Sir Robin has finally had to confront reality. He cannot win the trigger ballot if it isn’t rigged by his mates.
But he is putting a brave face on it.
In an email sent to local Labour members this evening he is calling on them to vote for an open selection at the branch trigger ballot meetings:
I am writing to ask you to vote no in the upcoming trigger ballot meetings so that we can have an open contest for Labour’s candidate for Mayor of Newham.
I have also written to all the organisations affiliated to the Newham Labour Party thanking many of them for their support and asking that if they do take part in the up-coming trigger ballot, that they vote no.
Over the next couple of months I want Newham Labour Party members to give their mandate to a Mayoral and 60 councillor candidates, so that we can unite as a party and focus on the Labour-led values and manifesto that we take to residents in the May local elections.
It is important we have an open debate about the vision that we present to the people of Newham.
We can be proud of our achievements that have changed peoples lives for the better:
- Council Tax frozen for nine years without making cuts to vital frontline services.
- The largest increase in employment in London, with over 35,000 jobs filled with Newham residents through our jobs brokerage service Workplace.
- Initiatives such as universal free school meals and Every Child a Musician with 1.2 million musical instrument lessons delivered that have contributed to Newham having some of the best school results in the country.
- A ground-breaking private-rented sector licence, that has allowed us to prosecute more criminal landlords than the rest of London combined.
- The creation of council-owned small businesses, protecting jobs and services and innovating with public-sector reform.
That is the radical agenda that we have been following since I have been Mayor and continues to drive my vision for Newham in the future. It is this record and vision that I want to proudly defend and promote in an open selection.
That is why I am calling on all members and affiliates in Newham to vote in favour of an open selection if they attend their branch meetings to cast their vote on the trigger ballot.
So please vote NO to result in an open selection.
Of course, this could be a huge fake-out and he hopes the email will keep the No voters at home and his friends can all turn up to automatically re-select him. But let’s take him at his word. Labour members should turn up in droves to vote No and win the open selection they wanted in 2016.
You have to wonder why Sir Robin didn’t say this to the NEC or the press a month ago, rather than just at the point the trigger ballot meetings are starting. The open selection, which he now says he wants, could have started sooner and allowed alternative candidates to organise their camp… oh, right.
forestgatedotnet 
No mention of the 52 million pound stadium loan lose or Carpenters road estate in that list of achievements.
No mention that landlords are have to cough up more for licensing there property. No mention of LOBO LOANS. No mention that East London Rugby Club is the only place in Newham to receive CIL of £500.000 were he is on the board, while youth services budgets were cut.
Dear Martin,
spotted today in Sheringham Avenue, E12 at 1.30 pm: guy delivering “The Newham Mag” issue 382 dated 26 January-8 February 2018 door-to-door but only to those houses where former front gardens have been converted into parking bays. Any house with a garden wall & gate was therefore not blessed with a copy. This rather interesting issue nevertheless refers to “Sheringham Nursery School in Forest Gate” (p. 4) when the school is in fact in Sheringham Avenue, Manor Park and has already been the recipient of large amounts of cash for endless alterations and fashionable adventure playground features ever since the nursery was rebuilt 5 years ago. Readers lucky enough to receive a copy of “The Newham Mag 382” are also treated to assorted news items on the “emotional impact of female circumcision in Newham” (‘conference’ pending 1st of February), the runaway proliferation of fast food joints (now liable to be awarded “ratings out of 5”) flogging contaminated food responsible for multiple cases of food poisoning, the mayor’s obvious pride at “filling 35, 000 jobs over 10 years”, and his determination to “stand up for tenants’ rights” against an avalanche of “rogue landlords” over the same period. Any connection between the phenomena of the explosion in poorly-paid employment (taken to include the famous “zero hours” syndrome) and the rise in appalling and extortionate rented living conditions would, of course, be entirely coincidental.
John McHale.
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You forgot the 11 pictures of newhams elected chump, like issue 381.