We all remember the “Focus E15 Mothers’” Campaign during the 2014-2018 Council, particularly the occupation by the Campaign of a void on the Carpenters Estate.

Is it that councillors have so little to do that they are treating the council like a student union debating chamber? Debate is clearly important, but we are left with the impression that our current crop of councillors are more concerned with promoting their own virtuous credentials, or hearing their own voices, than they are with solving problems.

The July 2023 Labour Group meeting saw another motion that caused the mayor some concern.

Group members were invited to discuss a motion on bullying. It might be that this was intended as a wholly abstract discussion item. Or, it might have been that it was intended to highlight the impending report from the Standards Advisory Committee (SAC).

It seems that the criticism of Newham Labour councillors spurred a couple of them into action this week. Councillors Sasha Das Gupta and James Beckles tabled a motion at the monthly Group meeting.

It was entitled - “Motion 10: Draft Local Plan 50% Social and Affordable Housing”

It has been an open secret that the person behind this website is erstwhile councillor, Clive Furness. Over the past 24 months, he has been collaborating with the former mayor, Robin Wales on a separate project.

The fruits of their labours is the book, Left, Right, Wrong.

Talk is Cheap.

We must give a hat-tip towards Newham65 for this item.

They have discovered that the mayor’s commitment towards building new council homes is a bit fragile.

Labour now knows what opposition it faces in the two byelections, (full details below).

Boleyn clearly looks to be the more interesting race. Alongside Labour, the Conservatives, Lib-Dems and Greens are putting up candidates.

Readers will recall that Mayor Fiaz and her former Cabinet Member for Finance, Cllr Terry Paul have both lodged complaints with the Standards Advisory Committee.

Readers will be familiar with Mehmood Mirza. This former member of the Labour Party, and former constituency officer and former supporter of Mayor Fiaz, has been conducting a virtually single-handed campaign to clean up the borough.

We learn from the Newham website, that Mayor Fiaz is none too keen on housing asylum seekers in the Royal Docks. She echoes the statement from London Mayor, Sadiq Khan.

In the final minutes of the game, Jarrod Bowen secured the win for West Ham in the Europa Conference League.

The Guardian reported that Jamie Driscoll, a Tyneside Corbynista has been barred from the long-list of candidates for the prospective candidate for Mayor of the North East. An interesting decision given that Discoll is the current mayor for the North of Tyne area. It seems slowly the party machine is grinding its way through the remaining Corbynistas.

Haringey Council and former Newham councillor, Joe Ejiofor, has run into a bit of bother with the ombudsman. And the courts. And the police.

A reader suggested that we compile an index to assist readers interested in the career of Newham Mayor, Rokhsana Fiaz. We have put together a short index that will take readers to some of the highlights.

The Guardian reported that Jamie Driscoll, a Tyneside Corbynista has been barred from the long-list of candidates for the prospective candidate for Mayor of the North East.

A variety of political parties will be vying for the two seats, up for grabs in the forthcoming by elections. We thought that we’d like to take a look at how the various political parties advertise themselves.

We reported a year ago, on the increasingly nepotistic appearance of the Newham Labour Group, in the remarkable number of close relations on the council. Well, it seems that Labour has done it again.

Gone are the days when simple councillor, Fiaz could side with any protest group and lament the awful goings on under Mayor Wales. All that was needed was a change of mayor and all would be well. Councillor R Fiaz was clearly an ally of protesters and the Focus E15 Campaign in particular.

It may or may not be known to readers, but the ruling Labour Group collects subs from its members. These are not insignificant sums and are drawn down as a percentage of the councillors’ incomes from their work on the council.

Luke Charters and Cecelia Welsh are standing down, having served a full one year on the council.

After receiving over 200 applications from party members to stand for council, the Labour Party managed to interview almost a third of them and selected sixty plus, outstanding candidates to fight the seats for Labour in 2022.