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Disappearing act
17 Jun
Photo by Karls Kamera
According to Wikipedia, the oozlum bird is a legendary creature found in folk tales that, when startled, will take off and fly around in ever-decreasing circles until it manages to fly up itself, disappearing completely.
After reading this account of goings-on within Left Unity and this piece on relations between them and TUSC I am pretty sure the definition applies equally to the hard Left.
30 years ago, when I was briefly a student member of the now utterly discredited and irrelevant SWP, it was much the same. Then it was ‘us’ versus the WRP, Militant, RCP, IMG and a whole alphabet soup of teeny-tiny groups, all arguing over paper-thin differences of interpretation of what Trotsky said at some conference in 1937. Like anyone cared.
Now it’s LU versus TUSC. And even worse, within LU itself, the ‘Socialist Platform’ versus the ‘Communist Platform’. The party is less than a year old and already it has a disputes committee. Does anyone think this sort of thing is remotely appealing to the rest of the world?
In the recent mayoral election TUSC got less than 2% of the vote, despite standing against a Labour incumbent with a depressingly right-wing record.
Unless and until the non-Labour Left gets its collective head out of its arse and focuses its energies on engaging real people in the real world about the real problems they face it’s doomed to decades more of irrelevance.
Money (that’s what I want)
13 Jun 
The best things in life are free, but you can keep them for the birds and bees
Details of the allowances paid to the mayor and councillors in the last financial year (2013/14) have been published in the ‘Summer Edition’ of the Newham Mag.
The Mag’s version of the table lists councillors in alphabetic order (except the mayor, obviously, who is always on top) and doesn’t include any totals. So it’s hard to see exactly how much is being paid and to whom.
I’ve taken the data, added up totals for each councillor and sorted them into rank order:
| Name | Basic* | SRA | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| RA WALES | 0 | 81,029 | 81,029 |
| AR BAIKIE | 10,734 | 31,042 | 41,776 |
| IK CORBETT | 10,734 | 31,042 | 41,776 |
| RJ CRAWFORD | 10,734 | 31,042 | 41,776 |
| U DESAI | 10,734 | 31,042 | 41,776 |
| CW FURNESS | 10,734 | 31,042 | 41,776 |
| LT HUDSON | 10,734 | 31,042 | 41,776 |
| C MCAULEY | 10,734 | 31,042 | 41,776 |
| A KELLAWAY | 10,734 | 26,901 | 37,635 |
| EH SPARROWHAWK | 10,734 | 22,765 | 33,499 |
| E ROBINSON | 10,734 | 22,720 | 33,454 |
| Q PEPPIATT | 10,734 | 18,624 | 29,358 |
| F HUSSAIN | 10,734 | 18,039 | 28,773 |
| RA MIRZA | 10,734 | 17,877 | 28,611 |
| RN MANLEY | 10,734 | 14,488 | 25,222 |
| AB MCALMONT | 10,734 | 14,488 | 25,222 |
| T PAUL | 10,734 | 14,488 | 25,222 |
| WT VAUGHAN | 10,734 | 14,488 | 25,222 |
| NJ WILSON | 10,734 | 14,488 | 25,222 |
| A SINGH | 10,734 | 10,347 | 21,081 |
| K SCORESBY | 10,734 | 9,362 | 20,096 |
| J ALEXANDER | 10,734 | 5,176 | 15,910 |
| F BOURNE | 10,734 | 5,176 | 15,910 |
| S BRAYSHAW | 10,734 | 5,176 | 15,910 |
| A CHOWDHURY | 10,734 | 5,176 | 15,910 |
| D CHRISTIE | 10,734 | 5,176 | 15,910 |
| R RAHMAN | 10,734 | 5,176 | 15,910 |
| L SHAH | 10,734 | 5,176 | 15,910 |
| J GRAY | 10,734 | 3,621 | 14,355 |
| PW SCHAFER | 10,734 | 3,449 | 14,183 |
| S AHMAD | 10,734 | 0 | 10,734 |
| PM BRICKELL | 10,734 | 0 | 10,734 |
| L CAMERON | 10,734 | 0 | 10,734 |
| NK CHADHA | 10,734 | 0 | 10,734 |
| AA CHAUDHARY | 10,734 | 0 | 10,734 |
| B COLLIER | 10,734 | 0 | 10,734 |
| MS COLLIER | 10,734 | 0 | 10,734 |
| JH CORBETT | 10,734 | 0 | 10,734 |
| C FIBERESIMA | 10,734 | 0 | 10,734 |
| O GANGADHARAN | 10,734 | 0 | 10,734 |
| A GRIFFITHS | 10,734 | 0 | 10,734 |
| PM HOLLAND | 10,734 | 0 | 10,734 |
| KJ JENKINS | 10,734 | 0 | 10,734 |
| KR KAZI | 10,734 | 0 | 10,734 |
| JH LAGUDA | 10,734 | 0 | 10,734 |
| S MAHMOOD | 10,734 | 0 | 10,734 |
| C MCLEAN | 10,734 | 0 | 10,734 |
| P MURPHY | 10,734 | 0 | 10,734 |
| F NAZEER | 10,734 | 0 | 10,734 |
| FA NEKIWALA | 10,734 | 0 | 10,734 |
| M NICHOLAS | 10,734 | 0 | 10,734 |
| M PATEL | 10,734 | 0 | 10,734 |
| S PATEL | 10,734 | 0 | 10,734 |
| G PEARSON | 10,734 | 0 | 10,734 |
| P SATHIANESAN | 10,734 | 0 | 10,734 |
| PJ SHILLINGFORD | 10,734 | 0 | 10,734 |
| MM SKYERS | 10,734 | 0 | 10,734 |
| R TALATI | 10,734 | 0 | 10,734 |
| A TAYLOR | 10,734 | 0 | 10,734 |
| S THOMAS | 10,734 | 0 | 10,734 |
| H VIRDEE | 10,734 | 0 | 10,734 |
| Totals: | 644,040 | 560,700 | 1,204,740 |
*net of £95 deducted at source for home use of a council-supplied computer and data registration fee
A few things worth noting:
- 29 out of 60 councillors received some kind of ‘special responsibility allowance’ on top of their basic
- The top 10 recipients of council cash, including the mayor, were all men
- Only one woman, Forest Gate’s Ellie Robinson, is in the top 20 earners from councillor allowances
- Of the 29 councillors with ‘special responsibilities’, just 6 were women
- Including the mayor, 14 elected members got more in allowances than the average Newham household income
- Prior to the change to the mayoral system in 2002 councillors received a basic allowance of just £533 a year
There has as yet been no public announcement about the allowances to be paid to the cabinet members and mayoral advisors Sir Robin has appointed following his re-election, but you can bet that they won’t be stinting themselves.
Public service can be so rewarding.
World in motion
12 Jun
The Guardian’s football writers have made their predictions for the World Cup. Here are mine:
Who will reach the final?
Brazil will play Argentina.
Who will win? Who knows, but it will be a cracking match.
Who will be the leading scorer?
Karim Benzema – France
The French have a straightforward group in which they will score a lot of goals. They stuffed Jamaica 8-0 in their final warm-up game and look to have a settled, happy group of players, all pulling together. The decision to leave the disruptive Samir Nasri behind will pay big dividends.
Who is the player to watch?
Angel Di Maria – Argentina
His performances for Real Madrid at the end of the domestic season put higher profile team-mates like Gareth Bale and Cristiano Ronaldo in the shade. Reproducing that form will be key to Argentina’s chances of winning the tournament.
How far will England go?
Out in the group stages. Obviously I hope I’m wrong, but I can’t see them winning a single game.
Most looking forward to
Seeing how far Belgium can go.
They have a really good squad, with quality all over the pitch: Courtois, Alderweireld, Kompany, Van Buyten, Vertonghen, Chadli, Dembélé, Fellaini, De Bruyne, Hazard, Januzaj, Lukaku, Mirallas. They could be the surprise package of the tournament.
Least looking forward to
The inevitable tabloid monstering of Roy Hodgson after England limp out. And getting up in the mornings.
Robin Wales on Radio 5
10 JunIn the wake of Michael Gove’s call for schools to teach ‘British values’ the mayor was invited onto Radio 5 to discuss the matter with Shelagh Fogarty.
This is what he had to say:
No social housing please, we’re Newham
10 Jun
Sir Robin meets a developer who’d rather pay cash than provide social housing
Back at the end of March I submitted a Freedom of Information request to Newham council about the amount of new housing built in the borough since the award of the 2012 Olympics:
Since 6th July 2005 to today’s date:
1. How many dwellings have been built in Newham by private developers?
2. How many of these have been added to the borough’s social housing stock through section 106 agreements?
For both questions, please provide total figures for the borough and a breakdown by ward.
For the purposes of this question, a dwelling means a self-contained unit of accommodation. Self-containment is where all the rooms (including kitchen, bathroom and toilet) in a household’s accommodation are behind a single door which only that household can use.
The due date for a response was 30 April, three weeks before the local elections.
I finally got an answer on Friday, two weeks after the election (make of that what you will). It makes for some pretty dismal reading:
| Ward | Housing completions from all sources | Of which built for social rent (of which delivered through a S106 agreement) | Of which built as Council social rented stock |
|---|---|---|---|
| Beckton | 467 | 33 (23) | – |
| Boleyn | 83 | 2 | – |
| Canning Town North | 538 | 113 (93) | – |
| Canning Town South | 1882 | 158 (153) | – |
| Custom House | 196 | 78 (33) | 6 |
| East Ham Central | 175 | 34 | – |
| East Ham North | 132 | 16 (9) | 7 |
| East Ham South | 66 | 12 | – |
| Forest Gate North | 299 | 76 (61) | – |
| Forest Gate South | 378 | 49 (2) | – |
| Little Ilford | 131 | 11 (10) | – |
| Green Street East | 105 | 0 | – |
| Green Street West | 249 | 40 (26) | – |
| Manor Park | 124 | 6 | 2 |
| Plaistow North | 426 | 220 (38) | – |
| Plaistow South | 184 | 9 | 1 |
| Royal Docks | 552 | 95 (16) | 6 |
| Stratford and New Town | 2292 | 475 (363) | – |
| Wall End | 47 | 0 | – |
| West Ham | 361 | 156 (85) | – |
| Total | 8687 | 1583 (912) | 22 |
(all figures are no. of units)
The council’s Core Strategy document says, on the subject of affordable housing:
The Council will ensure that our communities are places where residents can afford to live, and are adaptable to their changing economic circumstances.
To achieve this we will:1. Aim to ensure 50% of the number all new homes built over the plan period [2004 – 2013] are affordable;
2. Seek all new developments or redevelopments on individual sites with capacity for 10 units or more to provide between 35-50% of the number of proposed units affordable housing, comprising 60% social housing
On the basis of the figures provided to me, that’s a big fat fail. Why haven’t developers been required to stick to the plan? Why are blocks of apartments being built that can be advertised to overseas ‘investors’ as ‘100% private; no social housing’?
In recent years Newham has received millions of pounds from central government in new homes bonus and next to none of this has been spent on housing, despite the acknowledged need for more affordable housing in the borough.
Newham has also been handed millions in payments from developers in lieu of social housing provision where “exceptionally” it has been judged impractical to provide it.
Hopefully (I’m not holding my breath) our newly elected local councillors will ask the questions residents want answered: where are the affordable homes we desperately need and where has the new homes bonus and S106 money been spent?
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