Lambeth Council Watch - news and updates about the 'co-operative' council
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Tulster218
Well-Known Member
BusLanes
Pedestrian
Good to see someone has written it up.
CH1
"Red Guard"(NLYL)
Gramsci
Well-Known Member
Read the times article. It's very much in the mould of the adults in the room should be running political parties. With members having no say. And the electorate treated as voting fodder to be manipulated by shady backroom boys like Morgan Mcsweeney into voting labour.
Commentariat writing articles like this might regard such people as clever. I don't. After reading this it puts me off politics.
Worst part is how he advised Starmer to hoodwink membership into voting Starmer as leader then turning on what's considered by his ilk as the left of the party. This is written in article in uncritical fashion.
Commentariat writing articles like this might regard such people as clever. I don't. After reading this it puts me off politics.
Worst part is how he advised Starmer to hoodwink membership into voting Starmer as leader then turning on what's considered by his ilk as the left of the party. This is written in article in uncritical fashion.
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Liz Truss is a good example of why people who join political parties should have their power limited!!
Gramsci
Well-Known Member
How Liz Truss won the Conservative leadership race
The foreign secretary has won the race to replace Boris Johnson as prime minister after a two-month contest.
www.bbc.com
To be elected leader one had to first get backing of at least twenty MPs. Then a round of voting by MPs whittled down those standing to two people. Only then did the membership get to choose between the two final candidates.
This hardly imo constitutes members having a disproportionate influence in electing Liz Truss as leader.
True - a lot of their MPs had to be crazy as well!How Liz Truss won the Conservative leadership race
The foreign secretary has won the race to replace Boris Johnson as prime minister after a two-month contest.www.bbc.com
To be elected leader one had to first get backing of at least twenty MPs. Then a round of voting by MPs whittled down those standing to two people. Only then did the membership get to choose between the two final candidates.
This hardly imo constitutes members having a disproportionate influence in electing Liz Truss as leader.
Tricky Skills
Well-Known Member
McSweeney was part of the close cabal centred around Steve Reed. Other selective members were Mark Bennett, Christopher Wellbelove, Pete Robbins and yes, Imogen Walker. The inner circle had a reputation for encouraging an 'intimidating' style of politics. This has been passed down the generations from a particular wing of Lambeth Labour. It still hangs around today, even amongst some of the 2022 intake.
Eric Jarvis
Well-Known Member
He was also a VERY minor figure in Lambeth politics at that time. I was Agent for Vauxhall. We worked really closely with Norwood and Streatham. I've never met him, never conversed with him, heard his name mentioned a couple of times usually in a derogatory fashion. He basically appeared a few years after the LCC take over claiming to have been there all along. He's a fantasist and a bully. Perfect to work with Reed.
lang rabbie
Je ne regrette les gazebos
AFAIK they are still together and Imogen is the Labour candidate for the new Hamilton and Clyde Valley Westminster seat, which after the boundary changes is likely to be a Labour gain from the SNP.
So another MP in the next House of Commons from former Lambeth council alumni.
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lang rabbie
Je ne regrette les gazebos
Been talking to various people previously working in housing since this came out and none of them could recall other councils/housing assocs. insisting on non-disclosure agreements for pre-court settlements of housing disrepair claims etc .
Tulster218
Well-Known Member
From MyLondon
South London council spends £1.8m trying to stop residents talking to each other about discounts it was secretly giving
One Lambeth resident said he thought the figure was the 'tip of the iceberg'
The council drew up 119 agreements to prevent people revealing details of rebates (stock photo) (Image: Shared Content Unit)
A South London council spent over £1.8 million in less than five years on confidentiality agreements designed to stop leaseholders sharing certain information with each other. Between January 2019 and September 2023, Lambeth Council drew up 119 agreements containing secrecy clauses with leaseholders.
Maria Kay, the Labour-run council’s cabinet member for housing, revealed the figures in response to a written question by Donna Harris, leader of the council’s Liberal Democrat opposition, ahead of a council meeting on Wednesday (October 18).
In August, the Local Democracy Reporting Service [LDRS] revealed that leaseholders who won thousands of pounds back from the council for building work they were overcharged for on their properties were told to sign agreements that stopped them telling their neighbours about the discounts they received. The four figure reductions were for major works carried out to their properties in the borough between 2017 and 2018.
Cllr Harris, Liberal Democrat member for Streatham Hill West and Thornton, asked Cllr Kay for details of the number of non-disclosure agreements and confidentiality clauses executed between Lambeth Council and leaseholders between 2019 and 2023. She also asked for details of the total payments made to residents under the agreements and the legal costs the council faced because of the agreements.
Lambeth Council drew up 119 confidentiality agreements with leaseholders over almost five years (Image: Robert Firth)
In response, Cllr Kay said the council didn’t hold information about the legal costs it had sustained due to the agreements but replied to the other two parts of Cllr Harris’s question. She said the total amount paid to leaseholders as part of the 119 confidentiality agreements over the four year and nine month period was £1,811,500.
A council leaseholder, who asked not to be named, told the LDRS they thought the £1.8 million figure was the "tip of the iceberg". They said: "If all the similarly overcharged neighbours of those who received these rebates had been offered the same rebate, how much would Lambeth have had to pay out?"
Tricky Skills
Well-Known Member
Tulster218
Well-Known Member
The turnout for Lambeth local elections was 32%, so I'd call BID's 55% turnout a pretty high by comparison
And 80% of the vote is a clear landslide.
Businesses are literally happy to pay a bit of extra tax, it seems.
And 80% of the vote is a clear landslide.
Businesses are literally happy to pay a bit of extra tax, it seems.
CH1
"Red Guard"(NLYL)
I don't think you are right there. Like you are saying the Brexit vote was a landslide - now look what shit we are in?
Tulster218
Well-Known Member
CH1
"Red Guard"(NLYL)
Well the Brexit turnout was 72% - which means that whoever won did not get 50% of the population.
As for Lambeth Council - turnout has traditionally been low - the record being the old Angell/Coldharbour Ward sometimes as low as 18%.
The BID's 80% of 55% is actually 44% of businesses eligible - so it is a democratic victory as we know it - but not a landslide by any means.
Tricky Skills
Well-Known Member
I think there's more chance of Lambeth Council agreeing to act on this Motion put forward by Lambeth Unison:
"To demand Lambeth Council declares its solidarity with the Palestinians and flies their flag from the Town Hall"
BusLanes
Pedestrian
Just saw a resignation from a Labour councillor in Cambridge but she actually runs Healthwatch Lambeth. Not quite Lambeth Labour but close.
