Politics

ALL COUNCILS are equal – but, under Starmer’s Labour Government, some are more equal than others. The cash-strapped Government that had to axe the Winter Fuel Allowance for pensioners has found funds for a selective cash bailout to some failing ...

IT WAS unprecedented. Tower Hamlets Councillors united, almost to a person, to stop the Council’s pension fund investing in companies involved in the arms trade. The Council and its employees both contribute a small sum to a pension fund each ...

AN EXECUTIVE MAYOR is accountable to the public who elected them, rather than to the Council. Nonetheless, the Mayor is alloted six minutes every meeting to address the Council. That’s about half an hour a year, or two hours each ...

AT LAST! Tower Hamlets Council’s Children’s Services has been awarded an “outstanding” rating, following an inspection by Ofsted at the end of last year. And Labour stalwarts tried to claim the credit. The Council meeting on 22nd January began with ...

THERE WAS a `businesslike start to the January meeting of Tower Hamlets Council on what was a cold winter’s night. Inside the Chamber, all was somber, with almost everyone dressed in dark colours. Only the Speaker introduced a splash of ...

IT IS HARD to know who has come out of the Tulip Siddiq saga the worse: her, the MP for Hampstead & Highgate and former Economic Secretary to the Treasury; or him, Leader of the Labour Party and UK Prime ...

A MAYOR will always want to implement their Manifesto – but some, it seems, will find it easier than others. For example… In 2015, Labour’s John Biggs promised that if he was elected he would give the Rich Mix Centre ...

REFORM UK has more members than the Conservative Party. Their website real-time membership clock clicked over the Tory total just in time for Nigel Farage to announce it on the slow-news Boxing Day. On the face of it, this has ...

“I WOULD love to go to a Food Bank.” There were the words of a Tory Government Minister, speaking on the radio a couple of years ago. “All that free food. People are really lucky and they don’t appreciate it.” ...

SAFETY FOR residents and visitors; respect for our heritage; police resources; and road safety were the key concerns of councillors who rejected, for the second time, a planning application to build a new Chinese embassy at Tower Hill. The issue ...