Where do the candidates for mayor and council live?
You can see the whole map, including the colour key for the pins, on Batchgeo
Eight stages of loss
7 MayYesterday I blogged about the need for electoral reform in local government and mentioned an Electoral Reform Society paper, Towards One Nation: the Labour Case for Electoral Reform.
That features a chapter called ‘Too much of a good thing’ which looks at how ‘safe’ councils with overwhelming majorities for one party are eventually lost. It is worth quoting the section on the process of degeneration at length: long-term residents of Newham will be struck by a sense of familiarity:
1. Taking voters for granted. In an environment where 40% of the vote on a 30% turnout is enough to win a ward, and usually a substantial council majority, a dominant party does not have to be particularly good at contacting the voters in its core areas. Turnout in those areas will tend to fall and the party’s efforts will concentrate on squeezing the other parties out of their remaining footholds.
2. Autocratic style of government. The internal processes of debate and scrutiny on the council start to fail. When opposition parties become too small they will often fall short of the minimum size required to constitute a Group, and therefore lose administrative back-up for their activities. Small opposition parties will find it difficult to look beyond parochial ward issues and mount a full critique of the council administration. Official council business becomes formal, with decisions being taken at best at the majority Group level and often by a Cabinet or just a Leader, with the Group also acting as a rubber stamp.
3. Bad decisions. Concentration of power and a lack of scrutiny lead to bad decisions being taken, and an arrogant attitude towards people who question those bad decisions – be they from the small number of opposition councillors, the local media, independent local bloggers or from within the majority Group.
4. Splits in the ruling party. Factional differences within the majority Group become more common and more divisive, sometimes leading to formal splits with some members going Independent. Nature abhors a vacuum, and a party with a local monopoly on power will often end up manufacturing its own opposition.
5. Hidden electoral weakness. The lack of connection between the leadership of the council, and the lack of effort put into elections, leaves the council majority strong but brittle. Any crisis could trigger the coalescence of a local opposition movement and the lack of engagement with the electorate means that just by going out and listening to voters the new rivals will look good.
6. Electoral collapse. The result will tend to be a sudden and indiscriminate collapse of the previous majority party, and the replacement political force may not be a constructive alternative.
7. Incompetent local government. Electoral collapse will usually be followed by a chaotic period of poor local governance by inexperienced councillors.
8. Recrimination and scandal. Skeletons start falling out of the cupboard about prior errors and scandals during the period of complacency.
This pattern of events, even if not every step of the process takes place, is recognisable in several authorities where Labour had previously held overwhelming majorities on the council including Doncaster, Hull, Stoke-on-Trent, Burnley and Slough.
Newham is obviously now at stage 3. From what I hear, stage 4 may be imminent. Disaffected Labour councillors may not formally split off into an independent group, but Sir Robin is not universally loved even within his own party and infighting within the Labour group could lead to significant ructions.
What happens then is anyone’s guess. But it won’t be pretty.
Labour’s interests as a party – and our interests as residents – would be better served by this not happening.
As uncomfortable as it may be for Sir Robin, a democratic opposition exercising its proper function of scrutiny would help his administration deliver honest, efficient local government in our interests – particularly those most in need of high quality public services.
The winner takes it all
6 May
Agnetha is sad because her vote in the Newham council election will be wasted
If history is any guide, on 22 May the Labour party in Newham will win about 65% of the vote and 100% of the seats on the council.
Sir Robin and his band of merry men (and those closest to him are all men) will celebrate a great victory and carry on exactly as before.
The 35% who didn’t vote Labour will again have no voice and no representation. Sir Robin will face no tough questions, no challenge and no scrutiny from anyone who doesn’t already agree with him.
Does it really have to be this way?
As long ago as 1913 the Independent Labour Party, forerunner of today’s Labour party, argued that
“No system of election can be satisfactory which does not give opportunity to all parties to obtain representation in proportion to their strength.”
In January the Electoral Reform Society published Towards One Nation – the Labour Case for Electoral Reform [link downloads a PDF]. The report argues that by tolerating electoral deserts – places like Newham where there are no Tories, Lib Dems or Greens; as well as places where Labour itself has no voice – the party “is colluding in alienating people from political activity.”
Parties only have limited resources of finance and activism, and people understandably grow tired of throwing their money, time and effort at a hopeless cause. The more committed activists may be willing to travel to campaign in a marginal seat, but most people prefer to be active in their own community.
In Newham, I doubt this argument holds much sway. Who cares if the opposition are demoralised and frustrated? All the better for us!
But Sir Robin should beware.
Effectively locking a proportion of voters out of representation is bad not only on democratic grounds, but because the withering of opposition does not produce more wholesome politics.
Although Newham has so far been resistant to the far-right, you only need to look to what happened in Barking and Dagenham in 2006 to see the consequences of a complacent and neglectful Labour party with no traditional opposition voices: the election of 12 BNP councillors.
There is also the matter of good governance. As executive mayor Sir Robin has free rein over almost every significant area of policy. All that keeps him in check is oversight and scrutiny from councillors. But where all of those councillors come from the same party, what hope is there for genuine accountability? We know from experience the answer is ‘none.’
For 2014 we are stuck with ‘first past the post’ and the continuation of a one-party state. But a Labour government elected in 2015 could change things. And there is hopeful precedent:
Whenever the opportunity has arisen, Labour has recognised the importance of choosing fairer voting systems over First Past the Post. The first Blair government made a positive choice to endow new democratic institutions – both the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly – with electoral systems considerably fairer than Westminster’s. And in 2007 a Labour-led coalition introduced the Single Transferable Vote (STV) for local elections in Scotland.
Local government in England struggles with a huge democratic deficit: fewer than half the electorate bothers to vote; councils that should be the closest to and most engaged political institution with their communities seem remote; and there is little space for new and interesting voices.
The system is ripe for democratic reform and in Newham the need is urgent.
Fair and balanced
2 May
Despite the election, the council website continues to promote Sir Robin and his fellow Labour candidates
The small handful of residents that actually open the Newham Mag will have been surprised that the past two editions have been entirely free from pictures of Sir Robin Wales. This is because election rules require public authorities not to do anything that would appear to favour one candidate or party over another.
Strangely, that memo doesn’t seem to have reached the editor of the council website. The homepage continues to display a prominent picture of Sir Robin next to the caption ‘Meet the Mayor’. Clicking through takes you to a page with four more pictures of him.
The latest news section has a carousel of five pictures at the top, two of which feature the mayor. The picture accompanying the ‘Every OAP a ping-pong player’ story (shown above) also features several prominent Labour candidates for council.
But the council website is relatively restrained compared to the Newham Recorder. As an independent publication it is not bound by the election rules that constrain the Mag.
The three editions since the election was formally announced have featured Wales’ picture ten times. He’s been mentioned in stories sixteen times; the other candidates have been mentioned just once each, in a list.
The most recent edition even included a lengthy opinion piece by Sir Robin on why it is important we should vote, accompanied by a large photo of the man himself, just to remind you who it is you are meant to vote for.
The Recorder has pulled out all the stops to ensure maximum coverage for the man they know will be signing off the council’s advertising budgets for the next four years.
There’s nothing illegal about what the Recorder is doing, but readers are entitled to ask where the coverage is of the other candidates? If it’s important that we vote – and it is, it really is – then it’s vitally important that we make a properly informed choice.
Besides Sir Robin there are Tory, Liberal Democrat, Green, UKIP, Trade Unionist & Socialist Coalition, Communities United & Christian Peoples Alliances candidates for mayor. That’s quite a range of choices. Doesn’t the Recorder think its readers deserve proper coverage of all mayoral candidates, including opinion columns & pictures?
Local newspaper publishers have been vocal in calling for central government to get tough on council newspapers like the Newham Mag, which they characterise as ’town hall Pravdas’. Their case is undermined when supposedly independent papers like the Recorder fail to be, er, independent.
In the US the utterly biased right-wing ‘news’ channel Fox News has long used the slogan ‘fair and balanced’ to describe itself. The Newham Recorder should consider adopting it too.
Hat-tip to Mike Law for the stats on the Recorder’s coverage
A conversation with Hanif Abdulmuhit
29 AprFrustratingly WordPress won’t display embedded Storify content, so you’ll have to click the link below.
Apologies.
Manifesto, what manifesto?
28 Apr
So if Sir Robin was able to tell Labour members back in February what would be in the party manifesto for the local elections, why are voters still being kept in the dark?
With less than a month to go to polling day there’s no sign of it on the Newham Labour website. Where is it?
Sir Robin and – in all likelihood – his 60 councillor candidates will be elected in May. Shouldn’t we have some idea, beyond a few bland bullet points on a leaflet, what they plan to do for the next four years?
Other local parties have produced excellent manifestos, with detailed proposals. For example, Plymouth Labour Party and our neighbours in Tower Hamlets.
The difference is that those parties are in genuine contests where they are fighting for every vote; where there is competition between competing visions for the future of their areas.
But Newham is a one-party state and the local Labour party’s contempt for voters is staggering: they think it better we don’t worry our little heads about trivial things like policies and just gratefully vote them back into office.
Your council candidates
25 Apr
Across Newham there are 208 candidates standing for the 60 seats on the council. Broken down by party there are:
- Labour: 60
- Conservative: 60
- Christian Peoples Alliance: 55
- Liberal Democrats: 11
- Trade Unionist & Socialist Coalition: 8
- UKIP: 7
- Independent: 3
- Green Party: 2
- Communist Party: 1
- Communities United Party: 1
The candidates for the two Forest Gate wards are:
Forest Gate North
- Seyi Akiwowo – Labour Party Candidate
- Alan Charles Cooper – Green Party
- Lynn Denise Donaldson – Christian Peoples Alliance
- Christina Doyle – Christian Peoples Alliance
- Shaeb Khan – Conservative Party Candidate
- Dawn Lennon – Conservative Party Candidate
- Jane Alison Lithgow – Green Party
- Brian Maze – Conservative Party Candidate
- Christian Moon – Liberal Democrats
- Ellie Robinson – Labour Party Candidate
- Bob Severn – Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition
- Rachel Tripp – Labour Party Candidate
Forest Gate South
- Mahboob Rizu Ahmed – Conservative Party Candidate
- Asif Choudhury – Conservative Party Candidate
- William James Francis Heron – Liberal Democrats
- Niall Mulholland – Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition
- Dieutane Jean Parson – Christian Peoples Alliance
- Masihullah Patel – Labour Party Candidate
- Tim Roll-Pickering – Conservative Party Candidate
- Winston Vaughan – Labour Party Candidate
- Ionel Vrancianu – Independent
- Dianne Walls – Labour Party Candidate
- Malcolm Williamson – Christian Peoples Alliance
Your choice for mayor
25 AprThere are eight candidates standing for mayor of Newham:
- Lois Austin – Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition
- Alex Ocan Latim – Christian Peoples Alliance
- Jane Alison Lithgow – Green Party
- Kamran Malik – Communities United Party
- David Mears – UK Independence Party (UKIP)
- Stefan Mrozinski – The Conservative Party Candidate
- David Thorpe – Liberal Democrats
- Sir Robin Wales – Labour Party Candidate
One name obviously missing from that list is George Galloway. Despite his thunderous promises last year about a ‘Newham Spring’ that would sweep Sir Robin and his Labour administration from power, there is no Respect Party candidate for mayor. In fact there are no Respect candidates at all in any of the 20 wards.
As if it wasn’t already obvious, I think we can safely conclude that Galloway is a buffoon and a blowhard. Newham is far better off without him.
The full list of council candidates for each ward is on the council website.
Selling Newham by the pound
24 Apr
The pile of last-minute news stories pushed out by the mayor’s PR team just before the pre-election quiet period included the announcement of NewShare – an “innovative shared equity programme” aimed at helping
hard working Newham residents who may not be able to afford a large deposit or the costs of purchasing a property on the open market, buy their own home.
This Tory rhetoric is accompanied by some suitably Tory action: Sir Robin has awarded an exclusive contract to the private sector to market residential properties through this new scheme.
As the council spinmeisters put it:
Countrywide PLC is one of the largest estate agents in the UK … with a proven track record managing and marketing affordable home ownership programmes.
Countrywide will be the “sole point of contact” for people wanting to buy shared equity properties from Newham and they will
guide potential purchasers as to which product is most suitable for them in respect of their earnings and aspirations. Part of their role will be to ensure that whilst applicants are not overstretched, they do maximise the equity stake they can afford to buy.
There’s no mention of how much the shiny-suited wideboys are being paid for this service, but that sounds like an incentive to push people as far as they possibly can to raise maximum revenue. What could possibly go wrong?
But where exactly are these properties going to come from, given that there’s a desperate shortage of affordable homes in Newham and the council is already committed to building 3,000 homes and buying another 500 for its private rental business Red Door Ventures?
NewShare consists of three different housing offers … new homes built by the council, street properties acquired by the council and empty council properties. [my emphasis added]
Yes, the council is going to address its lack of social housing by selling off empty council houses. And then selling the new properties it builds. But it’s all okay because council tenants who buy into the scheme will free up their current home for someone on the waiting list. Ta da!
And if that’s not enough doublethink to convince you:
The scheme will also increase the total volume of affordable housing in the borough as for every three empty council properties which are transferred to the new scheme the council will be able to build or buy two further new homes to offer for shared equity.
In Newham two is a bigger number than three! Selling three homes and building two to replace them will increase the supply of affordable housing.
For your consideration…
23 Apr
The Left Vote has a list of Green and other left-of-Labour candidates standing in this year’s Newham mayoral and council elections:
Mayor:
Council:
- Boleyn: Ben Robinson (TUSC)
- East Ham Central: Helen Pattison (TUSC)
- East Ham North: Thennavan Keerthikan (TUSC); Rod Finlayson (Communist)
- East Ham South: Steve Hedley (TUSC)
- Forest Gate North: Jane Lithgow & Alan Cooper (both Green); Bob Severn (TUSC)
- Forest Gate South: Niall Mulholland (TUSC)
- Green Street East: Lois Austin (TUSC/SP)
- Green Street West: Mark Dunne (TUSC)
forestgatedotnet 