Tag Archives: Lakmini Shah

Party of one

13 Mar

Lakmini Shah's international women's day tweet with photo

Last Friday Newham council held what was billed as an event to celebrate International Women’s Day 2018. As the above picture shows, it wasn’t really women being celebrated.

The party was organised by Cllr Lakmini Shah.

For reasons that have not yet been properly explained, women councillors associated with Rokhsana Fiaz’s campaign were not sent invitations to the event until the very last moment – barely 24 hours beforehand.

That’s women councillors not being invited to a council-funded event celebrating women. But the very-definitely-not-a-woman Sir Robin was put front and centre (where else?).

I wonder what criteria Cllr Shah used to draw up the guest list? Sir Robin wouldn’t want to waste his valuable time during a tight re-selection battle chatting privately to just anybody.

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Vile and insulting

8 Mar

Image 2

Remember how Andrea Leadsom torpedoed her own bid for the Tory leadership when she said being a mother gave her “a very real stake in the future of our country,” in contrast to the childless Theresa May? Even Tory MPs described the remarks as “vile” and “insulting.”

Well evidently Cllr Lakmini Shah doesn’t.

In a call with a local Labour member, a recording of which I have heard, she says Rokhsana Fiaz doesn’t understand how important free school meals are because “she’s not married, she hasn’t got children, so she don’t know how hard it is for parents.”

Member: “Cllr Shah?”

Lakmini Shah: “Yes, it is.”

M: “Hi, yeah, I just spoke to you. Basically, I’m with my wife right now. And she’s saying, telling me to vote for Rokhsana, but I told her that, look, you know, they are going to scrap the free school meals. We’ve got two kids in school in, like, infants and one in nursery, so…”

LS: “Yeah”

M; “…but can you explain to her – I’ve put you on loudspeaker – can you just say what you said earlier…”

LS: “Okay”

M: “…about the free school meals?”

LS: “Okay. So Robin has had free school meals for children [pause] and that cost £3 million a year to the council. So Rokhsana says parents should be… because she don’t have children, she’s not married, she hasn’t got children so she don’t know how hard it is for parents. I’ve got three children and I know how hard it is to pay for school meals.

“So they, um, going to stop this free school meals to save this 3 million. I’m not sure if it’s 3 million or 6 million a year, I have to find that number out.”

This is absolutely outrageous.

Lakmini Shah isn’t just some random member canvassing votes for Sir Robin, she’s Cabinet Member for Work & Skills and Domestic Violence Prevention.

Sir Robin needs to take ownership of this and offer Rokhsana Fiaz a full and unreserved apology for what is being said by his campaign.

And Cllr Shah should resign as candidate for East Ham South. If she doesn’t, members should take the decision for her.

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Email alert

26 Jul

LakminiShah 2015 Nov 24

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…

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