A quiet word in your ear, Sir Robin…
If you were an electorally unsuccessful Scottish Labour politician looking to make a fresh start down south, where would you head for?
Newham might look like a pretty good option.
Certainly Barrie Cunning thinks so. He stood for Labour in the Scottish parliamentary elections last year and came in fourth, all-but-halving the party’s vote in the process. Now he lives in Canning Town and has his eyes firmly fixed on a seat in the council chamber.
As if being a white Scottish male wasn’t advantage enough, a bit of good luck has helped get him further into Sir Robin’s good books.
Back in February, Sir Robin was invited to speak at an Edinburgh Networking Breakfast event on ‘Building Partnership in Development.’ According to the mayor’s register of gifts and hospitality, his flights and accommodation were paid for by Newington Communications, the PR firm Barrie Cunning happens to work for.
And when the mayor took his trip to Cannes in March, one of the sponsors was Berkeley Group. They are clients of Newington Communications. According to his profile, Barrie Cunning works across the development and housing sectors.
So, let me be the first to say “Congratulations on your election, Councillor Cunning.”
forestgatedotnet 
I take it that Wales is running low on Scots in the cabinet and council. Douglas Trainer, Crawford, Robinson to name the few.
How long has Mr Cunning been living in Newham for.
Mr Barrie Cunning comes to London a year ago and moved to Newham and feels like he should now be representing us.😡All he has done is suck up to powerful people. Don’t recall seeing him in any of the local election doorsteps. Not one day did he campaign for stephen Timms or Lyn brown during the general election. How dare he wants to stand here. Was the selection process started late so that he got a chance to contest. Tsk tsk.
@Belinda. He has probably lived less than one year. In his own video from March last year he says he is living in Scotland and considering the scottish elections were in May he possibly came around june/july: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHedWTpFY4w&t=23s
So another non local about to be pushed on us. Don’t let it happen.
That’s all we need another Scot on team Wales. What a joke, can’t sort Scotland out but come to Newham and lets make residents life a misery and get paid for doing so.
The requirement in Labour’s rules is a year’s residence in the area of the Council at the time of nomination. That can be checked against the Register of Electors and the Membership records.
Great detective work and great article. Thank you
Is this the same Cunning who keeps trying to take women from the West Ham Womens forum on dates?
I don’t know. How many Cunnings are there in Newham Labour circles?
One is more than enough I hope. Wales has got it coming if this joker gets near him. He will be a complete embarrassment but maybe that is good.
mostlly cunnig
who this man hve not sen he in westham commite
Ask him where the newham college is and he wont know. He is a joke and a stooge. Not on any committees. He is hated
but mr clark not live in the borouh long was he not in corbett house make believe ,so coud be member this is way of newham
http://labourhame.com/a-party-of-government-by-2021/ back in Scotland
Wow. So this is the man who’s been trolling me on Twitter? Who’s header on his personal Twitter account says Scottish Labour? Who’s pinned tweet still asks people to vote for him in the Scottish Parliament election? And the man who’s been pushing a 38 degrees petition against London Labour Region demanding they hold more hustings in the Newham Mayoral selection (with a heady 6 signatories at the current time), and who’s offered the role of Chair of said hustings (as if it’s in his gift to give and if London Labour Party Region were to agree) to at least 2 different people? And who’s needed 3 people to explain to him what one of the Mayor’s current pledges means?
Yes, that’s him
Robin and Barrie are now working together
https://www.pentlandcomms.co.uk/our-team/