Chris is an indentikit HRA councillor. He’s elderly, retired and hates uneven pavements, potholes and nuisance parking. His political life has evolved and he’s now the cabinet member for finance.

On 2^nd March, 2022 he condemned Damian White’s budget.¹ Nervous, constantly wringing his hands and more-or-less incoherent, he realised he’d inherit Damian’s poisoned chalice. (It’s a quirk of local government that the incoming HRA Administration had to implement Damian’s budget.) But the 2023 budget will be his.

Chris said Damian’s budget was ‘catastrophic’ and could end in a section 114 notice.³ The world is a nastier place now. Britain’s economy is deteriorating at the speed of light. Energy prices have increased by 80%, so far, inflation is north of 10%, and there’s widespread strikes like the 1970s.⁴ There’ll be upward pressure on wages due to rampant inflation. This is bad news for Chris who’s absolutely pivotal in financial decision making.

How will LBH pay for their staff, offices, libraries, leisure facilities and fleet of vehicles? Mandatory services for the elderly and children will explode in unavoidable demand led expenditure. The 2023 Council budget will be torrid for Chris. He’ll be proposing a minimum 10% increase with Damian taunting him.

It’s a long way from moaning about street care, isn’t it?

Notes

1 Annotator Player (sonicfoundry.com) begins at one hour twenty. Damian White was Leader of the Council at that meeting.

2 HRA = Havering Residents Association

3 A section 114 notice is an incredibly significant action for a council to take for several reasons. Not only is it a very public declaration that its budget cannot be balanced, it also results in a suspension of additional spending.

4 Including, amazingly, barristers.

Priti Patel¹ and her advisors should read this book. The complexities of an international people smuggling gang are outlined in brilliant readable prose. Numerous Chinese names are scattered across the page but the central theme isn’t buried in detail. And that theme is that America and the industrial West are magnets for ambitious poverty-stricken Third World economic-migrants.

Priti Patel is quite right, people smuggling trade is hideous. The aspirations of economic migrants are ruthlessly exploited with many deaths en route. Death is a cost that economic migrants are willing to accept in the fulfilment of their dream. Once it’s understood death is an acceptable ‘cost’, policies have shift to meet that reality. Rwanda² isn’t a deterrent to people who’ve factored in the possibility of death.

People smuggling accelerates the corruption of officials. The vast sums of money, which are involved, drive people smuggling entrepreneurs to audacious techniques.³ Treating immigrants as cargo meant containers were utilised to by-pass frontier checks whereas the rich simply buy nationality entering the legitimate world.⁴

Keefe’s book is a gangster thriller; a sober analysis of immigration and the USA; an inspiring story of economic migration; and a story of a clash of cultures. Although it’s set in the USA the exact same principles are at work in the UK.

This book is brilliant. Unfortunately, it isn’t on Kindle and the paperback is quite pricy. Nonetheless it’s worth chasing up.

Notes

1 Priti Patel is Britain’s immigration minister

2 Why are migrants being sent to Rwanda and how will it work? | World News | Sky News

3 Essex lorry deaths: Men jailed for killing 39 migrants in trailer – BBC News

4 Countries where you can buy citizenship | World Economic Forum (weforum.org)

Councillors often lose their seats in mid-term local elections. These elections are sometimes used to ‘punish’ unpopular governments.¹ This is a fact of electoral life. The Collier Row and Mawney leaflet published by the Conservatives is blissfully unaware of this. They’re planning a coronation.

The leaflet (nos. 85) claims there’s a local Conservative Action Team. Their sole identified achievement was delivering the leaflet. This is an abnormal use of the word  ‘Action’.

The 220 words in the leaflet are vacuous. There’s nothing about the positive impact the three councillors have made in 4 years. This is amazing because Jason Frost is the cabinet member for health during a pandemic!

The front of the leaflet² is quaint, “Romford is a traditional English Market Town in the historic County of Essex³….” And,“…we fly the Union Jack from our Town Hall 365 days of the year!”  This is so feeble it should be on a life support machine.

Meanwhile on the back there’s a surprise. There’s a series of bizarre questions. An example is Q3, “Do you agree that Havering must keep its special character as a town and country borough and should not become just another part of inner London.”   This question is 57 years too late as Havering has enjoyed being part of London since the mid-1960s. Of course, the Conservatives might want to trade the London Freedom Pass for an Essex post code. In which case they should say so straight out.

Given that councillors have nothing to boast about in this pre-election leaflet, why would anyone vote for them again?

Notes

1 In 1968 Labour lost 21 of their 51 seats in Newham 1968 Newham London Borough Council election – Wikipedia

2 The Conservatives sometimes pad out their leaflets with quotes which owe more to artistic license than reality Romford Conservatives falsely quote residents in newsletters | Romford Recorder

3 Havering has been a London Borough since 1964 two years before Andrew Rosindell was born.

Sometimes in life you work long and hard and fail. The dedicated volunteers who’ve created Havering’s RAF museum have no worries. They’ve triumphed.

RAF Hornchurch was at the epicentre of the Battle of Britain. The street names in the area memorialise their heroic deeds and two schools have been named to celebrate their victory.¹ But there was no museum to gather together every facet of RAF Hornchurch.

The museum is organised around ten themes, each with their dedicated space. Because this was a labour of love, the volunteers went the extra mile to curate the collection. A stellar example was tracking down the uniforms of Wing Commander Finucane in Room 2. They were unseen and unloved in a professional museum until they were rescued and given a prominent display cabinet.

Room 5 tells the story of Sanders Draper who heroically saved hundreds of children’s lives by sacrificing his own when his Spitfire had catastrophic engine failure. As of September 2021, the local academy will revert to his name after the dismal decision to delete it a few years ago.

Room 6, The Home Front Room is richly evocative and filled with the everyday aspects of civilian lives. There are memoirs, with photographs, which cumulatively add up to a rare and wonderful insight into what that generation had to put with.

I spent about an hour in the museum but feel I only touched the surface. The volunteer guides are incredibly knowledgeable and helpful.

There’s a small car park and an entry fee of £5. If you sense that you’ll be returning, and I will, then the £20 annual membership fee is a bargain. The museum is staffed by volunteers and is open each Saturday and Sunday 11 a.m. till 4 p.m.

Note

1 R J Mitchell Junior School and the Sanders Draper Academy

Take a bow councillors Sally Miller, John Tyler, Philippa Crowder and Michael Deon Burton. They made the Overview and Scrutiny system work.¹ Interestingly they were present in the chamber unlike silent Zoom councillors.

Item 5 was an update on a £5 million CCTV capital programme. John Tyler, supported by the chair, Sally Miller, expressed his incredulity. They were outraged by incompetent decision-making, which authorised a £5 million expenditure, without detailed costs. This is ‘wish and a prayer’ procurement. The incompetent culprits are Councillors Viddy Persaud and Roger Ramsey who are, respectively, Public Safety and Finance cabinet members.

The principal officer struggled to defend this fiasco. Heroically she said the £5 million budget couldn’t be exceeded. She acknowledged a Chinese factory fire had created a world-wide shortage of microchips, but, no worries, other suppliers would fill the gap. This left the programme in tatters, as Tyler noted.

She thought that about 350 cameras were needed but it might fewer. The number was being driven by costs. Deon Burton said Havering needed mobile units to combat fly-tipping. He also asked about competitive tendering. This was an unintentional trick question because local authority CCTV is a quasi-monopoly. Consultant fees were questioned but the committee were hurried past as they are an unmentionable cost.

The chair is dubious about the £5 million. Perhaps Councillors Persaud and Ramsey could explain why they authorised a £5 million expenditure without any detailed costs to the committee?² £5 million? Why not £4 million? Whether it’s value-for-money at all wasn’t asked.

Notes

1 For the webcast go to Annotator Player (sonicfoundry.com) This section begins at 20 minutes for about 20 minutes

2 No cabinet member has ever appeared before an Overview and Scrutiny committee to be questioned about their policy decision-making. So this would be a significant event.

Bin collections and politics are strangely linked in the East London Waste Authority (ELWA). ELWA is a four borough group.¹ The bin and ‘paid-for’ green waste collection is faultless but that’s where excellence ends.

Recycling

Recycling is organised as a weekly orange sack and bin collection. There are also bottle banks, to which you have to travel and Gerpins Lane for bigger items. ELWA’s recycling statistics are ghastly with them coming 327^th out of of 341 local authorities.² This seemed unbelievable so I researched it. Havering is cemented into ELWA with three albatrosses.

Havering accounts for 52.2% of ELWA’s total.³

 

Financial Engineering

ELWA’s financial officers produced a huge, impenetrable document for the councillors. The officers engineered a short-term ‘solution’ to meet the challenges that the local authorities are under. Unfortunately it’s very expensive. “This report proposes a decrease of 29.52% in the 2021/22 levy, which is significantly lower than the 4.59% forecast increase reported in February 2020.”⁴ That’s a 34.11% decrease on the budgeted levy. “The consequence of the one-off significant decrease in 2021/22 is an increase in the following year of 51.72%. These movements equate to an increase over the two-year period from 2020/21 to 2022/23 of 6.93%.”⁴ Reducing budget pressure looks like a great idea but, “this could provoke a referendum on Council Tax…”⁵ A referendum would be politically embarrassing and hugely expensive.

Needless to relate they ignored this severe warning and agreed to the 29.52% decrease. ELWA is a political organisation run by councillors who don’t know what they’re doing.⁶

Notes

1 Havering with Barking and Dagenham, Newham and Redbridge. Osman Dervish and Robert Benham are Havering’s nominees.

2 2019/20 overall performance – letsrecycle.com ELWA comes 327^th out of 341

3 08.02.2021-ELWA-Authority-Agenda-Pack-Public.pdf (eastlondonwaste.gov.uk) p165

4 ibid p100

5 ibid p110

6 Despite the well flagged challenges councillors agreed this action Authority-Agenda-Pack-25.06.21-FINAL-open.pdf (eastlondonwaste.gov.uk) Minutes pp9-10

Havering’s Conservatives are in disarray over Free School Meals. Marcus Rashford highlighted the fact of hunger during the summer holidays. Johnson rejected the request. Government policy was reversed and meals were provided. The issue came back to parliament for the October and Christmas holidays. On 21^st October, Conservatives in parliament decisively rejected provision of Free School Meals. Shortly afterwards, Andrew Rosindell stoutly defended the government’s position, which Damian White rejected. Johnson then reversed government policy once more.

Andrew opposed free school meals during school holidays. Andrew’s reply to my blog said,

“Extending Free School Meals to over the school holidays would mean effectively handing over responsibility for feeding our kids from parents to the Government and I do not believe that this is right.”*

Damian, Conservative leader of Havering, wrote to me saying,

“The Covid crisis we are in continues to have significant impacts on vulnerable people and families in the borough and this is a sensible solution to a problem that is fundamentally about the wellbeing of our children.”**

Romford’s Conservatives are split on Free School Meals because it means higher taxation. It’s now known that most welfare beneficiaries are in work. Welfare payments are a subsidy for employers. Johnson’s flip-flopping illustrates an unpleasant truth, which is that welfare payments are too low for civilised living in Havering today.

Notes

* Andrew Rosindell Letter dated 27^th October 2020

** Damian White Letter dated 27^th October 2020

Sources

For the blog which Andrew replied to see https://havering.blog/2020/10/24/andrew-rosindell-and-the-free-school-meals-debate-21st-october-2020/e

For the parliamentary debate selected quotations see https://oedeboyz.com/2020/10/23/selected-quotes-the-free-school-meals-debate-21st-october-2020/

Hornchurch Country park doesn’t rest on its considerable laurels. It’s constantly evolving. Its principal feature is peace and quiet in a rural environment. But that’s just the setting. There’s much more for all age groups and interests.

There’s a good walking surface over the extensive grounds with benches at appropriate places, overlooking the SSSI, Albyn’s Farm lake, and luxuriating in the countryside. Large open spaces offer opportunities for playing with dogs or flying kites or casual picnics at the tables which are scattered around. It’s also a Heritage site with information boards about the role of the area in wartime. The children’s playground has a model Spitfire as part of the equipment alongside traditional swings and so on.

The Essex Wildlife Ingrebourne Valley Trust has built a visitors centre. This serves as an educational facility as well as a cafe and shop. There’s a large outdoor area overlooking open countryside. Finally there’s a decent sized free car park with a hard surface.

Hornchurch Country Park is a destination for those sauntering, keeping fit, flying kites, dog-walking, kicking a football, picnicking, playing in the playground, and taking world famous photographs.** It’s a revered heritage site. This park is Havering’s finest. It’s a credit to the Council and everyone associated with it.

Sources

* https://www.havering.gov.uk/info/20037/parks/699/hornchurch_country_park

** https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/safaris-and-wildlife/Incredible-photo-captures-weasel-riding-on-the-back-of-a-flying-woodpecker/