An ethnic majority team for an ethnic majority borough

Brent Labour Party has now selected candidates for 42 of the 63 seats to be fought by the party in the 2010 local elections. 59% of Brent’s population is black or Asian and 59% of Labour’s candidates are black or Asian.

Labour Leader, Councillor Ann M John, OBE said:

“Our team for 2010 is younger, more representative and more talented than ever before. With Labour, Brent Council was the first local authority in the country to have an ethnic majority work force serving an ethnic majority community. When we win next May, Brent Council will be the first multi racial borough in the country in which the controlling group truly reflects the diversity of the community it serves. For Brent Labour Party equality of opportunity means action not words.”

Only 15.9% of councillors in London are black or Asian. In parliament only 15 MPs are black or Asian – 13 of those are Labour MPs and 2 are Conservatives. Despite winning a post war record of 63 seats, the Liberal Democrats have no black or Asian MPs.

Photograph shows some of Brent Labour’s prospective candidates.

Disgraced councillor rewarded by Conservative Party

Disgraced councillor Bertha Joseph, who has been suspended for six months by an Independent Standards Committee after it was revealed that she had used hundreds of pounds of charity sponsorship to buy ball gowns for herself, has been rewarded with an additional £12,000 by the Tories on the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority (LFEPA).

When Councillor Joseph joined the Conservatives in 2007 she was rewarded with additional allowances as chair of the Harlesden Area Forum (an area where there are no elected Tory councillors). She lost those allowances and her basic councillors’ allowance when the Standards Committee suspended her. However, the Tories have now made Cllr Joseph Deputy Chair of the LFEPA, which increases her fire authority allowances by £12k a year thus making up for the penalty imposed by the Standards Committee.

Brent Lib Dems all hot air on climate change

Lib Dem claims to fight climate change have proved to be so much hot air as the Council’s Executive is set to revise its target for carbon dioxide emissions downwards. In the last year of the Labour administration, Brent was on course for a 20% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2011 but the Lib Dems are set to revise that target to a paltry 6% by 2011 and under their policies Labour’s 20% target will not be reached for another decade.

Shamefaced Lib Dems have also sought to massage the statistics by including emissions from social housing, which are not included in most council’s figures and are very low. Schools account for 49% of all Brent’s carbon dioxide emissions and Labour claims that the Council has done too little to encourage schools to reduce their emissions.

Brent Labour accuses BBC’s Question Time of bias and racism

Brent Labour councillors, supported by the Member of the London Assembly for Brent Harrow, Navin Shah, have written to the BBC to protest against the fact that Dawn Butler – one of only two black women MPs, and the first ever elected black woman minister, has never been invited to appear on the BBC Question Time programme whilst her white election opponent, Sarah Teather, has appeared three times in the last nine months.

The letter to the BBC says: “we have long detected a bias towards the Liberal Democrats in the BBC but we are truly alarmed that Nick Griffin will now appear on BBC’s Question Time before Britain’s first elected black woman government minister”.

The letter writers wonder “if the bias against Dawn Butler is symptomatic of what Greg Dyke once called ‘a hideously white organisation’”.

The Leader of Brent Council’s Labour Group, Councillor Ann M John, OBE, said:

“The Brent Central constituency is unique in having two women MPs fighting against each other at the next General Election yet the BBC persists in promoting one of them at the expense of the other. Sarah Teather has appeared on no less than three occasions in the past nine months and Dawn has yet to be invited, despite being the country’s first elected black woman minister. This displays a remarkable lack of balance. It seems that the BBC would prefer to entertain the BNP leader rather than give a fair chance to Dawn Butler. No wonder Greg Dyke called the organisation hideously white.”

Leading Tory Councillor hit for six in Brent

Brent Council’s Standards Board has found leading Tory Councillor Bertha Joseph guilty of three charges of breaking the Councillors’ Code of Conduct. Councillor Joseph achieved national prominence in May 2008 when the Mail on Sunday revealed that she had conducted a 20 year extra marital affair with cricketing legend Clive Lloyd (Mr Lloyd is participating in a Brent Council event celebrating Black History Month on 30 October).

The charges were:

* Failure to register gifts within 28 days;
* Bringing the Mayoralty and Brent Council into disrepute;
* Misuse of money received for personal gain.

The Committee, which includes one member from each of the three main parties and two independent members, agreed to suspend Councillor Joseph from the council for a record 6 months.

As you were in Wembley Central by-election

The Liberal Democrats held Wembley Central in the by-election on 23 July on a turnout of 29.3% compared with 45.5% in May 2006. Both Labour and the Liberal Democrats lost votes compared with 2006, but Labour’s vote held up better than it has in recent council by-elections elsewhere in London.
The result (with 2006 percentages in brackets) was:
Turnout 29.3% (45.5%).
Afifa Pervez (Lib Dem) 1,195 41.3% (45.3%);
Jayesh Mistry (Lab) 934 32.2% (38.5%);
Yasmin Butt (Con) 423 14.6% (11.4%);
Tom Stevens (Ind) 240 8.5% (n/a);
Martin Francis (Green) 100 3.4% (4.8%).
The Leader of Brent Council’s Labour Opposition, Cllr Ann John, said:
“These are very difficult times for Labour as [...]

Labour tops poll in Brent

Labour held on to first place in Brent in last Thursday’s European election.

Official figures supplied by the Returning Officer show Labour received 15,579 votes compared with 11,966 for the Tories and 11,364 for the Liberal Democrats. The Green party polled 4,999 votes and there were 4,862 votes for Tamil campaigner Jan Jananayagam. UKIP finished sixth in Brent with 3,239 votes. The neo-Nazi British National Party polled a paltry 1,251 votes – a 35 percent drop on the 1,918 votes they achieved in Brent in the London Assembly elections a year ago.

The Brent result represents a swing of 1.5 percent from Labour to Conservative, which is below the London average and considerably below the national average.

Labour’s vote held up better in London than anywhere else in the country and the BNP vote fell in London compared with last year’s Mayor and Assembly elections.

The Leader of Brent Council’s Labour Opposition, Councillor Ann M John, OBE, said:

Brent Labour to call in North Circular Road plans

Lib Dem plans to regenerate the area around the North Circular Road are to be “called in” for scrutiny by Brent Council’s Labour Opposition. The plans are to be discussed by the Council’s Executive at its meeting on Monday 6 April. However, Labour points out that there has been very little consultation with local councillors and local residents with only 204 of 8000 households (2.5 percent) responding to a Council survey.

Moreover, the plans do nothing to improve road safety following the recent tragic death of Richie McDonagh. Labour councillors have petitioned the Council to build a footbridge over the North Circular Road at the junction with Brentfield Road but the Lib Dem led Council is more concerned with wasting council taxpayers’ money on unwanted schemes in Kingsbury.

The Leader of Brent Council’s Labour Opposition, Councillor Ann John, whose Stonebridge Ward is directly affected by the Council’s plans, said:

Brent’s all-party scrutiny committee adopts wide-ranging Labour plans

Brent Council’s Scrutiny (Forward Plan) Committee has agreed to Labour’s proposals to use the provisions of the Sustainable Communities Act to allow local people to see how government money is spent in their area and to directly influence the government’s spending priorities.

The Committee, which met on 1st April, also agreed to extend the registration scheme for Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs) to all multi-household properties and not just those over three storeys, which is the statutory requirement. This will result in higher standards for tenants and fewer opportunities for unscrupulous landlords.

Finally, the Committee has agreed to strengthen the Council’s commitment to fair trade.

Brent Lib Dems and Tories pricing police out of Chalkhill to pay for gambling debts

Welsh Harp residents, supported by local Labour councillors Mary Farrell, Francis Eniola and Harry Singh, have lodged a petition against the proposal to relocate the Welsh Harp Safer Neighbourhoods Police Team to an industrial estate outside the area.

The petition has been signed by hundreds of local residents and it calls on the Council and the Borough Commander to keep the police team in Chalkhill Police Station or in the Welsh Harp ward.

The Police team is currently located in premises owned by Brent Council and the local Labour councillors fear that the Lib Dem/Tory Council may be pricing the police out of the area by asking for too much rent. Having gambled £15 million in Icelandic banks, the Lib Dems and Tories who run Brent Council are attempting to maximise all sources of income with increases in rents as well as fees and charges.