Tag Archives: Sir Robin Wales

A place to live, work and stay

15 Jul

 

The Focus E15 mums decided to confront Sir Robin Wales at the Newham Show this weekend about his housing policies and what they see as the long-term social cleansing of the borough. It’s clear from the video that he’s not at all happy about it.

The mayor obviously doesn’t appreciate ordinary people using his expensively staged propaganda events to challenge his priorities.

A number of Labour councillors can be seen providing a human shield for the mayor. This must have been an uncomfortable experience for some of them. They stood for election in the genuine and sincere hope of improving the lives of Newham residents; now they find themselves confronted by people protesting against homelessness, high cost private rents and the prospect of being rehoused hundreds of miles away from their families and friends – causes that ought to be close to their hearts.

The confrontation was even reported in the Morning Star, which described it as

a testosterone-fuelled east London mayor squaring up to a young homeless mum campaigning for decent housing.

The Star reports that the protesters were subsequently forcibly ejected from the Newham Show:

A spokeswoman for the council argued that “officers took the decision to evict the group of protesters and political activists from the park as they staged an aggressive protest.”

It’s ironic that Sir Robin’s angry response to the protest is that it’s “a family day” when all that the Focus E15 mums want is to keep their families together in Newham. ‘A place to live, work and stay’, as the council’s own slogan has it.

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Where your councillors live

3 Jun

Councillors map

A map showing where the 60 Newham councillors (red) and the mayor (blue) live.

There’s a notable clustering in the north of the borough, with less than a third of them living south of Barking Road.

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Poodle

2 Jun

2014 06 02 08 45 00

I got back from holiday last night to find this waiting on my doormat. I gather a number of my neighbours have also received copies.

I’ve no idea who’s behind this, or the similar one that appeared just before the election, but they have quite an imagination!

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Four more years

23 May

Newham Labour M 004

Newham Labour is celebrating another four years for Sir Robin, despite a big drop in his personal vote compared to 2010.

The Conservatives’ Respect-a-like campaign brought them an extra 2% share, but at considerable cost to their credibility. Tory HQ is said to be investigating their candidate selections and election leaflets.

UKIP’s 3rd place is less alarming than it appears. They were a long, long way back and 6% of the vote is less than their London-wide average. Newham again proves it is blessedly resistant to the far right.

Jane Lithgow of the Greens will be as pleased with her 4% as Lois Austin will be disappointed with TUSC’s 2%.

It looks like the end of the road for the Christian Peoples Alliance. From 4th place to last and two-thirds of their vote vanished. They won’t be missed.

Talking of losers: the Liberal Democrats. Once upon a time they got people elected to the council; now they trail in 6th place with fewer votes than Kamran Malik.

Candidate Party 2014 2010 Change
Sir Robin Wales Labour 47,095 61.2% 64,748 68.0% -17,653 -6.8%
Stefan Mrozinski Conservative 13,976 18.2% 15,330 16.1% -1,354 2.1%
David Mears UKIP 4,960 6.4%
Jane Lithgow Green 3,055 4.0%
Kamran Malik Communities United 2,796 3.6% 6,607 6.9% -3,811 -3.3%
David Thorpe Liberal Democrat 1,757 2.3%
Lois Austin TUSC 1,708 2.2%
Alex Ocan Latim Christian PA  1,625 2.1% 6,503 6.8% -4,878 -4.7%
  Turnout 76,972 40.60% 95,194 50.40% -18,222 -9.8%

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Spot the difference

19 May

stefan mrozinski and robin wales

Here are ten policy statements. Five are from Sir Robin Wales, the “Labour” candidate for mayor, and five are from Stefan Mrozinski, his Tory counterpart. Can you tell who said what?

  1. Support the building of thousands of affordable family homes in Newham
  2. Getting a job is perhaps the best thing an individual can do to improve their long term health
  3. Offer free English language lessons to all Newham residents
  4. We need to do more to make our streets more pleasant and make our residents feel safer
  5. Stop any further betting shops opening in Newham
  6. Demand and expect more from people we previously thought unable to contribute
  7. We need more effective CCTV, dispersal orders that work and a no-nonsense approach to violent crime
  8. Provide a range of support to responsible residents
  9. Work relentlessly to support those who work hard, play by the rules and want to get on in life, irrespective of where they come from and where they grew up
  10. Health is not just about living longer, we also need to work to extend the length of good quality living

Not easy is it?

“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”

– Animal Farm, George Orwell

Sources: Mayoral election statements booklet; Newham Labour Local Government Manifesto; voteforstefan.co.uk; Conservative mayoral election leaflet

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Promises, promises

8 May

2014 manifesto cover

With just a couple of weeks to go until the election Newham Labour party has finally – after much prompting on social media – put its manifesto on its website.

It contains 18 “promises” of things Sir Robin will do over the next four years.

Download a copy so you can keep a careful eye out and see what he actually achieves. 

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Manifesto, what manifesto?

28 Apr

Manifesto meeting

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.

 

 

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Rob-o-cop

14 Feb

Rob-o-Cop

Prompted by stories about how Newham is setting its proverbial dogs on the borough’s homeless I made this.

Apologies for the crappy Photoshop, but it’s the best I can manage.

There’s an unpleasant whiff of machismo about the mayor and his attitude towards the poorest and most vulnerable members of our community.

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Image

16 shades of Robin Wales

25 Nov

16 shades of Robin Wales

The current issue of the Newham Mag contains an extraordinary 16 pictures of the Mayor.

Even by the Mag’s Pravda-like standards, this must be some kind of record.

Could there be an election coming up, I wonder?

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Sir Robin’s slightly more expensive iPad

1 Nov

Sir Robin Wales has been shamed into handing over an extra £79 for the iPad mini he received as a gift on his recent trip to China.

A Freedom of Information request by @StopCityAirport asking for the basis of the original £130 valuation received this response:

The initial £130 valuation was provided verbally to the Mayor’s Office based on a Council officer’s research of local equivalent prices. No documentation is held to support this initial valuation. The Mayor paid this amount and a declaration was made to reflect this, in line with the Council’s policies for the declaration of gifts and hospitality. When he did this the Mayor queried the amount and the methodology by which it was established and asked for an independent valuation to be undertaken via the Council’s Interim Monitoring Officer.

A revised valuation was provided by officers on the 18th September on behalf of the Council’s Interim Monitoring Officer of £209.62. The Mayor then paid in full the revised amount advised and the relevant declaration was amended to reflect this.

The revised valuation is now in line with the ex-VAT price of a 16GB, wifi-only iPad mini.

But if you believe the Mayor himself initiated the re-valuation or the date this is claimed to have happened you probably have fairies living at the bottom of your garden.

As with the Brighton College nonsense it is an unnamed official who is at fault for inaccuracies in the Mayor’s declaration of interests, not Sir Robin himself.

Even if this is true, it isn’t good enough: it is Sir Robin’s register of interests; they are his declarations of gifts and hospitality. He and he alone is responsible for ensuring they are accurate; he must be accountable when there are errors.

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