Tag Archives: Mayor

Drug policy: are the Greens really the only adults in the room?

Candidate: it seems the Green Party has a serious candidate in the race to be mayor of London after an election this year.

It seems the campaign to elect a new mayor of London has more than two serious candidates this time.

Here’s Zoe Garbett of the Green Party, putting forward a policy to tackle rising drug-related deaths in the city:

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Are there any experts in preventing drug deaths reading this, who can explain whether her words make good sense? If not, what would?


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Labour could win a general election by promising to end destitution. Why not do that?

Jamie Driscoll: good advice for his old party.

North of Tyne Mayor Jamie Driscoll, who quit the Labour Party to stand as an Independent, has provided useful advice to his former political home – and it is good.

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You may have missed it among the torrent of opinions on Israel and Gaza, so here it is:

Promise to end destitution within five years and the election is won.

It’s a valid point, isn’t it?

The question is: why won’t Keir Starmer do it? Is he too heavily in thrall to big business by now?


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Starmerite hypocrisy is at work again – and the subject is, inevitably, Jeremy Corbyn

Keir Starmer and Jeremy Corbyn: It seems Starmer is trying to backstab Mr Corbyn YET AGAIN.

Jeremy Corbyn has been urged to stand for the London Mayoralty, apparently – and the Starmer machine has leapt into action to put the kibosh on it.

As usual, the Starmerite’s have shot themselves in the foot – as far as anyone with any sense is concerned.

They have caught themselves in a classic contradiction:

People don’t like politicians who are overtly two-faced. This may go very badly indeed for Starmer.


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Jamie Driscoll has given up on the Labour Party and gone Independent. Help him get re-elected as North East Mayor

Independent: Jamie Driscoll.

This is fairly self-explanatory:

The letter in the tweet, to Labour leader Keir Starmer, states: “Given you have barred me from running as North East Mayor, despite being incumbent Mayor, I have no other choice. In 2020 you told me to my face that you would ‘inspire people to come together… disciplining people to be united is going nowhere.’ You’ve broken that promise.”

That’s one more broken promise to add to a very long list, then! And Mr Driscoll comments on this: “You’ve U-turned on so many promises: £28 billion to tackle the climate emergency, free school meals, ending university tuition fees, reversing NHS privatisation; in fact, a list of broken promises too long to repeat in this letter. And please stop saying ‘I make no apologies for…’ before you find yourself saying ‘I make no apologies for making no apologies.

“Britain is a mess. Wages have fallen behind inflation. People are struggling to pay mortgages. Knife crime is out of control. Business investment has flat lined. The climate response is barely existent. People with chest pains wait an hour for ambulances. Our transport system is in chaos.

“It is not grown-up politics to say Britain is broken, and then claim things are now so difficult
we will abandon any plan to fix it. That is mental gymnastics worthy of Olympic gold.”

Mr Driscoll continues: “Worst of all, you’ve said you’re not interested in hope and change. Well, I am – Britain needs hope and change. Instead of London Labour HQ barring me from running, you could have used my work as a showcase of economic competence.

“My Combined Authority has built affordable homes in rural and urban areas. I’ve worked with businesses large and small to deliver a pipeline of over 5,000 new jobs, all backed by our Good Work Pledge. Implemented a Green New Deal and invested heavily in offshore renewable energy. Our Child Poverty Prevention Programme is hailed as an exemplar of best practice. And we’ve increased adult education enrolments from 22,000 a year to 33,000 a year for the same budget. All this wealth generation was done without charging people a penny in council tax.

“I’ve led negotiations and delivered an expanded £4.27 billion devolution deal across the North East to transform our region’s transport system.

“I’ve done this by being pragmatic and putting results ahead of party politics – to the effect that I’ve received praise for my ‘constructive, non-partisan approach’ from Labour, Conservative, Lib Dem, Green and Independent Ministers, Mayors, MPs and councillors.

“I think I’ve shown that hope and change is not only possible – but that it’s a pragmatic, common sense response to the challenges of our time. This is not a time for faint hearts. It’s a time for bravery. Shy bairns get nowt.

“I didn’t become a politician until I was 48. I’m an engineer. Fixing broken systems is what I do.

“We need a new settlement. I value patriotism – and believe it’s expressed by public service, not xenophobia. My Dad drove a tank in the army, my brother served in the navy at the time of the Falklands. My politics are simple – I believe Britain should be run in the interests of the people who do the work. That includes those unable to work, and those retired from a lifetime of work. It’s not left-wing. It’s not right-wing. It’s common sense.

“The groundswell of support I’ve received has been humbling. Business leaders, trade union leaders, charity workers, huge numbers of Labour members, and elected politicians from every party have encouraged me to run as an independent, saying they will vote for me because the North East needs an autonomous voice that’s not in hock to Westminster Party HQs. They may be right.”

It all seems sensible to This Writer.

As an Independent, Mr Driscoll has no access to a political party’s electoral machine. He needs funds and he needs people who are willing to go out and campaign for him.

He has a GoFundMe site here. Its introductory information states: “A full campaign will cost around £150,000. I believe in listening to the public – so if you donate £25,000 by the end of August, I promise I’ll run. And I don’t hit that target, I won’t run. This decision is in your hands.

“As North East Mayor I’ll deliver a Total Transport Network, create a job for everyone who wants one, and deliver a Green New Deal. Find out more on my website https://jamiedriscoll.co.uk/

Funders hit that £25k target in less than two hours. At the time of writing, he is well on his way to the full £150,000 needed to run a full campaign. I would urge you to support him.

And I would remind you that Jamie Driscoll is not the only former Labour representative now standing for election as an independent.

Expect information about the others in the very near future.


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The dishonesty of Baroness Jenny Chapman

Baroness Chapman: she thinks democracy is the right to vote for the person Keir Starmer and his cronies say should represent us, rather than the right to make our own choice. You see the difference?

“Everybody’s entitled to an opinion. What they’re not entitled to do is invent facts,” says Piers Morgan on a BBC News advert that’s currently airing.

Inventing facts was exactly what Baroness Jenny Chapman did – on the BBC – yesterday (June 11) when she told a BBC North interviewer that Labour Party members would be able to choose the candidate they want to be the new North East Mayor.

This is clearly untrue while Jamie Driscoll is excluded from the longlist of candidates.

Baroness Chapman batted this criticism away with a non sequitur claim that Labour is “not a debating society”. That much is very clear.

But it does present itself as a democratic organisation, and if candidates for political office are excluded from the running before people who are entitled to vote even have a chance to do so, then that claim is clearly untrue.

Here’s the dialogue – watch and listen for yourself:

“This is about getting the right outcome for the people of the North East?” Shouldn’t that be the right-wing outcome?

“We need to have a leader in the region who can be that champion for us.” Who’s “us” in that sentence?

Jamie Driscoll has repeatedly set out the list of his achievements as North of Tyne Mayor – and it’s a long list.

Isn’t Baroness Chapman’s concern that Labour’s representative should be someone who will do what her party’s leaders in Westminster want – and not what the people of the northeast need?

Voters in that region would be well-advised to boycott the Labour Party – no matter whose face is being used to represent it – until this insult to democracy is reversed, and apologies presented by all those involved in it. And that includes Baroness Chapman.


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Labour’s mistreatment of Jamie Driscoll has backfired massively

Dumped: Jamie Driscoll.

It’s the thinnest excuse possible and everybody knows it: Keir Starmer wants self-confessed “last Corbynite in power”, Jamie Driscoll, out of his job as a metropolitan mayor, and he’s using a joint appearance with film director Ken Loach as the reason.

Mr Loach has already been expelled from the Labour Party, although nobody seems to know the reason, and Starmer’s mob is saying that Mr Driscoll having appeared at an event that the great British director also attended is enough reason to exclude him from candidate shortlists.

Mr Driscoll – rightly – reckons that’s a crock. He doesn’t even mention it in his article commenting on his achievements and the way his party is letting the people of northeast England down:

He states:

Labour struggles to convince the electorate it can handle the economy.  You’d think I was exactly the success story the Labour Party would want to shout about.  So when they barred me from standing as North East Mayor, it shocked people from across the political spectrum.  I’ve had literally thousands of messages of support.

I identify as a socialist.  Sometimes that puts me on a collision course with the Party leadership in London.

My first duty is to the people who elected me as their mayor.  The Labour members here, in our region, chose me to represent them last time.  They should have that choice again.  It’s called democracy.  Union leaders, MPs, and other Mayors are making my case, and asking for the decision to be reversed.

There’s a lack of trust in politics.  Second homes.  Second jobs.  Cash for questions.  Not me.  £0 expenses claims.  I pay for my own phone.  I gave up my car and use my bike or public transport so I see what everyone else has to deal with.

Politics needs to change.  We need a new direction.  Power must reside in the North East, and in every region of Britain.  Not in Westminster and Party HQs.  I have a vision of a Britain that’s run in the interests of the people who do the work.  And I believe we can get there.

Say what you like about Unite General Secretary Sharon Graham; she’s on the right side of this argument:

“Nodding heads” are exactly the kind of people Keir Starmer wants in all positions representing the Labour Party. It seems clear that the only people he wants to have any power at all are those who are completely subservient to him.

What of Ken Loach?

Well, we’ve established that he was expelled from the Labour Party for reasons that have never been disclosed. Anti-Semitism has been alleged but no accusation has ever stuck.

Still, right-wing lickspittles like Luke Akehurst are using association with Mr Loach as their reason for wanting rid of Mr Driscoll, as you can see below.

By that token, though, Keir Starmer should also be out of a job at the next election:

Right?

But when Mr Driscoll appeared on the BBC’s Newsnight, Labour sent a party drone from Sussex to undermine him with insults about David Brent (the Office idiot) and falsehoods about party rules.

And what happened? Mr Driscoll ran rings around Paul Richards, who made a fool of himself:

The clip has been sent around Twitter by a few commenters, and their observations speak for themselves. Here‘s Alistair Greaves: “Honestly, @MayorJD gives these ghouls far much more politeness than they deserve. Not sure why the #biasedbbc let Paul Richards have the last word though, and while they can argue “no-one is bigger or better than the party or the rules” JAMIE DRISCOLL HASN’T BROKEN ANY RULES.”

How about MsAlfieB here? “Was the BoD demand that Labour suspend anyone sharing a platform with an expelled member written into the rules? If so that’s really shocking Surely a mayor works for all in his city, not for the Labour party. Labour Party rules can’t be imposed on public servants doing their job.”

(The “BoD” would be the Board of Deputies of British Jews, which is not a Labour-affiliated organisation. But Starmer seems to have allied with it in his purge of left-wing party members.)

Also during that Newsnight appearance, Richards tried to justify the blocking of Mr Driscoll as a candidate by claiming he does not meet the criteria (again: because Mr Driscoll had appeared at an event where Ken Loach – who has not done anything quantifiably wrong – also appeared).

Here’s what happened when interviewer Victoria Derbyshire countered with a list of Mr Discoll’s actual achievements as North Tyne Mayor:

Incidentally…

Now, those are just the opinions of people who inhabit Twitter; the social media equivalent of the man or woman on the Clapham omnibus.

Perhaps you’d prefer the view of a mass media columnist?

The commentary is damning:

Keir Starmer said in January he wanted to “take back control” for local communities. The Labour leader wants them to have more say over jobs, transport, energy, climate change, housing, culture, childcare and finance. He wants to liberate what is now recognised as the most centralised state in Europe. So why, now, has the Labour leader decided that the people of the North of Tyne area will not be permitted to reselect their current mayor, Jamie Driscoll, to stand for Labour at the next election? Why did he agree in March that his predecessor as leader, Jeremy Corbyn, should not be reselected as MP for Islington North?

Whatever the perceived misdeeds of these two politicians, surely these are matters for their respective communities to decide on. Come to that, I notice in the past few weeks that, despite his devolution speech, Starmer wants no devolution of power over council tax rises, local housing decisions or the siting of wind turbines, among other things. Nor will he tolerate any nonsense from Scottish people about “taking back control” of Scotland.

Even before he finds himself in Downing Street, Starmer cannot bring himself to respect the local diversity that has long been Labour’s strength. He cannot allow his party to let the people of the north-east choose who it is they want to lead them. It is a very bad start.

The condemnation seems universal; everyone who doesn’t have an interest in opposing Mr Driscoll seems to be supporting him.

That means two things:

Firstly, the old lies about anti-Semitism aren’t going to work any more.

Secondly, it doesn’t matter who else is on Labour’s shortlist for the new North East Mayor job; if Jamie Driscoll isn’t on it, Labour won’t have a hope of winning the election.

Will Keir Starmer learn his lesson from this?

Probably not, sadly.

In fact, he’ll probably take revenge by setting his sights on two other metropolitan mayors who have supported Mr Driscoll – Steve Rotherham and Andy Burnham.

And that would be an even worse mistake.


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Sitting Labour mayor removed from reselection list – because he MET someone

Dumped: Jamie Driscoll.

Yes, the factionalism within the Labour Party really has become so ridiculous that a successful party representative can be removed from office undemocratically, simply because he met somebody who is not liked by those who are currently in control.

Here’s North of Tyne Mayor Jamie Driscoll:

The announcement has been greeted with shock by many, including senior members of the Labour Party:

And what’s the reason for this sudden deselection?

Apparently it’s because Mr Driscoll once met and shared a platform with the filmmaker Ken Loach, who has been ejected from the party on unsupported grounds of anti-Semitism.

Labour said the pair sharing a platform had been “incompatible” with its attempts to tackle antisemitism,

according to the BBC. But then, it went on to say

Loach was expelled from Labour in 2021 amid efforts to tackle the antisemitism experienced during Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership

and anybody who knows anything at all about anti-Semitism in the Labour Party will know perfectly well that it fell during Mr Corbyn’s time as leader.

From this, it is easy to demonstrate (i) that the BBC doesn’t bother to check its facts these days, and (ii) that factionalism in the Labour Party is indeed, as John McDonnell stated, out of control.

Apparently,

a senior Labour source told the Press Association Mr Driscoll’s candidacy was blocked because he had appeared with Loach at Newcastle’s Live Theatre.

The source said the mayor’s appearance with the director – famed for films including I, Daniel Blake – and his subsequent “refusing to apologise” was “clearly incompatible” with the party’s promise “to have zero tolerance of antisemitism”.

But

the party has never confirmed why [Mr Loach] was kicked out.

This is bad news for left-wing lovers of quality movies, as Ian Hodson (among many others) has pointed out.

By the way, if Starmer did bring in a law of ‘association crime’, the UK would have to have split from the European Convention on Human Rights and its own Human Rights laws. That would, of course, be entirely out of character for any Labour leadership.

Here’s a member of that party’s current leadership, Jonathan Reynolds, showing that he and his colleagues are indeed out of step with the facts and the character of the party.

Remember, according to the BBC, Labour has never confirmed its reason for expelling Mr Loach.

Another person who thinks it’s okay to override democracy – remember, Jamie Driscoll is the democratically-elected sitting mayor of an English region; by deselecting him, Labour is usurping the right of the voters to re-elect the representative they want – is right-wing lunatic Luke Akehurst, who many believe to be using anti-Semitism as an excuse to rid the party of people he doesn’t like.

Here are a few opinions on that:

Before anyone leaps in to defend Loony Luke, let’s have a balancing view of who the current Labour leadership (including, one concludes, him) thinks is an acceptable person to meet.

No wonder Labour’s party membership is plummeting, with plenty of people out here happy to help anybody who wants to abandon the sinking ship (like lifeboat users, not like rats):

Apparently (and I must be careful here; I’m quoting another BBC report), Mr Driscoll’s deselection leaves Starmerite Kim McGuinness in pole position to become Labour’s candidate.

I think we can all understand why that might seem suspicious.


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London Mayor announces emergency move to give free school meals to all primary school pupils

Sadiq Khan: he’s feeding London’s school pupils. Isn’t it a shame the Conservative government can’t think up policies that would help the families of London afford to do the same?

What a sad pickle for a country as rich as the UK – that its people can’t even afford to feed their children. Who has all the money?

Labour’s London Mayor Sadiq Khan has announced an emergency package of free meals for all primary school pupils in London, to help poverty-stricken families through the Tory-caused cost-of-living crisis.

Here’s the Evening Standard:

210,000 primary and secondary pupils in London … live in households on universal credit but miss out on free school meals – because their household income, excluding benefits, is over the threshold of £7,400 a year.

This low threshold applies irrespective of the number of children in the family and is causing deep hardship among families struggling with the spiralling cost of living.

Some hungry children were so desperate, they were stealing food from the school canteen and supermarkets to eat.

Sadiq Khan’s £130 million scheme will fund the 270,000 state primary school children in London who do not already receive free school meals, of whom an estimated 100,000 live in poverty.

The Mayor, who has repeatedly called on Government to extend free school meals to all children in poverty, said his scheme will be funded out of higher-than-expected business rates and council tax collections and will be for the 2023/2024 academic year only.

So it isn’t permanent, and it looks like it’s only during term time – so we’ll still need the Marcus Rashfords of this world if matters get so tight that children end up starving during the holidays.

And of course it doesn’t help the 100,000 secondary pupils in London, or the 600,000 school pupils outside the capital, who are also facing poverty-triggered hunger.

And I doubt if councils in the UK’s poorer areas will have higher business rates and council tax collections on which to rely.

Interestingly – once again – we are being told that the Tory government’s failure to ensure that our school pupils are properly nourished is harmful to the economy that they still claim to be best-suited to safeguard:

Research by accounting firm PwC published by the Evening Standard has shown that investment in free school meals would yield a net economic benefit to society of £2.45 billion over 20 years.

PwC calculated that the cost would be £6.44 billion over two decades but would lead to benefits in educational attainment, mental and physical health impacts and productivity of £8.9 billion – a net benefit of £2.45bn.

So the Conservative government, once again, has been shown to be deliberately – let’s remember – harming not only our children, but our future livelihoods.

Who voted for them?

And who will ever vote for them again?

Source: Sadiq Khan announces free school meals for all primary school pupils in London | Evening Standard


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Bristol votes to abolish its elected mayor

Marvin Rees: Bristol’s elected mayor must hand over to a committee system in 2024.

Voters in Bristol have decided to abolish their elected mayor in favour of a committee system in which decisions are made by groups of councillors.

Incumbent Marvin Rees, of the Labour Party, will continue to hold the post until 2024 when he will hand over to the new system.

The BBC is reporting that the always-controversial mayoral system was undermined when Labour lost its majority on the city council, allowing Greens, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats to co-operate to bring about a referendum, and they then campaigned hard to get voters to support their call for change.

That is not This Writer’s understanding of the situation because it suggests that those other parties nudged voters into doing what they wanted.

I’m originally from Bristol, and the impression I’ve had from my contacts there is that residents were unhappy that Mr Rees was making decisions unilaterally, that were often the opposite of what the majority of people wanted.

It was undemocratic.

That’s the drawback – or potential drawback – of having local authorities run by elected mayors.

With that system spreading across the country as a result of Tory government policy, it will be interesting to see how effective Bristol’s return to committee decision-making becomes.

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Was Sadiq Khan’s narrower-than-expected London Mayoral win due to Keir Starmer’s right turn?

Sadiq Khan said unflattering things about then-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn after his 2016 London mayoral victory. But at least Corbyn provided Labour policies for the public to support in the poll. Starmer put him in a vacuum and it is a miracle he received as many votes as he did.

Belated congratulations to Sadiq Khan on his re-election to the London Mayoralty.

But isn’t it disturbing that he won by a narrower margin than against Zac Goldsmith in 2016, against an equally inept candidate?

In the years preceding the election, Bailey had been criticised for racism (calling Khan “the Mad Mullah of Londonistan”, criticising celebration of Muslim and Hindu festivals and claiming that British people were being indoctrinated in the cultures of those religions).

He also proposed forcing larger London businesses to drug-test their employees – but with Parliament, dubbed the “corridors of powder” because of the huge “trace” amounts of cocaine that have been found there, exempt.

And he was accused of sexism as well as racism when it emerged that he had stated in 2006 that single girls in inner cities “deliberately become pregnant” in order to secure homes and benefits from the government.

Against such a man, Sadiq Khan gained more than 100,000 fewer votes than against Goldsmith.

I don’t think the drop-off was anything to do with Khan himself – or with his opponent, though.

I think it was about the leadership of Khan’s political party – Labour.

When he was elected in 2016, the people of London were riding high on the election of Islington North MP Jeremy Corbyn to the leadership with a set of genuinely socialist policies that had the potential to transform the UK into a vibrant example for the world.

By 2021, Corbyn’s right-wing opponents in the Labour Party bureaucracy had stabbed him in the back and had him replaced with suit-haircut-and-flag man Keir Starmer, who had promptly ditched all of those transformative policies in favour of an “any way the wind blows” approach.

In the absence of any policy support from his party leadership, it is a miracle Khan received as many votes as he did.

Source: Sadiq Khan wins second term as London mayor despite tighter-than-expected race | The Independent

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