Who’s side are you on?

2 May

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Mehmood Mirza is standing as an independent candidate for the Mayor of Newham.

At a Mayoral hustings last week, at which Mr Mirza did not appear in person – preferring instead to be represented by a member of his campaign team – the issue of his property portfolio was raised.

Despite posturing as a left-wing socialist Mehmood Mirza is a significant private landlord. He and his property company, Phoenix M Properties Ltd (No. 10216604), own or control at least 10 homes in Newham. Filings at Companies House show that Mr Mirza is the sole shareholder and director of the company.

The availability of good quality, affordable housing is a huge issue in Newham. According to the Office for National Statistics 35.5% of households in the borough live in the Private Rented Sector. Many of these homes suffer from overcrowding, disrepair and have poor standards of amenity and thermal efficiency at a time when energy costs are heading skywards. Combatting abuses by private landlords and improving standards has been a priority for the council under both the Wales and Fiaz administrations.

Were he to be elected, Mehmood Mirza would have a significant conflict of interest to manage between his role as Mayor in enforcing the Council’s policies on the Private Rented Sector and his role as a rentier property owner whose actions would be regulated by, er, himself.  It is unclear as to how he would resolve these conflicts.

Mirza has said very little about how he would treat the Private Rented Sector if he were elected as Mayor of Newham. His published leaflets are silent on the matter.

By contrast, the Labour manifesto for Newham is quite clear on its approach to the private rented sector, stating that the next Labour Council will:

  • Seek Government approval to extend the private landlord registration scheme for an unprecedented third term of 5 more years.  It will include all Temporary Accommodation.
  • Introduce an enhanced inspection regime for the private rented sector in Newham, zero tolerance of poor landlords and provide the staffing resources needed for rigorous enforcement activity.
  • Set clear property standards so that landlords have to provide high quality housing that has good space standards, is safe and well managed.
  • Place particular emphasis on establishing minimum standards of energy efficiency so that private rented homes meet EPC Band C where practical, cost effective and affordable and also have high standards of security. 
  • Campaign for a future Labour Government to introduce both rent controls and security of tenure, subject to cause, for private rented sector tenants.

So here are ten questions Mr Mirza needs to urgently answer ahead of the polls on Thursday:

  1. How many homes do you and any companies that you have an interest of any sort in, own in Newham?
  2. Do you charge more than the Local Housing Allowance to any of your tenants/occupants and by how many percent have you increased your rents in the last one, two, five and 10 years?
  3. Are (or have) any of the homes that you own/control /have a beneficial interest in ever been in a state of disrepair or had repairs outstanding for more than a short period of time?
  4. 35.5% of homes are in the Private Rented in Newham. How can the residents of these homes expect you to treat them fairly when you are a significant private landlord?
  5. As a significant private landlord, explain how there would be no conflict of interest between your role as a landlord seeking to maximise your profits and your role as Mayor policing the private rented sector in Newham and rooting out wrongdoing?
  6. If you were elected Mayor would you rid yourself of all interests in the property you own or control and, if so, how would you do this? If not, how would you resolve your conflicts as a private landlord with the responsibilities of the Mayorality?
  7. How would you ensure that all the decisions you made on the private rented sector were open and accountable to scrutiny?
  8. What lawful policies would you pursue as Mayor to increase the supply of social rented homes and reduce that of private rented homes?
  9. Do you agree that the Council should crack down on private landlords, campaign for security of tenure for private tenants and for rent controls? Should the Council issue Compulsory Purchase Orders on the homes operated by private Landlords in Newham who misbehave?
  10. How much income do you receive in either salary or dividends from the homes that you own/control/have a beneficial interest in, directly or indirectly, and is this the income that allows you to say that you will only take a Living Wage from the Council?

The people of Newham deserve answers. Will they be voting for someone who is on their side, or the side of landlords?

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Spot the difference – 2022 edition

18 Apr

Mirza and Rahman

Below are a dozen policy statements, six from Conservative mayoral candidate Attic Rahman and six from his independent rival Mehmood Mirza. But can you tell which is which?

  • employ new community patrol officer teams to pursue those who drop litter and issue on the spot fines
  • effective enforcement to deal with flytipping and rubbish on our streets
  • a thorough review of parking across the borough to ensure residents and businesses are not punished
  • meaningful consultation on parking issues
  • abolish the first car MiPermit tax to help meet the cost of living
  • free first car permit for every household
  • more resources for the police to tackle crime and support those who want to live in a peaceful and safe borough
  • bring back our own enforcement team to deal with crime, drugs and prostitution
  • primary school children will receive a free breakfast
  • invest in youth centres and services
  • raise housing standards to support private renters
  • no more council tax increases – freeze council tax for four years

Harder than you would imagine, given Mr Rahman’s professed admiration for Boris Johnson and Mirza’s previous Corbynite affectations.

By coincidence, both are also standing for council in Plashet ward. Neither has a running mate, so their almost identical policy platform means it would make sense for them to campaign together.

UPDATE: I am grateful to Tim Roll-Pickering on Twitter for pointing out that the lack of second Conservative candidate in Plashet last year was down to the Returning Officer rejecting a nomination paper and not informing the party agent when there was time to replace it. A revised Statement of Persons Nominated showed this after a complaint was raised.

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Greens announce a full slate

5 Apr

For the first time in its history, the Green Party will be fielding a full slate of candidates for the local elections: 66 candidates across all 24 wards in the borough, and a candidate for Mayor of Newham. The party’s aim, it says, is to elect the first opposition councillors in Newham since 2006, in Stratford Olympic Park and Beckton wards, and to beat the Conservatives to become Newham’s second party.

In 2018, the Newham Green Party stood just 11 candidates and in 2014 just two. Standing a full slate in every ward places the party in a strong position to beat the Conservatives across Newham and to firmly define itself as Newham’s second party. No other currently active national party has ever succeeded in fielding a full slate of candidates in Newham, besides Labour and the Conservatives.

Nate Higgins, co-chair of the Newham Green Party, who is standing in Stratford Olympic Park said: “When I set out over a year ago to recruit the widest and most diverse slate of candidates the Newham Green Party has ever fielded, I never even dreamed we would be this successful. In one of the most diverse and young London Boroughs, I am proud we have a slate of candidates who are more like the people we wish to represent than ever before, and who share their experiences. With 66 candidates in this election, we are now in a fantastic position to beat the Conservatives across Newham for the first time ever, and to elect some opposition councillors. I know through my year-round hard work in my home ward of Stratford Olympic Park how excited people are about having the chance to vote Green for the first time, and I know we can win.”

The Greens claim that this slate of candidates represents the party’s most diverse ever, with a wide range of ethnic minority, women, young, working class, and LGBTIQA+ candidates. Almost every ward has at least one woman or non-binary candidate standing.

Danny Keeling, the other co-chair of the Newham Green Party and also a candidate in Stratford Olympic Park said “The Green Party stands ready to give Newham voters the chance to use all of their votes on a Green Party candidate for the first time ever. Greens will not let the people of Newham down like Labour and the Conservatives consistently have.”

The full list of Green candidates:

Beckton

Solveig Bourgeon
Karen Webb Green
Alison McLucas

Boleyn

Peter Bright
Helen Lynch
Roxana Toderascu

Canning Town North

Charlotte Croft
Oscar Lessing
Cassie Leanne Thomas

Canning Town South

Oliver Reynolds
Deb Scott
Benjamin Ian Smith

Custom House

Gareth Bannister
Sean Labode
Rupa Sarkar

East Ham South

Mark Lamptey-Harding
Alex Mchugh
Liam Palmer

East Ham

Tim Boxall
Maddy Catriona
Ed Toso

Forest Gate North

Gary Pendlebury
Mike Spracklin

Forest Gate South

Ben Beeler
Kieren Jones
Emma Sorrell

Green St East

Tassadduq Cheema
Joe Hudson-Small
Rose Waddilove

Green St West

Ron Harris
Adam Mitchell
Joseph Henry Sorrell-Roberts

Little Ilford

Terrence Stamp
Amy Wilson
Waleed Zuoriki

Manor Park

Deyan Atansov
Ros Bedlow
Jenny Duval

Maryland

Chris Brooks
Ainsley Vinall

Plaistow North
Elsa Malki
Francis Moore
Aki Turan

Plaistow South

Nicholas Drew Dowden
Iain Mckeil
Anca Zahan

Plaistow West & Canning Town East

Jacintha Christopher
Christopher Luke Slevin
Peter Whittle

Plashet

Stephen Charles
Joshua Robinson

Royal Albert

Jane Lithgow
Daniel Rodrigues

Royal Victoria

Rob Callender
Gloria Goncalves

Stratford Olympic Park

Nate Higgins
Danny Keeling

Stratford

Pau Ingles
Moira Lascelles
Ed Lynch

Wall End

Melanie Bax
James Peter Buttress
Matthew Talbot Savage

West Ham

Clare Hardy
Lyubo Ivanov
Ben Parker

Mayor of Newham

Rob Callender

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Your 2022 – 2026 councillors… probably

26 Mar

Finally, we have a slate of @newham_labour candidates for the election in May.

Although other parties – and the voters! – will have their say, recent electoral history suggests these will be the 66 councillors filling the benches for the next four years.

Sitting councillors are marked with a * although boundary changes mean some are now standing in a different ward

BECKTON
James Asser*
Rohima Rahman
Tonii Wilson*

BOLEYN
Mohammed Osman Gani
Harvinder Virdee*
Cecilia Welsh

CANNING TOWN NORTH
Rita Chadha
Areeq Chowdhury
Shaban Mohammed*

CANNING TOWN SOUTH
Rohit Dasgupta*
Alan Griffiths*
Belgica Guana*

CUSTOM HOUSE
James Beckles*
Thelma Odoi
Sarah Ruiz*

EAST HAM
Olufemi Falola
Haque Imamul
Shantu Ferdous

EAST HAM SOUTH
Mussawar Alam
Susan Masters*
Lakmini Shah*

FOREST GATE NORTH
Rachel Tripp*
Sasha Das Gupta*

FOREST GATE SOUTH
Anamul Islam*
Madeleine Sarley Pontin
Winston Vaughan*

GREEN STREET EAST
Larisa Kilickaja
Miraj Patel
Mohammed Muzibar Rahman*

GREEN STREET WEST
Lewis Godfrey
Mumtaz Khan*
Amar Virdee

LITTLE ILFORD
Elizabeth Booker
Nur Nahar Begum
Abul Bashar Syed

MANOR PARK
Jennifer Bailey*
Mariam Dawood*
Salim Patel*

MARYLAND
Caroline Corben 
Ken Penton 

PLAISTOW NORTH
Zulfiqar Ali*
Joy Laguda*
Daniel Lee-Phakoe*

PLAISTOW SOUTH
Carleene Lee-Phakoe*
Jane Lofthouse*
Neil Wilson*

PLAISTOW WEST & CANNING TOWN EAST
Dina Hossain 
John Morris
Simon Rush

PLASHET
Zuber Gulamussen*
Pushpa Makwana*

ROYAL ALBERT
Ann Easter*
Anthony McAlmont*

ROYAL VICTORIA
Caroline Adaja
Stephen Brayshaw*

STRATFORD
Joshua Garfield*
Sabia Kamali
Terry Paul*

STRATFORD OLYMPIC PARK
Nareser Osei*
Muhammad Ravat

WALL END
Luke Charters
Lester Hudson*
Jemima McAlmont

WEST HAM
John Gray*
Charlene McLean*
John Whitworth*

Congratulations to all those selected and commiserations to those who applied but were unsuccessful. 

UPDATE: the original version of this post listed Aisha Siddiquah, a sitting councillor, as candidate in East Ham and Alison Davenport, a new candidate, in Canning Town North. Cllr Siddiquah decided not to accept the nomination and was replaced by Shantu Ferdous. Ms Davenport’s nomination did not proceed and she was replaced by Areeq Chowdhury.

Strange bedfellows

16 Feb

The lion lies down with the lamb, owls hoot at noon, up is down – and left is right.

Observers of Newham’s political scene may have noticed some strange shifting of alliances over the last few years, but perhaps none stranger than the recent amity between the left-wingers now departing the Labour party in a flurry of online resignation letters, and the last men standing (yes, they are all men) from Sir Robin Wales’s cabinet.

This improbable friendship had its genesis in the infamous ‘dirty thirty’ letter, when a number of councillors wrote an open letter to the Newham Recorder to express dismay at the mayor’s plans to address the borough’s terrible air quality with an emissions-based scale of charges for resident parking. The letter was widely celebrated by most of Mayor Fiaz’s political antagonists, who felt that in the face of the worst air quality in London, the policy of Newham Council should be to… continue providing free car parking to every resident, a policy not offered by any other borough in inner London.

Newham’s Twitterati will have cleaned their glasses and wiped their screens when the resignation of the Labour whip by Cllr Quintin Peppiatt (East Ham South) prompted admiring remarks about his integrity and principles from anonymous accounts Newham Resists and Newham Socialist Labour. As lead member for education under Robin Wales, Cllr Peppiatt oversaw and encouraged the academisation of many of Newham’s schools as part of Wales’s ‘resilience’ programme – something the tweeters behind both Newham Resists and Newham Socialist Labour claim complete opposition towards . 

Cllr Patrick Murphy (Royal Docks) beat Cllr Peppiatt to the punch, resigning the Labour whip the day after Fiaz’s reselection was announced and claiming that the Labour party had “ignored” or “condoned” unspecified criticisms of her leadership. Long-standing readers of this blog will remember Cllr Murphy’s role as the Procedures Secretary who oversaw the ill-fated first trigger ballot for Newham Labour’s Mayoral candidate selection in 2016 – in which he saw no conflict of interest with his position as a ‘community lead councillor’, appointed at Sir Robin’s pleasure and with a special responsibility allowance of over £6,000 a year. 

Despite their closeness to the mayor knighted by Tony Blair, Cllrs Murphy and Peppiatt found an unlikely champion in left-wing scandal-blog Skwawkbox, which expressed outrage that Cllrs Murphy and Peppiatt were not able to resign the Labour whip without also having their Labour party membership withdrawn. Clearly, Skwawkbox has more confidence in Cllr Murphy’s ability correctly to interpret the Labour rulebook than most party members in Newham would share.

Meanwhile, Open Newham, a recent local addition to the scandal-blogging scene, has taken a break from nudge-nudge, wink-wink Islamophobia and personal attacks on the borough’s women of colour to express their solidarity with that persistent irritant of the Fiaz administration, Mehmood Mirza. The site, of which the only named contributor is former Wales ally Clive Furness, has experienced a change of heart towards Mirza, taking up his case after he was blocked by Newham Council on Twitter following a years-long campaign of obsessively replying to every post by the Council with a stream of photos of fly-tipping sites. “You don’t have to like his politics,” Open Newham coyly opens “to know that Mehmood Mirza has been the most consistent and energetic campaigner against fly-tipping and rubbish in the borough”. How touching to see them offer support to a man whom, three years ago, they were not-so-implicitly accusing of antisemitism.

Chairs of West Ham and East Ham CLPs, Carel Buxton and Tahir Mirza, plus a couple of branch chairs, recently resigned from the Labour party announcing their intention to stand candidates again Labour in the local government elections in May, under the flag of ‘Newham Socialist Labour’.

Are the last of Sir Robin’s lieutenants intending to stand – or fall – with them?

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Now is the letter of our discontent

17 Dec

Five of the six declared applicants to be the next Labour candidate for Mayor of Newham have co-signed a letter calling for the NEC to let local party members have a say in the selection.

VERY URGENT

15 December 2021

The Party Leader,

The General Secretary

And

The NEC Members

Labour Party UK

Newham Mayoral candidate Selection Process for May 2022

We, the undersigned applicants for Labour candidate for Mayor of Newham, request the Party Leader, the General Secretary, and the NEC members of the Labour Party to open the Newham Mayoral selection process for members via open ballot.

Labour Party members in Newham should be allowed to participate in the ballots to democratically select their final candidate. We understand this may have to be based on 2018 membership
lists as this was found acceptable for the previous Mayoral selection process.

Membership irregularities of course have to be investigated but it is vitally important that the process has legitimacy, transparency and credibility in the eyes of the Newham public given the powers of the elected Mayor who they will be electing . This can be achieved whilst addressing the issue of membership irregularities via the alternative we suggest.

We also ask you to take into account the recent letter signed and sent by East Ham MP Stephen Timms and GLA member Unmesh Desai asking for the local membership to be given some say in how their representatives are selected

Yours sincerely,

Canidates (sic) to have declared intention to stand so far

The letter is then signed (if crudely cutting and pasting images of signatures can be called signing) by Ayesha Chowdhury, Unmesh Desai, Lester Hudson, Lakmini Shah and Syed Taqi Jawad Naqvi. There’s a space for Rokhsana Fiaz’s signature, but it is of course blank.

Is this a principled call for democratic involvement, or a cynical ploy to play up to certain elements within the local party? For sure, the five signatories know they have little chance of winning the selection if it’s left up to the NEC. Barring some outrageous scandal, the party simply isn’t going to ditch a BAME woman as candidate. So calling for an open vote makes tactical sense.

But, as the letter acknowledges, the two CLPS in Newham have been suspended for ‘membership irregularities’. The party has no confidence that current lists are accurate and there may be dozens – possibly hundreds – of fake members on the books. The solution suggested in the letter is to go back to 2018 and use those lists.

Why 2018? Well, that was when Rokhsana Fiaz was selected and if it was good enough then it should be good enough now, right?

Well, no. The idea of using old membership lists is problematic, for a number of reasons. Firstly, does the party have an accurate list of who was a member in Newham in 2018 or could it realistically re-create one? Even if it does (or could) a significant number of people will have left the party (voluntarily or otherwise) or moved out of the area in the meantime. So the NEC would have to remove them from the franchise, unless the candidates think people who are no longer members or don’t live in Newham now should be given a vote!

Secondly, what date in 2018 do you choose for the freeze date – the 1st of January, the 31st of December, or any of the 363 days in between? (I should declare an interest here, as I re-joined the party in March 2018 – should I get a vote or not?)

But the biggest problem is that going back to 2018 doesn’t ‘address the issue of membership irregularities’ at all. They did not suddenly spring up out of nowhere in 2021 – the likelihood is that they have been going on for years. And the NEC needs to take the time to address them properly, not in some half-arsed rush.

Of course Labour members should get a say in who their candidates are. But they are not being denied that in Newham because of an authoritarian NEC diktat but because of significant misbehaviour, which needs to be investigated and rooted out.

All of the five signatories of this letter are longstanding councillors or CLP officers. They of all people should want the problems sorted properly.

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Consolidation and concentration

11 Nov

Newham’s Labour group of councillors met on Monday evening, as they do before every Council meeting, in private. This is one of the few arenas where political disagreements can be aired and the Mayor can be challenged. Decisions are taken at Group and then in the council meeting itself the Labour position is whipped, so the public sees a (theoretically) united front. Given every councillor is Labour and there is no formal opposition party, this has the potential to be a a powerful body.

But the reality can be somewhat different, due to the patronage powers held by the executive mayor. Appointments to the executive – cabinet members, deputy cabinet members, commissioners – are entirely within the mayor’s gift. Those who hold these positions, and those who aspire to in the future, are heavily incentivised to back the Mayor in any vote where they have a strongly held view.

Most Labour Groups on other councils have observers from the local party to report back to members, but that doesn’t happen in Newham. Both local constituency parties are suspended and there has been no functioning Newham-wide Labour Party body since before the end of the Robin Wales era. There is no accountability to local members.

Monday’s meeting was well-attended, at least according to the participants list on Zoom, although only a minority had their cameras on. A number of ‘attendees’ were simultaneously at a GLA party in city hall in Southwark hosted by Unmesh Desai AM. I understand a room was set aside to allow partygoers to vote.

The agenda included some items of business left over from the Group AGM earlier in the year, including proposed rule changes to improve the independence of Group from the executive.

The first proposal was put forward by the Labour Group secretary Susan Masters. The amendment suggested a limit on the number of group officers – chair, secretary, treasurer, women’s officer, equalities officer etc – who also serve on the Council executive. This would be a progressive step away from the practice of the previous mayor, where Group was chaired by a ‘mayoral adviser’, whose career and pay was in the hands of the Mayor. So Labour Group business was rushed through before any time for dissent.

Although proposed by Cllr Masters, this idea had been discussed through a working party and appeared to be uncontroversial; there were no speeches against. But when the votes were counted the proposal was defeated. So the officers can continue to be entirely drawn from councillors whose livelihood is in the hands of the Mayor. If the proposal was so objectionable, why couldn’t those opposed to it put forward a single speech to explain why?

Next, Cllr Daniel Blaney proposed that deputy cabinet members (appointed by the Mayor and given £19,242 per annum as a result) should not vote in group elections for the chairs of council scrutiny committees. These are meant to hold the Council executive to account and, obviously, need to be entirely independent. The mayor and cabinet members already do not vote on nominations for scrutiny chair and Blaney’s amendment would have extended this.

During the May 2021 governance referendum the campaign to keep the mayoral model insisted that scrutiny was a crucial function that ensured proper checks and balances in the system, so there was no need to change things. This is obviously undermined if in practice the executive chooses the who does the scrutiny. The previous regime elevated this practice to an art form! [link: https://forestgate.net/2016/05/13/visions-of-scrutiny/%5D

Cllr Blaney, alongside his ally Cllr John Whitworth, was a prominent campaigner for the committee system last May. That Cllr Whitworth recently lost his role as scrutiny chair in a vote, including those cast by deputy cabinet members, is no doubt a coincidence.

There were a number of speeches against the amendment arguing that deputy cabinet members had so little influence it would be nice if they could vote in the scrutiny elections! If that is indeed the case, what it is that they do that justifies their generous special responsibility allowance?

Blaney argued this was obviously problematic because of the inflated number of jobs being handed out by the mayor and the role of patronage. It was, he said, reminiscent of the Robin Wales era, and a far cry from the promise of a smaller executive she made in her 2018 manifesto. To be fair to the mayor, it isn’t correct to say she has as big a ‘payroll vote’ as Robin Wales. Not quite.

Sadly, Blaney’s amendment was lost.

Finally, there was a proposal to add a new role to the Labour Group officer team: a ‘deputy leader’. But who would the deputy leader be? The leader is the mayor, a role she holds ex-officio under Labour Party rules. Does this mean the deputy mayor (who is appointed by the mayor) must be the deputy leader? Neither the proposer, the mayor herself, nor the seconder, deputy Mayor Charlene McLean, could say.

The Chief Whip, Cllr Anamul Islam, suggested that the matter be deferred pending clarification. He wanted confirmation first that this would be a new post elected by the group. The alternative would further entrench mayoral patronage in the Labour Group, adding another payroll vote to the officer team. However Cllr John Gray, group chair, said it had been proposed legitimately and would be voted on. Unlike the earlier proposals which sought to limit the power of patronage, this was successful.

At the end of the meeting the chair noted a request that Labour Group start meeting again in person. He suggested this would be perverse while councillors are working on a rota basis to attend Full Council in person. I think this is the right call, but the case for continued remote or hybrid meetings is seriously undermined when a number of councillors attend a busy indoor party while logging remotely into a meeting on their phones.

We will have an executive mayor for the next ten years (at least). But it won’t always be Rokhsana Fiaz. Councillors who voted to consolidate the patronage powers of the the mayor within Group may regret their decision if the next mayor – be that in May 2022 or 2026 – is a less benign figure. There are certain figures in the local party with aspirations for office who would not hesitate to use these powers to their advantage.

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Another view from the boundary

9 Jun

We’ve been here before, many times in the past ten years, but the Boundary Commission has published its initial proposals for new parliamentary constituencies. In theory, these will be in place for the next scheduled election in 2024, but it’s always possible Boris Johnson will cut and run early and the election will be fought on the current boundaries. So none of this may happen before 2028. Sigh.

If you’re interested, I blogged about the previous reviews in 2011, 2012, 2016 and 2018. Each of those put my own ward of Forest Gate North in a different seat: Stratford constituency; Bow & Stratford; Forest Gate & Loxford; and Leyton & Stratford. And we’re in yet another one this time!

The previous reviews were all premised on the Tory government’s promise to ‘cut the cost of politics’ by reducing the size of the Commons from 650 to 600 MPs. That has now been dropped.

If these proposals actually go through, they will be the first changes to Westminster constituency boundaries since 2010, and will see seats redrawn so they each have between 69,724 and 77,062 registered voters (with some exceptions such as island constituencies). It means, in practice, that England gains 10 seats while Wales loses eight and Scotland two; the north of England and Midlands will lose seats to the south. London gains two additional seats, meaning it will have 75 MPs.

The Commission has divided London into five sub-regions, one of which is Tower Hamlets and Newham. There are currently four seats across the two boroughs and the new arrangements will increase that to five (shown in bold below)

Newham and Tower Hamlets together have a mathematical entitlement to 5.02 constituencies. This pair of boroughs currently has four constituencies, but significant growth in the number of electors in this area means that all four existing constituencies are considerably above the permitted electorate range, and an additional constituency is allocated to the sub-region. This further supports our proposal for a constituency crossing the River Lee in this sub-region. We propose a Stratford and Bow constituency, which crosses the Lee between the Stratford and New Town ward in Newham, and the Bow East ward and Bromley North ward in Tower Hamlets. We note the significant transport links across the river here, including the A118 road, the Central underground line, the Docklands Light Railway, and national rail services, as well as pedestrian crossing points.

While there would be a degree of unavoidable disruption caused by the creation of an additional constituency, we have tried to preserve the four existing constituencies in Newham and Tower Hamlets as far as is practicable. Our proposed East Ham constituency retains eight wards from the existing East Ham constituency. The Beckton ward and Royal Docks ward are consequently included in our proposed West Ham and Beckton constituency. In Tower Hamlets, our proposed Poplar and Limehouse constituency retains nine of its existing wards and spans a similar geographical area, from the Isle of Dogs in the south, to Mile End in the north, and the Tower of London in the west. The areas of Bethnal Green, Spitalfields, Stepney, and Whitechapel then comprise our proposed compact constituency of Bethnal Green and Stepney.

Let’s look at the three seats that cover bits of Newham.

East Ham

Proposed East Ham constituency

The seat will, on December 2020 numbers, hold 70,902 electors within the present wards of Boleyn, East Ham Central, East Ham North, East Ham South, Green Street East, Little Ilford, Manor Park and Wall End.

West Ham and Beckton

West Ham and Beckton map

70,950 electors, across eight of the current wards: Beckton, Canning Town North, Canning Town South, Custom House, Plaistow North, Plaistow South, Royal Docks and West Ham.

Stratford and Bow

Stratford and Bow map

73,849 electors, across seven wards, of which four are in Newham: Forest Gate North, Forest Gate South, Green Street West, Stratford and New Town.

From Ridley Road in the east to the far edge of Victoria Park in the west is about 5 miles. It is the only constituency in London that crosses a river.

As we know, Newham’s internal ward boundaries are changing and if the Boundary Commission doesn’t want the complication of splitting individual wards across constituencies there will need to be some fiddling around on the margins, but given the constraints of electoral equality and fitting five seats across two boroughs I think this proposal will likely move forwards. 

If you want to submit a response to the Boundary Commission, you can do so at www.bcereviews.org.uk. 

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How Newham voted (part 3)

7 Jun

This time it’s the city-wide list vote. Across the borough as a whole Labour took 55.8%, the Tories 20%, the Greens 7.6% and the Liberal Democrats 3.5%.

Below is how the vote broke down between the four main parties in each ward (and among postal voters)…

WardLabourCons GreenLib Dems Others
Newham Postal Vote52.7%19.5%6.8%4.3%15.6%
Beckton48.1%22.7%7.3%3.4%15.6%
Boleyn57.4%19.4%5.8%2.8%10.6%
Canning Town North51.4%21.4%6.0%2.8%14.8%
Canning Town South46.3%22.2%8.9%4.2%15.5%
Custom House47.8%24.0%5.9%2.9%16.3%
East Ham Central55.3%22.9%5.1%2.5%9.0%
East Ham North61.1%20.1%3.6%1.6%9.3%
East Ham South54.4%21.5%5.3%2.7%11.9%
Forest Gate North51.4%13.5%15.3%3.1%13.8%
Forest Gate South57.0%14.7%9.8%2.8%12.9%
Green Street East59.8%19.8%4.0%1.8%9.0%
Green Street West58.7%21.2%4.9%2.0%8.5%
Little Ilford62.8%18.1%4.3%2.0%8.7%
Manor Park56.1%19.3%6.7%1.8%12.1%
Plaistow North57.3%18.1%7.0%2.2%11.4%
Plaistow South51.4%21.6%6.9%3.4%13.1%
Royal Docks47.8%20.0%10.5%5.8%13.6%
Stratford & New Town50.8%14.3%14.0%6.8%11.9%
Wall End61.6%19.5%4.1%1.8%8.9%
West Ham51.6%18.2%10.3%3.3%12.8%

Despite Little Ilford scoring the biggest pro-Conservative swing in the whole of London in the mayoral election it returned Labour’s best vote share in the Assembly list. The party exceeded 50% in 16 of the 20 wards and among postal voters.

The Conservatives placed second in 19 wards, with Forest Gate North being the exception. This was also the ward with the lowest Tory vote share – 13.5%. Their best result was Custom House, with 24%. As I noted in a previous post, Shaun Bailey ‘won’ Custom House in the mayoral election, so this is clearly a target ward for them (though the ward boundaries will be somewhat different for next year’s council election).

The Greens did best in Forest Gate North, taking second place with 15.3%. They also exceeded 10% in Stratford, Royal Docks and West Ham.

If the Liberal Democrats were looking for a good showing in their target wards in the north of the borough – they have hopes for the new Olympic Park ward – this will have been a disappointment. Although Stratford & New Town was their best result they still finished in fourth place with less than half the Green share of the vote.

How Newham voted (part 2)

26 May

A bit more on how Newham voted in the London mayoral election.

Turnout

Overall turnout was 38.6%, which is more or less par for local elections in the borough. The best turnout was among the 31,377 postal voters; 20,519 sent back their ballot (65.4%).

Highest on-the-day turnout was in Green Street East, with 41.2%. And the lowest was Beckon, where barely more than a quarter of voters (25.7%) took the trouble to cast a ballot.

First preferences

Labour took 50% or more of the vote in 11 out of 20 wards: Boleyn, East Ham Central, East Ham North, Forest Gate South, both Green Street wards, Little Ilford, Manor Park, Plaistow North, Stratford and Wall End. My own ward, Forest Gate North, fractionally missed the cut; Sadiq Khan scored 49.98% of first preferences

The Tories’ best result was in Custom House, where they actually “won” – 38.6% to 36.3%. They got 30% or more in five other wards: Beckton, both Canning Towns, East Ham South and Plaistow South.

The Greens best results were in Forest Gate North and Stratford & New Town wards, where they got 10.5%. They got 8.3% in Royal Docks.

Young YouTuber Niko Omilana came fourth across Newham with 4.2% of the vote. He scored especially well (6% or more) in East Ham North and the two Green Street wards.

The Liberal Democrats will probably be disappointed, coming fifth on first preferences with just 2.5%. They failed to hit 5% anywhere, including among postal voters. And, similar to the Greens, their best results were in Stratford & New Town and Royal Docks, where they got 4.6%. 

Second preferences

One explanation advanced for Sadiq Khan’s relatively poor showing, at least compared to the wider Labour vote, is that he was running against 19 opponents and the supplementary vote system allowed electors the option to register a protest vote or to vote for their genuinely preferred candidate, confident that their second preference would end up keeping the Tories out. And the data does support that, to some extent. 

Khan took 17,329 second preferences (25.4%), comfortably ahead of Sian Berry of the Greens (10,635, 15.6%) and Shaun Bailey (9,470, 13.9%). No-one else got above 8%.

11,972 voters gave no second preference.

Rejected votes

One of the more disappointing outcomes of this election was the high number of rejected votes, the vast majority of which were ‘over votes’ (voting for too many candidates) caused by really bad design of the ballot paper, There’s a great piece on this on the On London website.

Of the 87,189 votes cast in Newham a massive 5,533 were rejected because voters were confused by the ballot paper. 

Green Street East saw 11.5% of votes rejected for over-voting; Wall End and East Ham Central also had 10% or more of their votes discounted for the same reason. This is an absolute scandal.

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