguably after) was to an entirely different organisation.
The second is in the form of Newham’s own local entryist group in the shape of the NPA.
Not only did they oppose liberally minded Muslim Labour candidates in 2018, whilst supporting Fiaz, but in 2014 they fielded a slate of candidates for the Tories.
What was once regarded as an unstoppable Labour election machine has atrophied. In part this is because factional interests have superseded a collective purpose. In part it is because the Labour council seems to have lost all sense of direction. The most common adjective used in respect of Newham Labour is now, ‘toxic’.
Not unrelated to this has been the emergence of particularly unpleasant anti-gay and antisemitic feelings expressed in Labour Party meetings. (See also here, and here and here and here.)
Prior to the current suspensions, East Ham CLP had been suspended because of violence and threats of violence between the comrades, and often it was the women in leadership who bore the brunt of this. In West Ham CLP, although they were not suspended the toxicity was such that they took to reading a statement at the beginning of every meeting to encourage ‘comradely behaviour’ and reduce the vitriol. This can only be regarded as a partial success; such was the venom expressed between the comrades, that the former Chair of West Ham CLP resigned in disgust. It is sometimes difficult to determine what Labour in Newham now stands for, other than to get some individuals elected to generously remunerated office.
From the resignation statement of Josephne Grahl, former Chair of West Ham CLP.
In the most recent by election with a good turnout for the London Mayor/GLA election, Labour managed to hold on to the seat in East Ham Central. They nonetheless experienced a 22% swing to the Tories! Nobody talks about austerity, but in Newham it is real. Irrespective of Fiaz’s complaints, policy from Westminster has an effect. In a poor ward with a high south Asian population a swing of this size should have alarmed Labour.
If this is the best that Labour can do on a high turnout when the Tories are led by a buffoon who is mired in petty corruption, then there should be some hand wringing in London Labour, just in case the Tories decide to actually put up a fight in the next council election.
By any standards the state of the Labour Party in Newham must be a FAIL.
Conclusion
In the space of three years Labour in Newham has gone from having one of the foremost councils in the country to a basket case which invites comparisons with Lambeth in the 1980s. The success of the Newham Labour project was such that no-one else could get elected. So, they didn’t try. Instead they joined the Labour Party and we are now seeing the results.
Maybe Marx was right and, in their success, Labour has sown the seeds of its own destruction.
We suspect that this is something of an exaggeration, but Labour is now kept afloat, less by their vision and activity and more by the fact that none of the other parties can be bothered to mount any serious competition.
But then how much of this matters? History has shown that there have been plenty of examples of incompetent, overconfident and corrupt Labour councils around the country. In time, things will right themselves. As indeed they will, just like they did next door in Tower Hamlets.
The trouble is that while it is taking time to right itself, the people who look to Labour for vision, for leadership and for support are left without any of this. Political game playing is ok for student politicians, but now the lives of real people are being affected.
Labour has to clean up its act or what happened in Labour’s ‘impregnable’ bastions of the North East could easily happen here.
And with regard to the mayor, we have previously pondered upon whether she would be seeking one of the new parliamentary seats in Newham. Latterly we hear, that building upon her enormous success in Newham she will be seeking Labour’s nomination to depose Sadiq Khan for the London Mayoralty. We understand that potential financial backers in the private sector are being sounded out as we write.
* Messers Dunning and Kruger. Fifty years ago, two psychologists undertook some research to try to discover why incompetent people thought that they were brilliant.
They discovered a number of things. Those with the least ability were most likely to overrate their own abilities and they would do this to the greatest extent.
They operated under a double curse, they would both make most mistakes and they lacked the practical knowledge necessary to realise this, and therefore correct, their mistakes.
Does this sound familiar to anyone?