It was only two years ago that the Labour Party managed to hand-pick its councillors and return an obviously unpopular candidate as mayor.

Having alienated much of the Labour Group and become something of an embarrassment to Labour in London, we learn that Labour is about to take action.

Overall effectiveness : Inadequate

Leadership and management : Inadequate

Having been slammed in the local government review of her leadership and finding out that her budget has been wrecked with a £25 million pound overspend in temporary housing. It has been a bad two weeks for the Mayor of Newham.

In December 2003, the cabinet agreed to demolish 10 Victoria St, (Brimstone House) and rebuild on the same site.

The Labour Group has recently been lucky to have met twice. Amidst all of the items up for discussion, the looming financial crisis caused by a massive overspend on temporary accommodation was not mentioned.

Finding an extra £25m was evidently not of sufficient importance.

We have had a response to the inquiry about the publication of the Report for the Standards Advisory Committee. Readers will recall that the mayor and Cllr T Paul had an exchange of words back in December 2022. This resulted in cross-complaints and the local authority spent, we are told, a sum in the tens of thousands of pounds to investigate and make recommendations.

Readers will recall that Cllr Mirza and the Independent Group campaigned for a change of policy regarding the Stratford Village Market. They introduced an amendment to the budget to that effect.

While the mayor is recovering from the failure to get the Borough of Culture Award, the residents of Newham are still occupied with their everyday problems.

It was all high drama at the council meeting on 18th March 2024.

The Independent Group had submitted an emergency motion. The officers of the council, not apparently the politicians, took the view that the demand to publish the report into the behaviour of the mayor and councillors at the Budget Working Commission in December 2022 “was inappropriate and out of order”.

In the wake of the Report for the Standards Advisory Committee, which focused on the behaviour of the mayor at Scrutiny in December 2022 and the subsequent clash between her and Cllr Paul, the Independent Group have tabled an emergency motion seeking to have the report published. Details available on their Twitter/X page.

We have chosen to reflect upon the Peer Review 2023 and note that it illustrates a sea change when compared with the review undertaken a decade before. 

It’s so hard being a dinosaur. Keeping up with the changing trends in what is and is not acceptable is tiring. We have learned and internalised that the sexual objectification of women, at least by men is a modern sin. It seems that the sexual objectification of women by women is quite ok.

At the February council meeting, Cllr Josh Garfield stood up to speak on the budget debate. It is difficult to hear on the video, but it is very apparent that members of the audience saw fit to hiss and jeer at him.

It is evident that Mayor Fiaz is now struggling for her political survival. At the cabinet meeting on Tuesday 20th February she was planning to submit her budget plans for approval.

It seems that there has been some movement on the matter of the standards committee report. Readers will recall that Newham Council spent several tens of thousands of pounds of council -taxpayers’ money on an investigation into allegations made by Cllr Terry Paul, against the mayor for allegations of bullying towards staff and councillors.

We previously reported that a report was presented to the members of the Standards Advisory Committee at their scheduled January meeting. They, sensibly, decided that they needed more than a couple of minutes to go through the 100 plus pages.

For several years, a large building in Stratford has been the subject of considerable attention.

Residents, first in the form of the “Focus E15 Mums” and now simply the Focus E15 Campaign have petitioned the council about the state of the buildings.

It was only a couple of years ago that Newham was branded in My London as London’s dirtiest borough. However, it has recently trumpeted its spectacular improvement in reducing fly-tips.

My London reported that Lambeth (Lab) headed the league for traffic and parking penalties. They were followed by Westminster (Lab). Newham made a creditable showing, coming in third.

The £29 million that should come in will bolster the somewhat shaky budget.

There is a well-known phenomenon at Newham Council. Councillors have been kept in the dark until the date of a meeting and then had papers, numbering in the hundreds of pages, tabled for their consideration.

It seems that the bid to become the Borough of Culture has been strengthened with a new appointment to the bid team. The new appointee comes with a wealth of journalistic experience which seems to focus, almost exclusively on LBGTQAA+ issues.