Cllr McAuley’s “absolute barefaced lie” intervention was dramatic. My wife Sally, who had been present at the unveiling of the road plans to the school governors and was present in the public gallery during the Council meeting, added to the theatre of the moment; she was so incensed that for the first time ever she broke Council chamber protocol and shouted out what had happened.

The mayor joined in the drama. Claiming that “Cllr Craig has been very clear about what he said. This is our opportunity to find out”, he ordered an investigation. Note that he did NOT say, “Cllr McAuley has been very clear about what he said. This is our opportunity to find out.” Cllr McAuley is of course leader of the Labour group and a colleague of the mayor; I, on the other hand, am from an opposition party. So it is my statements that are being ‘investigated’.

It is instructive that Newham is one of only eleven local councils in the UK that has an elected executive mayor. The model was imported from France and the US by Tony Blair in order to improve local authority decision-making and effectiveness. When it was introduced in 2002 I was in favour. After 6 years experience in Newham, I am against.

The problem is that huge powers are concentrated in the executive mayor. Within the town hall council officers are accountable to him and the majority of Labour councillors have been put on his payroll (his Special Responsibility Allowance gravy train). Even his cabinet has only an advisory role. Yet town hall tentacles reach into all corners of the borough and hugely impact the lives of many.
But this all-powerful mayor is subject to very few democratic checks and balances. The system of scrutiny commissions was established to provide some accountability but it has become supine and ineffective. Commissions are dominated by Labour councillors who because of party loyalty, self-interest and fear of the mayor, cannot offer objective and serious scrutiny of his performance.

The result is an authoritarian and managerialist culture that brooks no opposition. Fear stalks Newham’s corridors of power. The Labour party, and in particular the Labour mayor, knows best; the rest of us had better fall in line. A good illustration of the brutal arrogance of this culture can be seen in the Radical Activist Newham blog of 3 April, “Newham Mayor Buys Himself A Group Of Charities” at http://www.radicalactivistnewham.org.uk/ .

So what about the mayor’s ill-conceived and illegitimate ‘investigation’? Of course I didn’t lie so I don’t have to be afraid of the truth. But how can a politically-inspired investigation operating within the authoritarian and fear-driven culture of Newham town hall ever find the truth? It will be a miracle if it comes to any conclusion other than one which suits the Labour mayor.

Full meetings of Newham Council are fairly tedious. They are often dominated by the mayor, Sir Robin Wales, informing us all how wonderful/successful/impressive the borough has become since he’s been in charge. His venal payroll-vote nod, clap and cheer at another master-class in self-praise. And we all go home.

Mind you, since the 2006 elections when the Christian Peoples Alliance took over Canning Town South ward in bed-rock Labour territory (Labour since 1912 according to the town hall records), the fury of that party has known no bounds. It has led to ferocious and fascinating inter-party rows in Council.

At full Council on 7 April, during Questions To The Mayor, a Labour member planted one about representations received from local councillors over the closure of Oasis Nursery School. As all the local councillors are from the Christian Peoples Alliance, this was clearly intended to be party political knockabout.

As you will expect from the previous post (Part 1, below), the mayor spun the line that it was River Christian Centre’s (the landlord’s) fault the school was closing. On a Point of Order I countered that the reason why the school was closing was because a road was going through it. Then the balloon went up. The mayor’s executive adviser for regeneration and leader of the Labour group on council, Cllr McAuley, erupted with a show-stopper: Cllr Craig, he shouted, was telling an “absolute barefaced lie”.

At root the eruption was about power and control. In the Aldous Huxlian Republic of Newham there is only one way of seeing the world – the Labour Party way. Labour paradise-engineering requires us all to toe the line and receive the wisdom propagated by the mayoral cadre of party jobsworths and their bloated communications department (spin doctors to you and me), as that way lies universal – synthetic – happiness.

Anyone out of line is out of their control and, like UNISON’s Michael Gavan (see my post of 24th January), is ruthlessly disposed of. Labour Newham is Mugabe without the bullets.

Therefore Cllr McAuley was unable simply to say I had a different and democratically-valid viewpoint about the closure… Nor even that I was profoundly mistaken… Nor possibly that in his view I promoted a malicious misrepresentation of the facts. No, he was so affronted that someone had another way of seeing the world and the school closure that he had to go the whole hog. So I was telling an “absolute barefaced lie”.

It’s a tribute to our Judeo-Christian and liberal democratic heritage that such an expression would be ruled out of order in the mother of parliaments at Westminster. A Christian understanding is that there is only one unchanging root Truth in the universe and that everything else can be up for discussion and dispute; this leads to a liberal and enlightened respect for diverse viewpoints. Freedom of speech, thought and conscience flow directly from this.

Accusations of “lying” on the other hand tend to be fascistic, antidemocratic and intended to close down debate. They aren’t of course ruled out of order at Newham Council.

Cllr McAuley’s claim leads to a logical conundrum. He said ‘advisedly’ (that is, with due consideration) that I told a lie or “uttered a falsehood with an intention to deceive” (Chambers Dictionary). If he’s right, I am a dishonourable liar. However if he’s wrong and I didn’t lie, then the boot must be on the other foot.

I don’t and didn’t lie.

Want to know what happens when a local political party, obsessed by power and control, is unrestrained by normal democratic checks-and-balances?

Here’s a small but illustrative story from the Labour one-party state of Newham in London’s East End which, when I was first elected a councillor in 2002, had – apart from myself – no-one but Labour politicians representing it at all levels; Newham Council, the GLA, Westminster and Europe. No political opposition anywhere – a situation that must be unique in the UK. And for the Labour Party as a whole it’s a showcase borough providing a convenient photo-op location for ministers to visit and promote their latest government initiative.

Since 2001 the Labour executive mayor Sir Robin Wales has planned and personally driven through a massive housing regeneration project in my ward of Canning Town South. Residents are currently being moved out, council flats demolished and new posh private apartment blocks are rising out of the rubble. Parts of the neighbourhood are more moonscape than local community. And at the heart of this neighbourhood is the gem of an educational establishment, Oasis Nursery School (see my post of 13 March).

Last May the head of the regeneration project (a council officer) attended the school governors meeting and slapped a regeneration map on the table that indicated a new east-west road was to be built exactly where the school stands. How do I know? My wife, Sally was a governor and present at the meeting. She asked incredulously, “How exactly are we to explain this to the parents?” A thumping great road was replacing the school! The governors were then promised a placatory consultation “to minimise any impact”. It was surreal and bizarre. It was as relevant as consultation with a condemned man about his method of execution.

Mind you, there was already concern about falling pupil numbers. So many families were being moved out of the area due to the regeneration that Oasis was failing in its struggle to maintain the school roll.

The school’s landlord is a church and community centre, the River Christian Centre (RCC), with which the school shares a large site in the centre of the regeneration area. In due course it became apparent that RCC wanted to follow the council’s lead, get on the regeneration bandwagon and redevelop the whole of its site too.

So there are three possible reasons why the school should close (the east-west road, the falling pupil numbers and the landlord’s development plans), all of which flow from the Mayor’s original decision to regenerate the area.

Oasis is very popular amongst local parents, so guess which the Labour-dominated council is promoting as the reason for the closure? Yes, you’re right. It’s RCC that is causing the school to shut and, by implication, it’s RCC that should be blamed by the local people. “Not our fault. It was them. Er… so don’t vote against us at the next election.”

RCC’s reputation is now being trashed amongst local people by Labour councillors and it dare not defend itself. Why? RCC needs to get its own redevelopment plans through the council’s planning committee, and guess who dominates the planning committee – like every other committee, board, body, agency, authority and working group at the council and in the borough? Ah yes, Newham Labour Party.

So, we are told triumphantly by our Labour masters, it’s RCC that has Oasis blood on its hands. Labour of course is blameless.

Welcome to the Alice-in-Wonderland management-by-mirrors world of Newham.

But the story doesn’t end there…