Kilburn Times breaks story over Brent Council leader's attendance at prayer service during lockdown

Great work by reporter Nathalie Raffray has just been published on the Kilburn Times website LINK.

In summary the report says that Brent Council leader, Cllr Muhammed Butt amd Councillor Sangani attended a prayer service at the Ealing Road Mandir despite a government ban on collective acts of worship in faith buildings as part of the Covid19 restrictions.

To make matters worse they were joined by former Alperton Labour Party council candidate Chetan Harpale who was suspended from the Labour Party and  subsequently defeated at the Alperton by-election by Liberal Democrat Anton Georgiou.

Harpale was suspended after his social media posts applauding Tory MP Bob Blackman and Indian PM Modi, calling Jeremy Corbyn a 'pro- Jihadist and labelling Pakistan a 'Terror State'.

Do read the full story for all the circumlocutions.

Times changing for the better at the BKT?

This week's edition

Our local newspaper the Brent and Kilburn Times will be without News Editor Lorraine King  by the end of next week and reporter Nathalie Raffray has already gone to the Ham and High. Lorraine will become Editor of the (deep breath!) Barking and Dagenham Post, Newham Recorder and the Dockands and East London Advertiser. 

Where does that leave us in Brent?  As part of Archant's shift towards digital and its cut back in jobs a junior reporter (we used to call them 'cub reporters' in the old days) will be all that is left. He will face the daunting task of reporting on a major London borough of 325,000 people (and growing), one of the most diverse in the country, with great potential as well as major social problems, covering huge and often controversial regeneration projects, and an almost 'one party' Council that needs fearless scrutiny.

Some people  have told me of their envy for Camden residents who have the lively Camden New Journal and say we need a local paper like that in Brent.  Local papers are under financial pressure through loss of readers, loss of advertising and competition from the social media, but they also need good management and excellent distribution. Both the latter appear to be missing. I was told by a newsagent on Kilburn High Road only last week that he had stopped stocking the Brent and Kilburn Times because distribution was so unreliable. It is given away at some supermarkets,  stations and  estate agents but there are no longer house to house deliveries and the paper is often not to be found in newsagents.

All that said, local newspapers need to be supported by residents, not only through buying them but through writing letters, phoning in stories and encouraging a robust attitude towards upsetting local big wigs.

As someone remarked to Lorraine on Twitter, 'If you don't put some backs up you are not doing your job.'