Mark Hynes, LBWF Director of Governance and Law, cracks the whip
Against the background of the ongoing controversy about Cllr. Anna Mbachu’s Register of Interests form, LBWF Director of Governance and Law Mark Hynes has circulated the following missive to...
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John Cryer MP intervenes in Labour’s 2018 local election selection process:...
A prominent member of the wide-awake club recently forwarded this Labour Party leaflet from back in September: It shows my old friend John Cryer, MP for Leyton and Wanstead, hyping three senior Labour...
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LBWF, Community Ward Forums, and freedom of speech
As this blog regularly points out, LBWF devotes a surprising amount of time and attention to what PR spinners call ‘controlling the narrative’, that is vigorously promoting a particular, and...
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The Waltham Forest Matters Annual Awards for 2017
It’s that time of year folks, and as this blog rapidly approaches the treasured 100,000 hits mark (OK, we admit it, 50,000 of them come from Cllrs Loakes and Robins) here are our awards: Picture of the...
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LBWF and public-private partnerships: (1) NPS London Ltd.
As this blog has previously noted, LBWF is now involved in extending its public-private partnerships, and so it is timely to look at some previous examples of similar initiatives, in order to discover...
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Ex-Tower Hamlets Mayor Lutfur Rahman: the final disgrace
For reasons best known to themselves, and against a mass of evidence, sections of the local Labour Party have continued to champion the disgraced ex-Mayor of Tower Hamlets, Lutfur Rahman. Now, however,...
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LBWF and public-private partnerships: (2) North London Ltd.
LBWF’s relationship with North London Ltd. (NLL) illuminates a second way of organising public-private partnerships. NLL is a private company, formed in 2005, whose business is ‘Other service...
View ArticleWaltham Forest’s Safer Neighbourhoods Board and MOPAC funding: the scandal...
A post of September past (see link below) reported that, though in FYs 2015-16 and 2016-17 the Waltham Forest Safer Neighbourhood Board (WFSNB) had been allotted £78,000 of Mayor’s Officer for Policing...
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Cllr. Khevyn Limbajee’s register of interest form: another case of Waltham...
Over the years this blog has periodically revealed that LBWF councillors have surprising difficulty keeping their register of interest forms as accurate and up-to-date as the agreed standards require,...
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Islamist extremism in Waltham Forest: a disturbing new episode
In the past week or so, much of the press has covered the trial and conviction of Forest Gate Isis supporter Umar Ahmed Haque on a number of serious terrorist offences. During Mr. Haque’s trial, the...
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Cllr. Limbajee, Cllr. Mbachu, their register of interests forms, and LBWF’s...
The controversy over the register of interests forms posted by Cllrs. Khevyn Limbajee and Anna Mbachu, covered by this blog recently, is mushrooming, with even the officer in charge of enforcing the...
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Lutfur Rahman: an apology (of sorts)
Over the years, this blog has recorded the richly deserved political and professional downfall of ex-Tower Hamlets mayor Lutfur Rahman. But it turns out we owe Mr. Rahman something of an apology,...
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The mysterious case of the disappearing LBWF councillor…
Yesterday, various readers contacted this blog about a little local mystery. The story is as follows. A couple of days ago, our old friend, LBWF Director of Governance and Law Mark Hynes, circulated a...
View ArticleRedevelopment in Waltham Forest: the shocking fate of Section 106 ‘planning...
In recent years, there has been growing unease in Waltham Forest about the character of redevelopment, particularly in terms of the balance between public and private good. While LBWF in theory is...
View ArticleWaltham Forest Matters: 100,000 views up
In the past few weeks, Waltham Forest Matters has sailed through the ‘100,000 views’ mark. As is obvious, ‘view’ dies not mean ‘read’, and ‘read’ does not mean ‘digest’, let alone ‘agree’....
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Steven Saxby, the ‘red vicar’ of Walthamstow, and Mr. Mahmood ul Hassan Raja,...
A good barometer of Labour’s ongoing moral collapse is the ever-expanding list of questionable characters who are currently being welcomed into its ranks, even (as Guido Fawkes regularly demonstrates)...
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LBWF councillors and their register of interests forms: an update and...
Previous posts have looked at the problems that some councillors are having over accurately filling in their register of interests forms (see links below). What follows summarises the current state of...
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Silver Birch Academy Trust: Lost in the Forest?
As this blog has periodically observed, to mere mortals the world of primary and secondary school academies, and in particular their governance, is sometimes rather puzzling. Last Sunday, the Observer...
View ArticleThe Labour Party in Waltham Forest and the financing of local elections: a...
Over the years, a number of correspondents have approached this blog to express anxieties about how the local Labour Party (LP) is being run and financed. Some of their claims are plausible, others...
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LBWF’s refresh of its Gang Prevention Programme: spin, spin, and more spin?
It is abundantly evident that many people in the borough, from many different backgrounds, are worried about the seemingly unchecked level of local gang-related crime, and the grave impact that this is...
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