Archive for June, 2010

Labour ignores its own publicity promise

Wednesday, June 30th, 2010

Only yesterday I got another picture of Cllr Bassam Mahfouz attached to a press release in my inbox. Between council leader Julian Bell and Mahfouz you may feel that you have seen a lot of these two recently.
This is at odds with Labour’s manifesto which promised that they would:
Reduce the [...]

Northfield Ward Forum – next Monday

Wednesday, June 30th, 2010

The next Northfield Ward Forum Meeting will be at the South Ealing Mission, Junction Road (entrance 51 Carlyle Road) on Monday 5 July 2010 starting at 7.30pm.
The agenda is available here.

Gone rowing

Saturday, June 26th, 2010

I’m away for the weekend rowing.
Basically it is a boys’ weekend with a 54 mile row to Henley from Hammersmith thrown in to keep it interesting.
Back Tuesday. No doubt tired and sunburnt.

Labour short changes tenants again

Thursday, June 24th, 2010

Tonight at the tediously titled Overview and Scrutiny Committee we discussed a call-in of the new Labour administration’s decision to bring housing management of 18,000 council houses in-house. You may have read my previous postings about this highly political manoeuvre, here.
This management is currently done by Ealing Homes, a so-called ALMO, one [...]

Poacher turned, er, poacher

Thursday, June 24th, 2010

The man defending the indefensible tonight at the overview and scrutiny committee was Labour housing cabinet member, Hitesh Tailor, otherwise known as Councillor Withani. Way back in the eighties, in the days of Thatcherism and the loony left, it was a recognised problem that too many Labour supporting people would work for one council [...]

Follow the money

Saturday, June 19th, 2010

We are going to hear a lot about money over the next few days. Yesterday the Conservatives laid out the appalling financial legacy that Gordon Brown left for our country, see here, it really is worth a look. Last Thursday we had Danny Alexander’s announcement of cancelled and delayed capital projects. The [...]

Council’s £900K box junction cock up

Friday, June 18th, 2010

In his rush to make political capital out of yet another cock up by the Council’s transport engineers Councillor Mahfouz has seriously misled the public. Splashed all over the front page of the Gazette this morning was this story: “Drivers to get box junction fines back.” The story goes on to say: “Ealing [...]

How to keep Ealing’s public services

Friday, June 18th, 2010

The big talking point at the last council meeting was council tax. This debate is a proxy for financial management in general and control of spending in particular. Unfortunately the members of the new Labour group are particularly unsuited to the hard job that faces them over the next four years.
My [...]

Their hands in your pockets

Thursday, June 17th, 2010

The Gazette is reporting that after two years of council tax freezes delivered by the Tories, the new Labour administration is going to do the same again next year, see here. Good news.
Labour promised to freeze council tax next year in its manifesto, see here. One of their headline promises was:
Keeping [...]

Comrade Kausar

Thursday, June 17th, 2010

On a lighter note one of the new Labour councillors picked up a nickname for himself on Tuesday. Maiden speeches are by convention heard in silence. The Tory benches could not help exclaiming when one of the new councillors for Southall Broadway ward, Cllr Mohammed Kausar, referred to his colleagues as “comrades” during [...]