Our man with a finger on Council Leader Chris Robbins’ pulse reports as follows:

‘When some weeks ago Chris Robbins put his name to a petition got up by Labour councillors calling on Jeremy Corbyn to resign, he must have thought it was only a matter of time before the Labour Leader was toast, and, with a replacement appointed, his own quest for a knighthood would be back on track.

Subsequently, his hopes no doubt rose further because the emerging challenger, Owen Smith, seemed to share Robbins’ flexible approach to politics, selling himself as a lefty in the hope of impressing the Corbynistas who have taken over the Labour Party, whilst downplaying his previous employment as a corporate lobbyist and fan of Tony Blair. Like Robbins, his overriding philosophy often appeared to be most about the advancement of himself.

However, now that the re-election of Corbyn is looking all but certain, Robbins heart must be sinking, particularly as the BBC quotes the bearded one as saying: “I do not believe in honours for politicians who are in office because I believe to be in office, to be elected, to be in Parliament, to account to everyone else, is honour itself”. How Robbins must long for a Labour Leader with the same casual approach to honours as David Cameron, a man who has no problem proposing an OBE for Sam Cam’s taxpayer-funded stylist, and given the chance, no doubt something too for Larry, the No.10 cat.

Meanwhile, Town Hall insiders continue to despair that while Robbins always comes alive when discussing plaques with his name on, family fun days, and Union flags on every public building, he ostensibly shows little enthusiasm for anything else.

Yet with the Corbyn ascendancy still to peak, it looks like this situation is unlikely to be resolved any time soon’.

PS A favourite picture of the man himself (back right): with ‘friends’ like these….

I hear from a number of sources that, as Corbynistas increasingly dominate the local Labour Party, thoughts are turning not just to the de-selection of one or more local MPs, but also to the de-selection of councillors.

Whether any such thing will happen is a moot point. There are certainly some on the Labour benches who have contributed little or nothing, and richly deserve to be replaced. But the Left’s fixation with ideology (and penchant for allied witch-hunting) makes it inherently disputatious, and subject to often vicious arguments – a characteristic that has historically limited its ability to get anything much done. It is quite easy to envisage a scenario where the ranting yet largely incompetent predators are outfoxed by their wily prey.

However, let us imagine for a moment that the Corbynistas achieve a council dominated by their own. What will happen next?

The omens are not good. All councils are tightly constrained nowadays, with little room for experimentation. In addition, the Left’s track record in local government does not exactly inspire confidence. Indicatively, some of those who are now most vocal about the need for principle in politics were only yesterday praising Lutfur Rahman’s administration in Tower Hamlets!

So it is quite possible that, when push comes to shove, what transpires is an outbreak of gesture politics – the Palestinian flag flying over the Town Hall and so on – plus a few policies designed to appease the voices of the politically correct middle-classes, and little else.

One unsavory and out of touch cabal will have been replaced by another.

But let’s give the Corbynistas the benefit of the doubt, and assume they really do want to fashion a new politics in the borough. What does that mean in practice? Up to now little seems to have been said on this subject, so to get the ball rolling, here is my own none-too-sophisticated list of actions that are a must:

1.Decentralise Town Hall decision-making

The current ‘strong leader’ system concentrates power, encourages patronage, and marginalises those members outside the Cabinet. Get rid of it, and re-introduce the committee system. This will engage almost every councillor rather than a few, spread responsibility, purposefully integrate the opposition, and result in issues being debated on their merits, not on partisan instructions from above.*

2. Actively discourage organised Town Hall factions based upon religion or ethnicity

Obviously necessary for the sake of openness and transparency, but not what goes on now.

3. Reinforce scrutiny

The committee structure will help here, but the importance of scrutiny also needs to be underlined to officers of all grades. The scrutiny investigation of Worknet (see link below) was torpedoed partly because officers dodged attending to answer questions. That is unacceptable.

4. Pledge to make senior appointments fairly and on merit

Banish the days when a single candidate, favoured by the ruling party, could show up for a job interview and be appointed. Rigorously act against cronyism and the old pals’ act.

5. Make councillors reveal more about themselves

We need to know more about councillors’ affiliations and sources of income and wealth, so that we can be sure that they are working for us, not someone else. Why, for example, shouldn’t councillors tell us (as they once did) the outside bodies that they are members, or supporters, of?

6. Move away from spin and PR, and actively cultivate transparency

In the last ten years the council has become wedded to spin. There is now a relentless concentration on ‘good news’ – whether merited or not – and a refusal to acknowledge mistakes. The impact on the ground? Too often, a weary cynicism: ‘we’ve heard it all before’. Honest communication is not only right in itself, but can help create the kind of fruitful partnerships – for instance between the Council and the third sector – which will benefit us all.

7. Get rid of WFM and use the local paper for statutory announcements

Follows from 6. And NB good local papers – independent and inquisitive, on-line or in print – remain an essential component of a healthy local democracy.

8. Return ward forums to their original purpose

I’ve written previously about the unwelcome transformation of ward forums and their increasing domination by councillors (see link below). Reverse the trend completely. In other words, return ward forums to their original purpose – a place where citizens and their elected representatives meet together as equals to discuss local issues.

9. Terminate the E11 BID Co.

The E11 BID Co. symbolises everything that is wrong with LBWF’s recent trajectory – a private ‘business’ body, feted by the great and good, that is showered with public money, but is then revealed to be chaotically run, remise about paying its taxes, and apparently incapable of convincingly explaining what it has achieved. Bin it.

10. Actively address poverty

The local Left has a propensity to drone on about inequality, but when it comes to practical measures which address poverty, its silence tends to be deafening. The consequences are there for all to see. Take South Leytonstone. In the last few years, LBWF has decimated the Children’s Centre, closed the associated food bank, and shut our branch library, with barely a squeak of opposition from either the Labour branch or our Labour councillors. Meanwhile, large sums of council money continue to be frittered away on a series of pointless ‘festivals’ and firework displays. Those spending priorities need to be exactly reversed.

The bottom line, in my view, is that Labour needs to return to the values that helped it gain control of London boroughs in the first place – primarily, a concern with probity in all matters of process; a commitment to advancing democracy, and therefore behaving honestly and openly; and a determination to actively help the less well off.

It will be interesting to see how the Corbynistas measure up. Will they be brave enough to grasp the nettle?

* http://www.lgiu.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Changing-to-a-committee-system-in-a-new-era.pdf

There is a long article in today’s New Statesman about Dr. Stella Creasy’s recent visit to the Calais refugee camp:

http://www.newstatesman.com/world/europe/2016/09/calais-stella-creasy-how-politicians-are-trying-change-refugee-policy

For sure, there will be the usual accusations that this is another example of her penchant for grandstanding.

But I doubt if such comment is fair.

Dr. Creasy has her failings, as I have suggested before, not least her silence on a whole slew of local Town Hall scandals.

But no-one can reasonably contest her strong commitment to helping the less well off, or her bravery in standing up to online bullying.

It says a lot about Momentum that its members are regularly discussing how to de-select Dr. Creasy, while remaining largely silent about Leyton and Wanstead MP John Cryer (‘Sleeping John, as he has become known locally), whose record inside and outside Parliament is inferior, and who commutes into the borough from South London.

In recent weeks, various commentators on social media have questioned why a Pakistani preacher called Muhammad Hassan Haseeb ur Rehman has been allowed into Britain to tour mosques.*

For Muhammad Hassan Haseeb ur Rehman is a fervent supporter of Mumtaz Qadri, and the latter is a very controversial figure indeed.

The story starts in 2011. Qadri was a policeman guarding the liberal governor of Punjab, Salman Taseer, when one day he shot him dead. Quadri’s motive was straightforward: he abhorred the fact that Taseer had advocated the reform of Pakistan’s strict blasphemy laws.

Subsequently, Quadri was tried and executed, events that for some have made him a martyr, a man who has given his life defending Islam from its enemies.

Reflecting on these facts, I wondered whether Muhammad Hassan Haseeb ur Rehman planned to visit Waltham Forest as part of his current tour.

It turns out that, as far as I can see, he did not.

But a quick Google search shows that he has been here previously, speaking at Leyton Mosque in 2015, and the Lea Bridge Rd. mosque in 2015 and 2014.

Salman Taseer’s son, Shahba, quite understandably wonders what on earth is going on: ‘These people teach murder and hate. For me personally I find it sad that a country like England would allow cowards like these men in. It’s countries like the UK and the US that claim they are leading the way in the war against terror [and] setting a standard. Why are they allowing people [in] that give fuel to the fire they are fighting against?’.

His views demand respect.

But leaving aside arguments about government policy, what of the mosque officials who again and again have allowed Muhammad Hassan Haseeb ur Rehman a platform?

Waltham Forest councillors, council officials, and boosters from other faiths take such people seriously, and do business with them, even promote them.

Perhaps it is time for a re-think?

* See for example:

http://hurryupharry.org/2016/08/18/red-carpets-red-lines/

Two recent media stories again underline the extent and pernicious nature of the religious extremism which currently permeates Waltham Forest.

In early October, the estimable Evening Standard journalist David Churchill reported that a booklet ‘which says “any Muslim should kill” those who insult the Prophet Mohammed’ had allegedly been distributed at the Dar-ul-Uloom Qadria Jilania mosque in Walthamstow, prompting a police investigation.

A few days ago, the blog Harry’s Place revealed another facet of the extremism – virulent sectarianism directed towards Ahmadis.

It had discovered that at the same Walthamstow mosque, and again in October, a rally was held in support of an organisation called Khatm-e-Nubuwwat.

The significance of this is that the latter, according to Harry’s Place, is a ‘vicious Pakistani movement dedicated to inciting hatred against Ahmadi Muslims’, and one that has ‘an extensive, energetic, sinister and increasingly worrying UK network’.

For the full stories, see here

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/leaflet-handed-out-at-east-london-mosque-tells-muslims-to-kill-all-who-insult-the-prophet-a3363446.html

and here

http://hurryupharry.org/2016/10/24/shahid-raza-naeemi-the-muslim-council-of-britain-and-political-fraud/

One notable fact about Waltham Forest politics is that the Conservatives have very little public presence. The party’s 16 councillors huddle in Chingford and its immediate environs. At elections, little effort is expended anywhere else. Between times, while public controversies come and go, it is difficult to recall a singe example of a significant Conservative or Conservative-led response. Symptomatically, as regards the serious matters covered by this blog – mismanagement of public funds, asbestos, religious extremism, and so on – the Conservative silence has been deafening.

Indeed, as a group, the Conservative councillors (with only one or two exceptions) seem inward looking and complacent, exchanging in-jokes and banter, while loath to do the leg-work necessary to effectively confront their opponents. There is no spark, nor willingness to fight. It is as if all concerned have accepted their fate.

What explains this striking passivity? It is not as if the opportunities have been lacking. In fact over the past decade, Labour’s haplessness can only be called remarkable. So there must be some other explanation.

Over the years I’ve heard various theories. Some blame the baleful effects of immersion in Town Hall culture, others the influence of some shadowy organisation, beyond politics, on the lines of the Masons. However, in my view, the explanation is a good deal more prosaic, and stems from the simple fact that – perhaps surprisingly – the current arrangement suits most of those involved quite nicely.

Matt Davis, as the Leader of the Conservatives, receives £16,516 on top of his basic allowance of £10,322, and makes no secret of the fact that he has another demanding job, which involves regular trips overseas. His party enjoys the privileges of being the official opposition – for instance the services of a researcher. There are occasional further perks. For instance, this year, Labour momentarily set aside its longstanding policy of wanting to dominate everything, and allowed the Conservative Peter Herrington, a noted Davis loyalist, to become Mayor.

On the Labour side, the advantages are obvious: with the Conservatives tamed, there is no danger of being pursued with difficult or probing questions.

So, all told, though everyone in the Town Hall may have to trim a bit, this is seen as a price well worth paying to preserve the benefits of the status quo.

Of course, that said, there is one big loser – the electorate. We pay councillors to stand up for our interests, and challenge vigorously when merited. If I am right, and both parties are colluding in some sort of informal pact, we are being grossly short-changed.

Like many people who have followed Waltham Forest politics over a number of years, I often wonder what the Labour administration in the Town Hall imagines is its overall purpose, its mission in life.

Two recent developments have increased my sense of bafflement.

Let’s start with an issue that directly impacts on the borough’s poor.

Until 2013, every household in England struggling with low income or on benefits was part of the centrally administered Council Tax Benefit (CTB) scheme, and as a result was exempt from council tax.

Subsequently, the government has replaced this system with the Council Tax Support scheme (CTSS), which is administered by councils, and means tested.

What happens is that councils annually decide how much they will provide to help out the working-age less well-off, and exactly who will be included in the scheme, with one of the key determinants of the latter being accrued savings (in other words, there is a savings bar, and if you have more than that sum, you don’t qualify).

So much for the background: what happens in practice?

Unsurprisingly, the more socially-conscious councils are (a) providing sufficient monetary support from their budgets to wave all or a large percentage of the council tax levied, and (b) setting their savings bars fairly high, so that a large proportion receive support.

Elsewhere, however, councils are being far less generous, insisting that much higher percentages of council tax are paid, whatever the consequences.

And amazingly, Labour LBWF turns out to be in the latter camp, as the following table, with neighbouring inner-city Hackney and outer-London Redbridge added for comparison, demonstrates:

(Source: http://counciltaxsupport.org)

What this means in practice is that the 15,243 people in LBWF who receive CTSS this year are paying on average £250 more than if CTB was still in existence, a sum that markedly contrasts with the equivalents for both inner-London boroughs as a whole, £142, and outer-London boroughs as a whole, £145.

 That is one development. The other is equally perplexing.

Up to 2014, our councillors were eligible to join the Local Government Pension Scheme, but from that date onwards, the rules were changed, leaving them on their own.

Now, however, they are contemplating introducing a wholly new scheme, with an 11.3 per cent contribution from the Town Hall budget.

The details are still being worked out, but the cost estimates for the first three years range from £140,000 to £900,00, and that appears to be net of the substantial legal fees necessary to set the scheme up.

Needless to say, the paper presented to the Audit and Governance Committee on 29 September 2016, where these ideas were first discussed, did its best to justify them by tugging at the heartstrings. The job of being a councillor, it was said, had become more and more complex and broad over the years. Some councillors devoted 20 hours per week to council business, though it was apparently ‘demonstrable’ that ‘the amount of work now undertaken for the Council by a great many Members is equivalent to that of officers [emphasis added]’. It was argued, too, that providing a pension would ‘promote diversity and better representation’, in particular by opening the way for ‘people from lower income backgrounds…to serve their community’.

Such arguments in theory have a degree of merit, yet as deployed here they are unconvincing. None of the component assertions are supported by Waltham Forest-specific data. Moreover, there is an obvious degree of exaggeration. As anyone who deals with councillors on a regular basis knows full well, while some work diligently for the public good, there are others who leave e-mails unanswered, fail to turn up at community meetings, shun any kind of training, and remain woefully ill-informed about local affairs. Finally, the paper overlooks the very obvious fact that councillors currently receive quite generous allowances, and can, if they so wish, set aside some of this money to help provide for their eventual retirement, in much the same way as many other people do.

In addition, there is also the by no means insignificant matter of context. Much of the electorate is having to re-adjust to the world of austerity.  Some are struggling. Is this really the right time for those in the Town Hall to award themselves what is, in effect, simply a perk?

I am aware that this post makes gloomy reading. But I must also acknowledge that there is one chink of light. Previously, I have sometimes been critical of the Labour rank and file for failing publicly to criticise the antics of its leaders. However, as regards the CTSS, I can have no complaints. Two motions passed by the Leyton and Wanstead Constituency Labour Party rehearse the recent sorry history of this benefit; reveal that some in the administration want the minimum council tax paid to rise to an eye-watering 40 per cent in 2017-18; and end by calling for an urgent re-think.

I understand that at the well attended meeting where these were discussed, the voting was overwhelmingly in favour.

Indeed, there were only two votes against.

And guess what? They came from Councillors Loakes and Pye.

A couple of weeks ago, one of my neighbours showed me the letter pasted below.

The story it relates to begins some months ago.

LBWF announced that it wanted to place a cycle storage pod in Odessa Rd., and contacted 100 households living on both sides of the road near the proposed site in order to get their response.

As the letter reveals, 12 households replied, and of those, the (albeit narrow) majority were against.

At that point, LBWF could have gracefully admitted defeat.

But what it actually did – as the letter candidly admits – was fiddle the figures.

Outside of the consultation, some residents had apparently written in asking for a pod. Never mind that the point of the consultation was a way of settling the matter fairly, with everybody given an equal opportunity to express their opinion in a structured and transparent process, or that (even more significantly) some of the correspondents did not even live in Odessa Rd. What LBWF did was simply lump together the ‘for’ votes in the consultation with these other expressions of support, and declare a victory.

Odessa Rd. now has its pod.

The second part of the letter is equally disturbing.  Council tax payers need to be able to assess how their money is being spent. Yet when questioned LBWF bluntly states that, though its managing agent monitors the pod’s usage, ‘we do not publish this information’ – as arrogant and unhelpful an answer as it is possible to give.

Mini-Holland in general may or may not be a good thing. There are many competing claims, with most seemingly dependent on assertion rather than evidence.

But one thing is for sure: if this is the way that LBWF is proceeding across the borough, then it is without doubt a public disgrace.

Several well-placed Town Hall sources tell me that, yes, it is finally true: Council Leader Chris Robbins is standing down, perhaps by Christmas, certainly by next May.

Robbins has always been nervous around selection time, looming now, but in the past, he was at least able partly to control the process. However, with the influx of new members, Waltham Forest Labour is now a rather different kettle of fish. It is a reasonable assumption that most of the recruits are left-leaning, if not actually Corbynistas, and few will have much time for Robbins’ top-down’ style of managing colleagues or his flexible politics. So it is a case of better go now than risk the ignominy of de-selection.

Plus it is rumoured that City Mayor Khan has offered Robbins the prestigious role of F and F tsar – the man charged with looking after London’s flag poles and firework displays – and who could turn that down? A square peg finally finds its rightful square-shaped hole.

So what of the succession? The pool of talent in the Labour Group is not exactly extensive.

However, I phoned my bookmaker this afternoon, and was quoted the following odds for those who are known to be contemplating standing:

Cllr. Nadeem Ali 5500-1

Cllr. Gerry Lyons 150-1

Cllr. Alistair Strathern 25-1

Cllr. Clare Coghill 25-1

With the exception of that for the jocular Cllr. Ali, these prices will no doubt narrow as more becomes known of each candidate. One fly in the ointment is that all the front-runners have at least one or other obvious handicap. Cllr. Lyons is personable, and will probably receive the support of Momentum, but though he is strong on solidarity with Palestine, his grasp of the mechanics of running a borough in England is questionable. Cllr. Strathern has a proper job (he works at the Bank of England), but he is a bit of an unknown, and probably the last person in Waltham Forest who thinks that being endorsed by Cllr. Loakes is a plus. And as for Cllr. Coghill, she may go down well with more impressionable element of the newly arrived middle-classes, but her soft soap approach in public is less popular elsewhere.

So it seems that there is everything to play for, and we await developments with interest.

UPDATE

A long-term Labour insider contacted me last night as follows:

‘You must have a very generous bookie. I’ve got:

Coggers 2/1
Strathern 12/1
Ali 15/1
Lyons 1000/1

Oh, and Robbo changing his mind 5/1′.

And this morning, another correspondent told me he fancied Ali, not least because of his father’s reputation and influence.

No doubt, my bookmaker will be reading this with interest.

But luckily, with Leicester City always in my mind, I snapped up his odds yesterday.

So from now on in, it will be Waltham Forest Matters for Ali. As they say across the pond, ‘Let’s hear it for the Big Man’…

Politicians who brandish ‘little lists’ seem more prone than most to getting into trouble.

The prime example is of course one-time Minister Peter Lilley, who pulled this trick in a speech at the 1992 Conservative conference, received widespread opprobrium, and then disappeared into obscurity.

Now Labour Councillor Clare Coghill – thought to be Leader Chris Robbins’ choice as his successor – may be in danger of reaping the same whirlwind.

The scene is a jolly gathering of comrades at a local hostelry. Cllr. Coghill holds court. The conversation turns to the future, and how the Labour Group is likely to evolve. Cllr. Coghill is candid about her colleagues, naming both those she likes, and those who she and her close allies think should be deselected. As she speaks, she jots down a series of first names on a handy paper napkin. The talk turns to other matters, and then the comrades disperse.

But one of those present is perspicacious enough to pick up said napkin and keep it for posterity. I reproduce it, below.

The question, then, is which group these names fall into. Are they the ones that Cllr. Coghill has time for, or are they the ones that she and her chums want shot of?

To the outside observer, it is difficult to tell. If those included are in the former camp, that would be curious, to say the least, because some of them certainly do not reciprocate Cllr. Coghill’s regard.

But if they are in the latter camp, one wonders why she stopped there. After all, there is plenty more dead wood in the forest.

Whatever the truth, the lesson is surely the reverse of the maxim that was once applied to children: ‘”little lists” should be heard but never seen’.

This speaks for itself and is fairly shocking:

http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/166110/labour-branch-chair-praised-activist-suspended-over-antisemitism

In the past, Labour and anti-semitism stood at opposite poles, but now it seems to be a different story.

Some good news for a change.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about Labour’s plan to drastically increase the proportion of council tax that the poorer sections of society would be required to pay in the forthcoming financial year.

However, I now understand that, due to pressure from Labour’s rank and file, in tandem with the opposition of ‘some’ councillors, the rate will stay the same as before, higher than other London boroughs, true, but at least flatlining.

It would be nice to think that this volte-face represents a significant turning point, and that after disasters like the Better Neighbourhoods Initiative and Worknet, Labour’s leadership has finally re-discoved a taste for social justice.

Many will fear, however, that the real driver is internal party wrangling, with some Cabinet members desperately trying to appear ‘lefter than thou’ in the face of Corbyism.

Still, it is an ill wind that blows no good…

In previous posts, I’ve looked at some of the worrying developments that are occurring in relation to the governance of Waltham Forest schools.

Now word reaches me of two further instances which set alarm bells ringing.

Davies Lane Primary School recently was taken over by the Arbor Academy Trust.

Almost simultaneously, the governors took the decision to dismiss NUT representative Tobias Hayden.

According to the union, this occurred after a disciplinary hearing held in Mr. Hayden’s absence, and stemmed from two particular aspects of his activity, which are described as follows: ‘In the Summer term, Tobias invited junior doctors to speak to the school’s NUT group. Meetings such as this were encouraged by the NUT to show solidarity for our joint campaign. Tobias was also vocal in his opposition to his school becoming an academy, in line with NUT policy. As part of his opposition he approached parents at the school to discuss the academy conversion’.

A petition at Change.Org is calling for Mr. Hayden’s reinstatement:

https://www.change.org/p/the-governing-body-of-davies-lane-primary-school-reinstate-sacked-nut-rep-tobias-hayden?recruiter=644341031&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=share_email_responsive

The latter is particularly worth reading because of some of the signatories’ comments. There is talk of systematic bullying and autocratic management, with those most closely involved on the teaching side withholding their names for fear of management retaliation.

As I understand it, Mr. Hayden will appeal, so it is unwise to comment further.

However, let us hope that, this time at least, in compliance with the most elementary principle of natural justice, he is allowed to defend himself, and in person.

Meanwhile, over at near neighbour George Tomlinson Primary School, controversy continues.

As I have noted previously (see links below) in recent years George Tomlinson has been through the mill.

Briefly, first, LBWF claimed the school was in financial crisis; then the existing governors ‘resigned'; next the school was placed under the interim management of The Lime Academy Trust (TLAT), prompting fears of ‘academisation’, and consequent protest from parents; and finally, in the hope of generating a completely fresh and positive start, the local authority reasserted control, and oversaw the appointment of a new board of governors and senior leadership team.

The latter step, especially, appeared to suggest that George Tomlinson was back on track.

But as often happens, Town Hall rhetoric has not been matched by changes on the ground. Despite promises to the contrary, communication with parents remains poor; indeed little news has been disseminated since as far back as July. More seriously still, it now emerges that the governing body has embarked upon making 12 teaching assistants redundant, which, amongst other things, threatens drastically to increase the workload of the remaining staff.

Underlying all of this are two continuing uncertainties. One concerns George Tomlinson’s real financial situation. LBWF insists that pupil numbers have been falling, which inevitably necessitates cuts. Yet the evidence is hardly supportive. It appears that far from being in the red at the end of 2015, the school carried over £210,000. Moreover, while it is true that the 2016 budget predicts a deficit, one reason for this may be a six-figure outgoing to cover the entire cost of TLAT’s involvement, doubly unfair because (a) LBWF assured the erstwhile governors that it would pay for the interim TLAT head and (b) then imposed other TLAT management staff, a unilateral action and so one it has a moral and perhaps legal responsibility to finance.

Relatedly, there is also the fundamental question of whether the spectre of ‘academisation’ still lurks in the background. That subject merits close scrutiny in its own right, and I’ll return to it shortly in a succeeding post.

EduAction:

www.walthamforestmatters.org.uk/2015/02/10/down-memory-lane-2-nrf-eduaction-and-an-open-letter-to-cllr-chris-robbins/

Town Hall ‘culture':

www.walthamforestmatters.org.uk/2015/03/09/the-independent-panel-report-it-has-been-impossible-to-find-any-individual-within-the-council-itself-who-understands-what-was-contracted-and-what-has-been-delivered-for-the-money

Worknet

www.walthamforestmatters.org.uk/2015/03/24/documenting-past-failures-9-the-lbwf-worknet-fiasco/

The Olympics

www.walthamforestmatters.org.uk/2015/04/08/our-olympics-2-lbwf-and-leyton-market-the-council-wins-a-gold-medal-for-ineptitude/

Asbestos

www.walthamforestmatters.org.uk/2015/05/29/town-hall-asbestos-unisons-statement-on-todays-verdict/

Gangs

http://www.walthamforestmatters.org.uk/2015/10/22/the-lbwf-gang-prevention-programme-yet-another-missed-opportunity/

Extremism

www.walthamforestmatters.org.uk/2016/04/29/extremism-in-waltham-forest-a-quick-roundup-of-the-recent-lowpoints/

Still, against all that, we’ve got a lot of new flag poles:

http://www.walthamforestmatters.org.uk/2015/02/16/flags-flags-and-more-flags-but-whats-the-cost/

PS the links in ‘Related Posts’ (below) take you directly to each story.

I recently stumbled across this video about Mini-Holland (MH) on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hEVPJm-cBM

What is perhaps of more interest is the following statement that its creator has placed on Facebook:

‘This video is a response to the feedback from ENJOY WALTHAM FOREST in regards to MH. The feedback claims that residents are happy with the scheme. This is perversely misleading; the scheme has actually torn Walthamstow into two parts. The claims have now prompted other areas of the UK to follow suit and implement a MH. This video is here to highlight the feelings of local residents. It is made in order to tell you what the MH lawmakers are not telling you…Several of us are currently preparing a Panorama style documentary about MH. It will reveal the real reasons as to how the MH money was acquired and what the political and social aims of MH truly are. It will discuss the worldwide pollution debate and it will pose questions as to why/how residents Walthamstow residents are supposed to change this worldwide issue. It will have interviews from professionals and residents from both ends of the spectrum, that includes those badly affected and it includes whistle-blowers. It will reveal the real reason why local councillors are proponents of MH including financial gains. Hopefully it will be ready by the New Year…’.

This could be interesting.

Earlier posts have reported on recent events at George Tomlinson Primary School in Leytonstone, and in particular noted the apprehension of some parents, teachers and onlookers that it is being prepared for ‘academisation’, perhaps by stealth.

The development that first triggered such anxieties – the involvement of The Lime Academy Trust in the management of the school – has now come to an end, but as several correspondents have reminded me, this has by no means re-established a satisfactory status quo.

What in part is fuelling the fire at this juncture is the governing body’s appointment of one Dr. Mathew Laban as interim associate headteacher and staff governor. For Dr. Laban turns out to be a far more noteworthy, and in some respects controversial, figure than at first sight might be expected.

It should be said at the outset that Dr. Laban has a distinguished record as a headteacher going back to 2012, and for some months even managed to lead both a primary school and a secondary school simultaneously. In this sense, he may well be seen as something of a catch.

So far, so good.

But what has been noted, too, is Dr. Laban’s long-standing Conservative Party affiliation, and more especially his vocal support for academies. Indeed, according to his Linkedin profile, prior to his recent emergence in Waltham Forest, every one of Dr. Laban’s appointments has been in the academy sector. And his commitment to academies also stretches well beyond teaching, because it is a matter of public record that between July 2011 and February 2015 he was a director, and on occasion chair and accounting officer, of an academy trust in Enfield – company 07355559, Cuckoo Hall Academies.

The latter information is greeted with wry amusement in some quarters, schadenfreude in others. This is because, though after its creation in 2010, Cuckoo Hall attracted much favourable publicity, and attained the status of an unofficial ‘Tory flagship’, a scathing Education Funding Agency report of February 2015* rubbed off a good deal of the sheen, citing serious ‘material breaches’ over safeguarding, and the management of conflict of interest, particularly as regards the recruitment of family members. Symptomatically, the resulting furor was such that even local MP Nick de Bois, a Conservative, was moved to suggest that ‘the principle board members’ should resign.

It is important to stress that no laws were broken during this episode; exact responsibility for what occurred has always been disputed; and compared to some of his colleagues, Dr. Laban’s involvement was anyway peripheral.

It may be, as well, that having experienced at first hand how easily things can go wrong, he has emerged a more rounded character, and thus one more suited to George Tomlinson.

And yet, all this accepted, it is also not difficult to understand why in some quarters his presence is felt to be unsettling.

In appointing Dr. Laban, the George Tomlinson governors observed that they had overseen ‘a thorough recruitment process’, which delivered him as the ‘stand out’ candidate. This is reasurring. But given what else has gone on at the school recently (for which see earlier posts) it might be a good idea if the governors now add a copper-bottomed assurance that, Dr. Laban or not, their school’s legal status will for the foreseeable future, at least, remain unchanged.

*https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/investigation-report-cuckoo-hall-academies-trust

Labour councillors have just completed voting for their new Group Leader, and the results are as follows:

Clare Coghill 30
Nadeem Ali 9
Gerry Lyons 1

Two of those eligible to vote did not attend (one was away, one sick) while another is currently suspended.

It is said that Gerry Lyons’ single vote was cast by….Gerry Lyons.

Amusement aside, however, it will be interesting to see what if any changes Cllr. Coghill now institutes.

Will she act on her ‘little list’?

Will there be a ‘new direction’?

Or is she, as some have suggested, simply a more human face for the old, and now discredited,  Loakes-Robbins show pony?

I am reminded that in a 2015 post (‘Cllr. Patrick Edwards speaks out’), I wrote as follows:

‘by chance I was at a meeting addressed by Councillor Coghill this week, and if her performance on that occasion is anything to go by, the future doesn’t bode well. She spent a lot of time trying to convince us she knew our area, you know, really, really well, and indeed on occasion bicycled through and around it, carefully name checking the Red Lion, the North Star, and Panda (in this case, the restaurant, not the animal) to underline her, you know, cool credentials. She flattered us for our wisdom, in the way that politicians are trained to do. But when it came to substance, she was alarmingly vague. Yes, the Council wanted to spend £500,000 doing up our local shops. And yes, she was really, really interested in our opinions, and was going to sit and listen to us. But yes, she was also going to talk to a lot of other people too – for starters, our local councillors (because, of course, they knew what was best for the area), ‘her officers’, and un-named other stakeholders. It all sounded dreadfully nice, and so, well, concerned. But if you scraped off the rather obvious soft soap, the rehearsed references to Panda, and so on, little was left. Was there going to be a meaningful public consultation, where residents as a whole could express their opinions? We left the meeting none the wiser’.

One and a half years later, the promised spend on our shops is a distant pipe dream, and the only meaningful development that has occurred in our area is the Council’s extraordinarily mean-spirited closure of the local food bank.

Let us hope that this is not the pattern for the coming years.

Writing for his blog, the Guardian‘s Dave Hill, who has his favourites but is sometimes moderately iconoclastic, surveys how ‘Mini-Holland’ is evolving in our neighbour, Enfield:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/davehillblog/2017/jan/17/the-long-war-of-mini-holland-in-enfield

One sentence jumps out:

‘Meeting Rogers [‘Clare Rogers, local resident and mainstay of a group called Better Streets for Enfield’] made a nice change from encountering cycling zealots on social media, whose sanctimony, viciousness and weird conspiracy theories – these from the core of a privileged social stratum – never cease to amaze’.

‘Sanctimony’, ‘viciousness’ and ‘weird conspiracy theories’? Sounds like the average Momentum member.

I wonder who exactly he is referring to, and whether any of those so chastised live in Waltham Forest?

As is well known by now, Momentum promises a ‘new politics’, one characterised by, amongst other things, openness, transparency, and enhanced democratic participation.

Since this blog has always supported such unarguably laudable values, it is worth asking whether the Momentum group here in Waltham Forest is walking the walk, that is living up to the aims of the organisation as a whole.

Predictably, Momentum Waltham Forest communicates most extensively on Facebook, and so an obvious starting point is to look at what it has been posting.

The bulk of the material revolves around calls to support a familiar array of left-wing causes – from the striking rail unions and the junior doctors, via the NHS, to Islamaphobia Awareness Week and the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign.

Otherwise, one or two posts focus, apparently at random, on local Waltham Forest issues (‘Save Higham Hill Library’), and there are similarly scattered items on icons of the left, for example, a sympathetic obituary of Fidel Castro which concludes: ‘Cuban society – and the system of government instituted under Fidel Castro – are far from perfect but the Cuban people’s struggle for a free and just world continues and is an inspiration to many. RIP Fidel Castro; Viva the Cuban people’.

Taken together, the posts are reminiscent of the Communist Party’s Morning Star daily newspaper c. 1980 – fine if you share such tastes, and no doubt comforting to the veteran activists who have flocked to the sainted Jeremy’s side, but unlikely to make much difference to anybody who is not already signed up.

Perhaps more significant (as often tends to be the case) is what’s left out. Most striking is the absence of discussion about how Momentum intends to shape the Labour ascendancy in the Town Hall. According to Labour List, in the 2016 national Labour leadership contest, 12 Waltham Forest councillors (including then Leader Chris Robbins and his successor Clare Coghill) pledged allegiance to Owen Smith. In addition, the Muslim block of councillors, so often the makeweight in inter-party factionalism, is hardly known for its radicalism (indeed one of its members is apparently already threatening to terminate Cllr. Coghill’s career).

On the other side of the equation, while it is said that five current serving Labour members support Momentum, in the recent election for Leader, four failed to vote for the group’s preferred candidate.

So, as all this suggests, replacing the incumbents will be a big challenge. And of course, the comrades recognise this full well, and in their private discussion forums, talk of little else. It is just that they don’t want anything to be said in public.

Again, there is nothing wrong with this as such, the problem is the dissonance with the organisation’s foundation rhetoric. The oft repeated promise is to leave the past behind, and start again, this time more openly and honestly. But locally, this is not happening. On the contrary, Momentum Waltham Forest is simply aping the modus operandi of dozens of its left-wing progenitors.

Equally absent in the posts is anything significant about Momentum’s wider travails, and the fissures that, as numerous sources confirm, have opened up across the country between its different constituent factions. True, on occasion, one or two of those commenting let loose, berating, for example, the leadership’s ‘Stalinism’, or echoing the traditional left-wing parrot cry of ‘betrayal’. But for the most part anything vaguely unpleasant or troubling to the desired public image is ignored.

So much for Facebook. What about Momentum Waltham Forest’s other public utterances? These are few and far between, but one stands out as especially interesting in terms of the group’s concerns and mode of thinking.

In mid-2016, the Labour Party suspended prominent local Momentum activist, David Watson, pending an investigation by the national party, with an accompanying statement observing: ‘We condemn anti-Semitism and racism of all kinds but cannot comment further until the Party investigation has concluded’.

In response, while Mr. Watson insisted on his innocence, Waltham Forest Momentum was quick to allege foul play:

‘We have seen evidence to suggest that elements within the Labour Party opposed to Jeremy Corbyn generated this campaign against David. When he stated that criticism of Israel was not anti-Semitism, a local Labour member whose abuse of Labour and its leader is incessant, tweeted, “What are you doing about anti-Semites in the Party? This guy is Walthamstow CLP fundraiser”. This started a series of published attacks on various sites based on highly selective quotes trawled from his Facebook and Twitter accounts. The sensationalist article that appeared in the Jewish Chronicle is highly misleading and attributes to David views he has not expressed, including distortion of mainstream media articles posted on his Facebook page. Momentum condemns the conduct of figures in the local Labour Party including that of an MP who reposted the Jewish Chronicle article implying endorsement and its accuracy’.

Waltham Forest Momentum might well deprecate the ‘McCarthyite atmosphere being created by some elements within the Party’, but its own statement, grandiloquent in tone, is hardly cut from a different cloth.

Finally, there is the issue of whom Momentum Waltham Forest is happy to do business with. Two cases are particularly worthy of comment. Cllrs. Saima Mahmud and Shabana Dhedi (sometime Qadir) are both know to be Momentum supporters. Yet as previous posts on this blog have demonstrated (see links below) neither is untainted by controversy.

 To give one example, consider this happy picture from a year or so ago:

The event captured for posterity is some kind of award ceremony in the Town Hall Mayor’s Parlour, surrepticiously organised by two private citizens, one the father of a serving councillor. Cllr. Mahmud, then Mayor, is front row, second right, while Cllr. Dhedi is front row, extreme right. The man in the white hat receiving the award (front row, second left) is Pakistani Senator Sirajul Haq, a leader of a political party called Jamaat-e-Islami.

Why exactly there should be such award ceremonies in Waltham Forest Town Hall, why private citizens are allowed to organise them, and why a Pakistani politician should be a beneficiary, are all good questions. Readers will no doubt ask themselves, too, whether they are similarly able to make use of the Mayor’s Parlour.

But there is worse, because as I have pointed out previously, a quick Google search reveals that not only does Senator Haq articulate unsavoury views (in which ‘the Jews’ are predictably prominent) but Jamaat-e-Islami is a far right-wing organisation which desires a state governed by Islamic law; opposes ‘Westernisation’ in any form, whether capitalist or socialist; abhors birth control, and relaxed social mores in general; and is even against images of Christmas trees appearing in schoolbooks. And that is before we even get to the party’s sinister role in attempting to thwart Bangladeshi independence.

It is of course possible that the two councillors did not know who Senator Haq was. Perhaps they just grinned politely at anybody who turned up.

But it is equally possible that they did know who the Senator was, in which case there are serious questions to be asked about their judgement.

However, whichever the case, that they have been so readily welcomed into Momentum Waltham Forest again speaks eloquently of that organisation’s current character.

‘Transparent’, ‘open’, or ‘new’ its orientation is not.

This week, the Henry Jackson Society’s Hannah Stuart published a report entitled Islamist Terrorism: Analysis of Offences and Attacks in the UK (1998–2015) which contains profiles of all Islamism-inspired terrorism convictions and suicide attacks, ordered chronologically by date of arrest or incident.

One finding is of considerable local interest:

‘Across…[1998 to 2015], East London was home to half (50%) of London-based offenders, while the three most common boroughs – Tower Hamlets, Newham and Waltham Forest – contained the offenders’ residence in 38% of all Londoner IROs [Islamism-related offences]’.

Responding, LBWF Leader, Chris Robbins, tells the Waltham Forest Guardian: ‘“Waltham Forest is one of the most diverse areas of the country in one of the most diverse cities on earth, and promoting community cohesion is very much a priority for the Council. Rather than sweep a difficult issue under the carpet, we are actively working to protect our residents as part of our overall responsibilities to safeguard them from harm.”’ *

Yet as this blog has shown, over and over again, both substantive claims in this predictable diatribe need to be taken with a pinch of salt. Senior Labour councillors have been involved in surreptitiously presenting awards to local and national figures who, far from pursuing community cohesion, are engaged in actively undermining it. More generally, the local Prevent programme remains secretive, and unaudited, indeed, if anything deserves to be so described, ‘swept under the carpet’.

In this context, the majority of residents, Muslim and not, far from being reassured, are in fact increasingly angry at what they see as official weakness and prevarication.

The writing is on the wall for all to see. It is high time that local politicians of all hues stopped averting their eyes.

* http://www.guardian-series.co.uk/news/15138465._Borough_is_terror_offender_hotspot__new_report_claims