Another Brent Executive post challenged ahead of Thursday's hustings

Margaret McLennan

A  further Brent Executive post is to be contested this week with Housing, currently led by Cllr Janice Long, joining the list which includes Children and Families, Customers and Citizens, Environment and Neighbourhoods and Crime and Public Safety. The Housing challenger, Cllr Margaret McLennan (Northwick Park) is not someone normally associated with the so-called 'Young Turks'.

The hustings will be held at Neasden Methodist Church, Neasden Lane (on the roundabout) at 8pm on Thursday and the vote  takes place on Saturday May 11th at the Annual General Meeting.

Although it is generally expected that Muhammed Butt's supporters will do well with allies of former leader Ann John in rather a rut at the moment, one Buttite  member of the current Executive was less confident, remarking that Labour councillors 'are a funny old lot' and hard to predict.

Meanwhile the selection process has begun for Labour's  councillor candidates for 2014 and I have heard that there are 150 expressions of interest for 63 posts, although that has  not been verified.

If it is the case, this is quite remarkable considering the gloomy outlook for local government with the Coalition slowly strangling it in terms of finance and political power.It will be hard to argue next time that 'I didn't come into politics to make cuts'.

Significantly one backbench councillor recently remarked that s/he was seriously thinking about whether they had been more politically effective as a local activist than as a councillor.