Picture from NewhamLabourWTF (figures from 2015)
Following last week’s withering email from Dianne Walls, Sir Robin has finally found a willing dupe to respond. Step forward, mayoral advisor Councillor Lakmini Shah
Dianne,
I felt that I needed to reply to the email you sent following Monday’s Full Council, and given that you copied in all colleagues, I have done the same.
We have known each other a long time, and hope you will agree that by nature I try to solve problems rather than create them, and that much of my work has been to support other women and encourage them to get involved in politics and in the community.
As I recall Robin’s comments at the last council meeting, he praised Kay for resigning from the governing body and said it was the correct thing to do. I don’t recall any inappropriate comments that he made towards Kay to embarrass her.
I have experienced and noticed so much division, misinterpretation, accusations, disturbance and disagreements in a negative way in this administration amongst us Labour colleagues. Therefore the good work we want to do gets drawn into unnecessary arguments. The suggestion that Robin marginalises women is particularly unfair.
I felt that I need to break the silence and speak out and let some members know the struggles I had and the support I received to overcome them from Robin.
What follows is several paragraphs of pure Arslikhan: Sir Robin is portrayed as a heroic battler for women in general and Lakmini Shah in particular. It would take a heart of stone not to laugh out loud. For evidence of how Sir Robin doesn’t marginalise women, take a look at the gender pay gap among Newham’s councillors.
In my experience as a woman councillor, Robin has been entirely supportive – far more so than many of my female colleagues.
At which point she puts away her onion and gets to the real point:
With less than a year until the election we need to stop this back-biting and sniping and unite as one Labour team behind Robin.
As far as I can see, the sniping and back-biting is only coming from one direction…
