Carolyn Downs, who as well as being Brent Council CEO is also the Returning Officer for the May 5th local elections, wrote to party returning officers this afternoon:
Dear all
You will be fully aware that purdah starts on 24th March. All councillors including those who will be seeking re-election have been advised of this and to be very careful of any publicity used in the near run up to that date. A particular issue has been drawn to my attention. The council has been working with the community and residents associations on a programme of community skips located in wards around the borough where people can take rubbish. This initiative is warmly welcomed by the community. We have a few more to take place between now and 24th March and we have advised all Councillors not to promote themselves through their own or party publicity in relation to these skips. I am sure that you, as agents, would agree that prospective candidates who are not currently Councillors should desist in doing so as well to avoid this valuable initiative being marred for the community by [political] controversy. I would be grateful for your cooperation.
Carolyn Downs
Chief Executive
9 comments:
This is welcome, but rather late in the day!
The Brent Council publicity machine has been using photographs of Brent (Labour) Cabinet members in many of its press releases, spreading news of "positive" stories from around the borough for a very long time.
Those press releases are then packaged into the "Your Brent" newsletters it issues via email to residents each weekend. Those newsletters are usually introduced with a message from the Leader of the Council, accompanied by a smiling photograph of him, telling the citizens of the borough what a splendid job His Council is doing.
Brent has, in effect, being promoting the ruling political party, and giving it an unfair advantage in the forthcoming local elections.
Residents need to be made aware of this, so that they can see through it.
They need to be encouraged to follow "Wembley Matters" and other local social media, so that they get a more balanced view of what is happening in our borough, rather than the one-sided positive-only messages coming out of the Civic Centre.
And above all, they need to be encouraged to vote at the 5 May elections, and vote for candidates who will listen to people in their local community, and represent their views strongly if elected (rather than just doing what they are told by The Leader, and keeping quiet if they don't agree with what he wants).
Nice letter!
Maybe these skip politicians should instead all stand in the South Kilburn Public Open Space (Brent Kilburn's only park sized park, open 24/7) and advertise abandonment, land banking and the skipping of this key communal public health and natural flood defence asset for the want of development colonial government as business?
Storm in a thimble
No blatant electioneering!
Why aren't are the Labour Councillors out with the enforcement team trying to catch flytippers and street drinkers and paan spitters? They lead the council and should be tackling these issues head on.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. The so called £17 million recovery fund is also being used by Labour for election purposes.
The £17 million actually came a Central Government Covid allocation but it was held back by the Labour administration (and not dealt with through the usual Budget process) to be used on a spending spree just before the election. The normal priority criteria used to select areas for pavement upgrades was ditched so that £3 million could for example be spent in Wembley High Road which now spans 3 key wards crucial for Labour to hold on to power. So while perfectly good pavements are being dug up in Wembley High Road (and the usual Labour imposed asphalt will NOT be used) other streets across Brent with crumbling pavements do not get a look in.
Since the so called 'levelling up' Tory Agenda is taking money out of London to shore up Labour seats up North here in Bent Labour are entitled to use the same tricks and syphon off money in a crude attempt to win votes. I expect that local people will not be so easily 'conned'.
I hope Brent folk won't fall for such cons.
Intensified sanctions and intensified infrastructure destruction for the 8 Growth Area zones towards 2041 the Brent Local Plan, is that what this pre election skip politics fun focus is all about?
These 8 zoned outside of welfare state taxpayers (including nurses and ambulance drivers), must pay for the 25% plus increase in military spending, for health costs increases 1.3 million UK long Covid sufferers........
A thimble, in a teacup, in a laundry, in a skip is the best political offer we 8 have at present?
It is becoming the Mo and Krupa show on Brent Council's Social media, surely the CEO should stop this abuse. Are they ever appart one wonders?
I'm currently waiting to present a deputation to Scrutiny Committee, and watching the Live Stream. Cllrs Butt and Krupa Sheth are sitting side by side at the meeting.
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