God only knows

2 Dec

After the four ward meetings last night – all of which voted No – I tweeted that the trigger ballot score stood at 9 in favour of automatically reselecting Sir Robin and 11 for an open selection.

I was then told by a couple of people that a mysterious and unnamed affiliate organisation had also cast its vote in favour of the mayor, so it was actually 10 to 11.

It turns out that the mystery affiliate was Christians on the Left – an organisation previously known as the Christian Socialist Movement.

The Newham chapter met on Sunday 20 November at the Cornerstone Café. You might think Sunday was an odd day to choose, given that Christians have other commitments that day but, as we know, there’s no rule against it!

There were 14 people at the meeting, most of them councillors and many from the mayor’s payroll vote. Cllr Clive Furness, mayoral advisor on Adults and Health, chaired the meeting.

Among those who spoke in favour of Sir Robin were Terry Paul (mayoral advisor – Skills and Adult Learning), Joy Laguda (chair of council and ‘associate cabinet member’) and Aleen Alarice (not yet a paid advisor, but ever-hopeful). Cllr Furness also spoke for the mayor, despite being in the chair.

The agenda for the meeting said it had been called simply to canvas opinions on the affirmative nomination. No ballot papers were distributed and no vote was taken, but Cllr Furness announced that as the majority were in favour he would write to the local campaign forum to tell them. 

The lord moves in mysterious ways.

Despite frequent requests, the ‘procedures secretary’ running the trigger ballot process, Cllr Pat Murphy (mayoral advisor – lead councillor for Royal Docks), has refused to disclose the full list of affiliate organisations entitled to take part. I doubt the Christians will be the last surprise vote in Sir Robin’s favour. 

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Sunday Bloody Sunday

30 Nov

Labour members in Green Street East received a letter yesterday cancelling their Trigger Ballot meeting on Sunday.

As chair of your branch I am writing to you personally on a matter of grave importance to our ward.

Over the weekend you may have received a letter advising you of a labour Party Green Street East ward branch meeting, to be held at a Restaurant in Forest Gate, West Ham on Sunday 4th December 2016. This notice was sent without the agreement of our branch and was in fact kept concealed from the Chair until I received an email on Sunday night. Since then members have approached me personally for an explanation as to why a Ward meeting was planned on a Sunday afternoon, outside the Ward and outside the Constituency. After further investigation, and as your democratically elected chair I wish to inform you that this meeting is formally cancelled.

As Sunday is the last date for meetings and members need seven days notice that means members of Green Street East will have no say whatsoever in whether they want to re-select the sitting Mayor.

The letter goes on (at some length) to say that the meeting is being cancelled for two reasons:

  • because the meeting was outside the ward and constituency (and is on a Sunday)
  • because the Secretary sent out the email (allegedly without the Chair’s agreement)

This is patently nonsense.

Firstly, Manor Park’s (very well-attended) meeting wasn’t held in Manor Park, Forest Gate North’s was held in Forest Gate South, and Thursday’s East Ham Central meeting isn’t being held in East Ham Central. There is nothing in the rules about holding the meeting in the ward, so what is the problem in Green Street East? 

Secondly, there are no rules about which day Labour party meetings are held. In fact in 2013 ward selection meetings for councillors were held over a whole weekend. I don’t recall anyone complaining about that at the time.

And finally, these trigger ballots are about the Mayor of Newham – the whole borough. Constituency boundaries are irrelevant. 

The letter sent to all eligible members in Newham by Patrick Murphy, the procedures secretary, at the start of November stated clearly:

You will receive a letter from your ward secretary advising you of the arrangements. (my emphasis added)

In Canning Town South the chair and other members of the executive were surprised to see receive a letter telling them the meeting was on a different date to the one they had all agreed. Presumably the secretary changed the time; there was a similar story in Custom House. In both cases the meetings went ahead and members voted.

But there is obviously something odd going on in Green Street East. Members were originally told the meeting was happening on Tuesday 24th, but the Chair sent out a text saying the meeting was being postponed and another date would be arranged. They were then told it was going to be on Sunday. Now they are now being told it isn’t and there’s no time left to organise a different date.

It appears that someone doesn’t want Green Street East to meet and is going to considerable lengths to make sure they don’t. 

What on Earth is going on? Perhaps the chair, Ayub Darbar, could explain. I will be very happy to publish his response.

In the meantime, Green Street East members should keep their diaries free for Sunday. Maybe the meeting will get ‘uncancelled’ and they’ll get their shot at democracy.

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Co-op coup

22 Nov

James Beckles 2016 Nov 21

Picture from @james_beckles on Twitter

Last night Newham Co-operative Party said yes to democracy by voting No in the Newham mayoral trigger ballot.

It was 37 votes to 36. That may seem like a narrow win but in the context of Newham Labour politics, it’s an extraordinary result.

According to reports, 15 of Sir Robin’s Yes votes came from councillors on his vast payroll.

Two more turned up but were unable to vote because they weren’t actually Co-operative party members. And in a moment of pure comedy gold, one of them produced her Co-op loyalty card, thinking this would get her a vote.

Who was this? Cllr Joy Laguda, the supposedly-independent chair of council and ‘civic lead’ (a polite legal fiction, she’s actually a paid mayoral advisor) for adult social care.

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As it stands

18 Nov

After the first set of trigger ballot meetings, the score stands at nine wards to three in favour of automatically reselecting Sir Robin Wales as Labour’s candidate.

The detailed results are: 

Ward Yes No
Beckton 16 3
Canning Town South 6 8
Custom House 7 6
East Ham North 20 23
Forest Gate North 13 30
Forest Gate South 34 21
Green Street West 36 32
Manor Park* 30 30
Plaistow North 27 17
Royal Docks 11 1
Wall End 20 18
Totals: 220 189

* Result of the first ballot. A re-vote was taken, even though two people had left. The final result was 29 yes, 28 no, with one vote declared spoiled. 

 In an interview with the Newham Recorder Cllr John Gary said

“It is neck and neck… the wards that were always more likely to vote yes were held this week.

“The wards that are more likely to vote no are more likely to vote next week.

 “There is already an earthquake in Newham politics; there has never been a challenge like this in Newham wards.”

The decision to hold the trigger ballot early, thereby disenfranchising hundreds of new party members, is the subject of a complaint to Labour HQ. And at the London Labour conference last week Jeremy Corbyn promised to raise the matter with the national executive.

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Trigger mortis

11 Nov

The Executive Committee of West Ham Labour Party agreed on Wednesday to submit an emergency motion to the London regional conference tomorrow (Saturday).

As you can see from the text, party members believe that Sir Robin and his cronies have been playing fast and loose with the rules in order to rush through his re-selection:

This Regional Conference notes:

  1. The Labour Party Rule Book states that all Local Campaign Forums (LCF) must hold annual AGMs after May each year at which an executive has to be elected. Where a LCF fails to elect an executive, the Rule Book implies that the entire LCF makes executive decisions.
  2. That the Newham LCF did not hold its 2015 AGM until March 2016, and failed to elect an Executive at that delayed AGM.
  3. Since the last meeting of the Newham LCF on the 31 May 2016, new delegates to the LCF have been elected by West Ham and East Ham CLPs.
  4. That a trigger ballot timetable on re-selecting the current directly elected Mayor of Newham to be the Labour Party candidate at the May 2018 local elections was approved at meeting with the London Region Director on the 25th October 2016 and some members of the Newham LCF.
  5. That the whole of the current Newham LCF members weren’t notified about this meeting taking place.
  6. That London Regional Board members were not notified by the London Region Director of the planned meeting with the Newham LCF or the proposed trigger ballot process.
  7. At the meeting on the 25th October 2016, a procedural secretary was also appointed who is a is paid mayoral advisor to the current Labour Mayor of Newham seeking re-selection. This potentially creates an unacceptable conflict of interest.
  8. Based on the Trigger Ballot timetable agreed by the London Region Director and some members of the Newham LCF, only members of the Labour Parties in Newham who joined on or prior to the 25th April 2016 will be eligible to participate in Trigger Ballot meetings held by eligible branches and affiliates. This freeze date will mean that hundreds of new members in Newham will be disenfranchised
  9. Branches and affiliates in Newham will have to meet and vote on a ‘affirmative nomination’ to re-select the current directly elected Mayor Sir Robin Wales between the 14th November 2016 – 4th December 2016 and there is emerging evidence of procedural abuse happening where NEC guidelines are being ignored. For instance, officers in one branch in West Ham CLP had the date of the branch’s Trigger Ballot meeting determined by the Procedural Secretary without their knowledge.

This Regional Conference resolves:

  1. That the current Trigger Ballot timetable in Newham be suspended and withdrawn;
  2. The London Region Board oversee an investigation of alleged procedural abuses in conjunction with the NEC Organisation Committee;
  3. That the Newham LCF calls an emergency meeting where all new LCF delegates elected at the respective East Ham and West Ham CLP AGMs to elect its new Executive. Where possible this should be constituted as the Newham LCF’s 2016 AGM which hasn’t taken place;
  4. That resolves 3 should be followed by a new Trigger Ballot timetable, set and circulated before 31 December 2016.

If the motion is carried the current process will have to be stopped and a new timetable agreed. This may allow hundreds of new party members a say in who gets to be the mayoral candidate. And that’s a good thing.

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Trigger democracy

31 Oct

How else are you supposed to illustrate a post about a Trigger ballot?

The process to select Labour’s candidate for mayor of Newham at the May 2018 local elections has begun. And it’s being run to a very tight timetable.

An email went out last week from Cllr Patrick Murphy to members of the local campaign forum (LCF) setting out the process. Local party branches and affiliated organisations – trade unions, the Co-op Party – have to meet before 4 December to consider an ‘affirmative nomination’. The borough-wide result will be announced the next day.

The clear intention is that Sir Robin Wales will be re-selected unopposed via this so-called ‘trigger ballot’. Only if a majority of branches vote No will there be an opportunity for other candidates to put themselves forward.

But why the hurry? The election is more than 18 months away and Newham is rock-solid Labour. There’s no disadvantage to the party in taking a bit more time to select its candidate.

Perhaps there’s a clue in Cllr Murphy’s email. In it he also announced the freeze date – October 25th. Only members who have been in the party for six full months prior to this date are able to participate in the vote. So all those new, enthusiastic members inspired by Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership campaign who joined over the summer are bang out of luck. 

And it’s certainly no coincidence that the person in charge of the process – Cllr Murphy – is a member of the mayor’s inner circle. He’s on the payroll as ‘community lead councillor’ for Royal Docks and has a personal interest in getting his man into position ASAP. Indeed he is so keen that he has already been out door-knocking unsuspecting party members to canvass support for the incumbent. In any sensible organisation his role as Procedures Secretary would be untenable. 

But maybe – just maybe – this time Sir Robin won’t get things all his own way.

A group of local activists has launched a campaign called Trigger Democracy, calling on local members to vote No to the affirmative nomination and trigger an open selection.

They point out that Wales has been running Newham since 1995 – first as leader of the council and then from 2002 as the directly elected mayor. Only once in all that time has he faced a contested vote among party members. In 2002 he defeated John Saunders for the very first nomination. A lot has changed in Newham and the Labour party in the past 14 years!

Of course an open selection does not necessarily mean the end of Sir Robin. He might prove to be the best possible candidate and if so members could re-select him. But the very least that the party should do is give themselves a choice. Surely among the 60 councillors there are a few who have the ambition and vision to offer an alternative. Or maybe there is a credible candidate in another role?

I’m not in the Labour party – I left more than 10 years ago – but I urge all those who are to vote No. Give yourselves – and the rest of us – a chance to debate an alternative vision for Newham’s future.

There’s more information on the Trigger Democracy campaign on the web, on Twitter and on Facebook.

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West Ham tickets – who’s getting them?

11 Oct

From the ‘Knees up Mother Brown’ website:

More than half the free tickets for West Ham United home matches distributed by Newham Council have gone to their own employees, it has been claimed.

From a total of 5,970 tickets handed out thus far by the Council as part of their arrangement with West Ham, just 2,728 reached members of the local community – with the remaining 3,242 being allocated to employees of Newham Council, according to a KUMB source.

The 3,242 tickets snapped up by Newham employees were used for the Europa League qualifiers against Domzale (1,433 tickets) and Astra Giurgiu (1,010) plus the recent EFL Cup tie with Accrington Stanley (799) – resulting in 55 per cent of the available tickets intended for local residents going to unnamed Council workers.

“Newham previously stated that ‘the tickets are used to reward residents for being active and resilient members of the community’,” said the source. 

“Lead councillors for each of our community neighbourhoods will have a role in managing these rewards, and settling the criteria for distributing tickets to their residents who are making a contribution to their community. 

“Why is it, that in each of the three games referred to, there were more tickets given to Newham Council staff than went to those ‘active and resilient members of the community’?”

Those ‘free’ tickets are among the supposed benefits of the £40 million ‘loan’ the council made to help cover the enormous cost of making the stadium ready for multi-millionaire-owned West Ham United.

Can anyone at the council explain this?

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Temporary housing

29 Sep

From the Newham Recorder:

More people are living in temporary accommodation in the borough than anywhere else in London.

Homelessness data from the Office for National Statistics show 3,956 Newham households were resident in temporary shelter between April 2015 and March 2016.
The figures – the most up-to-date available – also reveal 2,448 households were deemed eligible for action under the Housing Acts, the highest amount in London and second-highest in England after Birmingham.

Newham also had the second-highest number of households accepted as homeless and in priority need – 1,345 – again behind only Birmingham.

Of the households living in temporary accommodation, 79 were in bed and breakfasts, 27 in hostels, 127 in local or housing authority stock, 1,690 in leased private sector property and 2,033 in other properties.

Also included is the ethnicity of homeless households, with 474 black or black British, 396 Asian or Asian British and 314 white.

Meanwhile on Twitter Cllr Jose Alexander points to Red Door Ventures, the council’s for-profit housing company, as an example of how Newham is “tackling housing crises.” (sic)

Yep. Tackling the housing crisis by charging £1,500 a month for a two-bed flat in Stratford.

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Boundary review 2018

13 Sep

As part of the government’s drive to reduce the number of MPs from 650 to 600 and make parliamentary constituencies more equally sized, the Boundary Commission has published its proposals for London.

At the moment we have two seats in Newham – East Ham and West Ham. Each contains 10 of the 20 wards in the borough. But both seats are very large – in fact West Ham is the largest in London, with more than 80,000 voters. By contrast, the (Tory-held) Kensington seat has only 55,000.

The Boundary Commission’s proposals add about half a seat to Newham, but do so by ripping apart West Ham and dividing it between three new or revised constituencies:

We propose a Forest Gate and Loxford constituency, which includes three wards from the existing East Ham constituency, two wards from the existing Ilford South constituency, and four wards from the existing West Ham constituency. This configuration brings the Newham borough wards of Green Street East and Green Street West together in the same constituency. 

In Newham, we noted that the borough was too large for two constituencies. We propose an East Ham constituency, which retains seven wards from the existing East Ham constituency, and adds two wards from the existing West Ham constituency. We also propose a Bow and Canning Town constituency, which includes four wards from the existing West Ham constituency, two Tower Hamlets borough wards from the existing Poplar and Limehouse constituency, and two wards from the existing Bethnal Green and Bow constituency. 

The exact make-up of the new constituencies, with wards, boroughs and current voters:

Bow and Canning Town

Canning Town North Newham 8,333
     
Canning Town South Newham 8,543
     
Stratford and New Town Newham 12,471
     
West Ham Newham 8,073
     
Bow East Tower Hamlets 10,427
     
Bow West Tower Hamlets 7,850
     
Bromley North Tower Hamlets 5,980
     
Bromley South Tower Hamlets 6,532
     
Lansbury Tower Hamlets 9,623
     
  Total 77,832


East Ham

Beckton Newham 7,335
     
Boleyn Newham 8,696
     
Custom House Newham 6,971
     
East Ham Central Newham 8,867
     
East Ham North Newham 8,682
     
East Ham South Newham 8,347
     
Plaistow South Newham 8,290
     
Royal Docks Newham 6,081
     
Wall End Newham 8,418
     
  Total 71,687


Forest Gate and Loxford

Forest Gate North Newham 8,392
     
Forest Gate South Newham 8,862
     
Green Street East Newham 8,875
     
Green Street West Newham 8,752
     
Little Ilford Newham 8,873
     
Manor Park Newham 8,636
     
Plaistow North Newham 8,215
     
Clementswood Redbridge 8,051
     
Loxford Redbridge 8,841
     
  Total 77,497

You can comment on the proposals at the Commission’s special review website, or at a public hearing. The nearest one to us will be at Romford Town Hall on 31 October and 1 November.

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Latest crime stats

22 Aug

The Metropolitan Police have released the latest crime statistics for Newham and they don’t make for happy reading, with a 4% year-on-year increase.

While robberies and residential burglaries are down, violent crime – murder, assault, rape and other sexual assaults – are all up. As is gun crime – up 27%.

Also worrying are the significant increases in hate crime.

  Yr to June 16 Yr to June 15 Diff. % change
Total Crimes 30,266 29,190 1,076 4%
Homicide 6 5 1 20%
Violence Against the Person 9,853 8,580 1,273 15%
Rape 296 278 18 6%
Other Sexual 522 437 85 19%
Robbery (Total) 1,237 1,507 -270 -18%
   Robbery (Person) 1,164 1,417 -253 -18%
   Robbery (Business) 73 90 -17 -19%
Burglary (Total) 2,245 2,178 67 3%
   Burglary Residential 1,366 1,409 -43 -3%
   Burglary Non-Residential 879 769 110 14%
Gun Crime 116 91 25 27%
Motor Vehicle Crime 3,301 3,280 21 1%
Domestic Crime 3,440 3,097 343 11%
Racist & Religious Hate Crime 508 438 70 16%
Homophobic Crime 52 58 -6 -10%
Anti-Semitic Crime 7 3 4 133%
Islamophobic Crime 68 27 41 152%

Although it’s not obvious from these figures, reducing crime is one of the mayor’s ‘priorities’:

In 2015 we funded 40 police officers to help us tackle rogue landlords, crack down on dodgy traders and catch those who fly-tip.

Those officers cost an extra £425,000 a year. And, as important as rogue traders and fly-tipping are, residents might question how effectively that money is being spent.

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