'Go to Hell!!!' councillor apologises

A Brent Labour group source informs me that Cllr Dhiraj Kataria has now apologised to Rendall Mallakee for the 'unacceptable language' employed in his email. The source adds that although as best as they can tell no one of that name lives in the borough Cllr Kataria believed Mallakee to be a Brent residnt at the time of the correspondence.

See original story HERE

Caroline Lucas appeals to unhappy Labour voters

From yesterday's Guardian

I've been reading with interest the recent correspondence on these pages about the kind of Labour party people would like to vote for. As I read through the list of John Walton's initial policy proposals (Suggestions for a Labour manifesto, 14 August), it struck me that they all sounded very familiar. And that's for the very good reason that, almost without exception, they are long-standing Green party policies. Whether it's repealing the coalition's disastrous NHS legislation, bringing rail back into public ownership (the subject of my current private member's bill), abandoning PFI and ending the privatising of public services, or scrapping Trident and ending fracking, these are all policies the Greens have long espoused.

Although imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, I can't help thinking that the best way to see these policies realised would be for the people who support them to vote for the party that is already signed up to them.

Over a million people voted for the Green party in the last European elections (the last time the UK had a nationwide vote under a proportional system), and a recent YouGov poll for the Electoral Reform Society put us at 12%, ahead of the Lib Dems, and on course to win four more seats at the Euro elections next year, taking our tally to six.

We don't need a new radical and progressive political party: we need a fairer electoral system to allow the one we've got, the Green party, to break through in the general election, and give louder voice to these views. Under proportional representation, there would be no need for "splits on the left", as some of your correspondents feared – progressive parties could work together in the best interests of everyone who wants to see a socially just and environmentally sustainable future.

Caroline Lucas MP
Green, Brighton Pavilion

Democratic deficit necessitates peaceful direct action says Lucas after her fracking arrest

After her arrest today at Balcombe anti-fracking protest, Caroline Lucas MP said:

“Along with everyone else who took action today, I’m trying to stop a process which could cause enormous damage for decades to come. The evidence is clear that fracking undermines efforts to tackle the climate crisis and poses potential risks to the local environment.

 “People today, myself included, took peaceful non-violent direct action only after exhausting every other means of protest available to us.  I’m in the privileged position of being able to put questions to the Government directly and arrange debates in Parliament, but still ministers have refused to listen.

“Despite the opposition to fracking being abundantly clear, the Government has completely ignored the views of those they are supposed to represent.  When the democratic deficit is so enormous, people are left with very little option but to take peaceful, non-violent direct action.”

Thanks to Steve Hynd for this statement which appears on his blog LINK

Making sure unemployed workers are no 'push over' or 'sanctions fodder'

Spreading the word

Guest blog by Alan Wheatley of the Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group

One of our statements/slogans is 'Benefiting Brent & Camden & Beyond'. The major focus in our weekly business meetings is casework. It's a great 'crowd gatherer' to the point that our meetings attract as many as 12 on a regular basis, with some coming from as far away as Hackney, Wandsworth and Bromley though our core is predominantly from the boroughs of Brent and Camden. We are also very ethnically diverse, with African-Caribbean, Indian/White British mixed race, Serbian and Greek representation. We are also well-balanced by gender, and while most are disabled we also have people not applying for disability benefits. In more of an andragogy  LINK of the oppressed than a pedagogy LINK, our casework sessions reflect the fact that we've 'all been there' and can pool our knowledge and expertise in response to what is thrown at us by increasingly oppressive jobcentre workers and privatised contractors.

ARE THEY TAKING THE PISS OR TRYING TO DRAW BLOOD?

 The armoury of tactics and strategies that jobcentre and privatised contractor staff throw at JSA, Work Programme and ex-Work Programme clients to make them sanctions fodder include the entrapment of getting them to fill in their personal details and signature on forms before whatever they are supposed to be agreeing to has been written yet, or the staff member obscuring everything but the signature space. Yet another ploy that is becoming more and more the norm for people who have been parked on the Work Programme for a year is to be told to apply for as many as 14 jobs per week and to sign on at the jobcentre not just fortnightly but five days a week!

How many hours per week would a quality processing of one job application per week take? Multiply that by even 7 and add the practicalities of signing on five days per week and would you not be working more than a 48 hour EU Working Time Directive week? And people re-registering at the jobcentre after being 'parked' on the Work Programme for a year are also told to show their last six months bank statements.(1)

Yet this is abuse that follows on from a year of neglect. Consider the bargaining power issues in the fact that the claimant has no real bargaining power and their 'client adviser' at the Work Programme company can have as many as 250 people on their caseload.(2) But a counter-response that the Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group is finding increasingly effective is to make sure that a person going for, say, a re-registration interview at the jobcentre does not go alone. We reckon that that kind of 'first aid' makes whatever follow-up tribunal action less taxing or even unnecessary. The oppressor — who has probably been threatened with being sanctioned themselves if they do not meet targets — realises that the person in front of them is not 'a push over'.(3)

Notes:
(1) See reference to 'payment-by-results' at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_Programme_%28United_Kingdom
 (2) http://indusdelta.co.uk/discussion/work_programme_case_loads/6453
(3) Some abusers arguably do not need to be threatened with sanctions to collude in the sanctioning of benefit claimants. Perhaps what Transline are more concerned about in the case of their worker Kelly Stone is that she broke 'commercial confidentiality' rather than that she delighted in a sense of the negative influence she could have on others' lives? http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/recruitment-worker-kelly-stone-suspended-2162766

Brent Town Hall plaques to be replicated for Civic Centre gardens

In an earlier posting LINK I asked about the future of the memorial plaques and trees currently standing in the gardens outside Brent Town Hall. They include memorials to post-war European Peace, Hiroshima and the abolition of the Slave Trade.

The Town Hall has now been fully vacated on the move to the Civic Centre and is closed to the public.

The Brent Parks Department have now told me the welcome news that the plaques will be replicated and placed within the memorial area of the Civic Centre gardens.

'Don't believe you can't make a difference' Lucas tells Balcombe protesters

The true cost of Michaela's failures in South London

The DfE spent £168,000 on the Michaela Free School before its move to Wembley and after it had failed to set up first in Lambeth and then in Wandsworth.  It has taken the DfE 18 months to answer the Anti Academies Alliance's Freedom of Information request.

The following is an extract from the DfE letter:

The Michaela Community School free school trust announced its decision to defer opening of the school on 24 February 2012. Prior to this decision, the school was aiming to open in South London. The Department for Education’s expenditure on the Michaela Community School project up to that point was £168,339.64. Michaela Community School is now on course to open in Brent in September 2014. Expenditure up to February 2012 includes much work that has on-going utility to the project. This includes the development of marketing and consultation materials which could be used as the basis for their current marketing and consultation in Brent as well as educational and staffing plans, governance arrangements, policies and procedures and other material which can be used by the school when it opens in Brent. It would be therefore be unreasonable to say that this money had been wasted.

I think I would take issue with that last sentence. No wonder Michaela has such glossy brochures to distribute as well as that huge poster they were forced to take down because they didn't have planning permission.  It would be interesting to know how much money they have had since  24th February 2012, including of course the cost of purchase of the Wembley Park building and its refurbishment (no sign of that happening by the way).

'You can go to hell!!!' Brent councillor tells correspondent

This is a fuller version of the story first published under this heading.

A seemingly innocuous request to a local councillor last week escalated quickly into an exchange where the councillor told his correspondent to 'Go to hell!!!'

The correspondence begun thus:

 Dear Labour councillors

Are statutory declarations and Assured Shorthold Tenancy agreements no longer considered legal documents? 

https://forms.brent.gov.uk/servlet/ep.ext?extId=126153&Other1=607142&Other2=1

This is the final stages of the correspondence:

CC: cllr.roxanne.mashari@brent.gov.uk; cllr.harbhajan.singh@brent.gov.uk
From: dhirajkataria@hotmail.co.uk
Subject: Re: 67 Church Lane, London, NW9 8ED
Date: Sat, 17 Aug 2013 20:39:58 +0100
To: rendallmallakee@hotmail.com

I am not prepared to answer any question from you. You can go to hell!!!
Cllr Dhiraj Kataria

Welsh Harp councillor

On 17 Aug 2013, at 20:35, "Rendall Mallakee" <rendallmallakee@hotmail.com> wrote: 

Your not in favour of "Illegal" residential structures in gardens? Firstly, If it were "illegal" it would be a criminal offence, and its not. The criminal offence is breaching the enforcement notice if one is issued within 4 years. Imagine if Brent Council charged council tax on such buildings your not in favour of that contributed to your "basic" wage. http://www.kilburntimes.co.uk/news/brent_has_collected_more_than_100_000_in_council_tax_from_illegal_beds_in_sheds_1_1978139 

I'm concerned you don't understand planning legislation, yet you're on the planning committee that pockets you an extra £2,113 on top of your "basic" £7,947 wage. http://www.kilburntimes.co.uk/news/councillors_in_brent_paid_the_lowest_basic_allowance_in_london_1_1501249 

Anyway, back to the question you keep avoiding, that I still require answering. 

Please confirm statutory declarations and Assured Shorthold Tenancy agreements are no longer considered legal documents by Brent Council. If you don't know, just say you don't know. Or maybe, if you're interested in finding out, you could contact the planning department - your time would be better spent by asking the Fiona Ledden in the legal department.

I understand it must be annoying for you when a Brent resident knows a little and can't be bullied into going away. Close more libraries so people like me can't read planning books.  

Rendall Mallakee said:

 I'm not the applicant, I was just questioning the incompetence of Brent planners not knowing what a legal document was. The debate then spilled over when Cllr Dhiraj Kataria (who sits on the planning committee) gave his "personal" view on a planning matter, rather than approach it from a planning point of view. Makes me question how they think when it comes to the Willesden library, the Queensbury etc. Planning merits or personal opinion. 

Brent residents should be able to question Brent councillors without being told to go to hell.

 In response Cllr Kataria said:

I answered several emails  from  Rendall about his problem via email.  I had adequately answered his question that legal documentation submitted to the Council in support of his application should be something which can be verified independently. He was clearly not satisfied with this answer and pursued with more emails. 

When he made his rather rude comment that I did not understand Planning laws, I felt that he was going too far. The fact of the matter is that he has put in a residential unit in his garden. Normally, this is against the Planning law. The fact that his breach of the law was not discovered for four years, he is now seeking to exploit it by seeking a Certificate of Lawfulness, which the Council has already dealt with by rejecting his application.

There is clearly a discrepancy here in that Cllr Kataria thinks Rendall Mallakee is responsible for the building at 67 Church Lane and Mallakee says he is not the applicant. He does not appear on the 2009 electoral register at that address but I cannot find him anywhere else in the borough either.

When I put this to Cllr Kataria he said:

I have not met him and I am not sure of his identity. I dealt with his enquiry by responding to him three times .As a councillor, when people write to me attaching Council reply, I have to take them at face value. Councillors get lots of email and have to take these in good faith.

Responding to a complaint from Mallakee about being told to 'Go to Hell!!!', Cllr Roxanne Mashari, also a Welsh Harp Labour Councillor, wrote:

Unfortunately I do not have control over what Mr Kataria says and does, I can only answer for my own conduct.

I have reported Mr Kataria's comments to our leader and chief whip for investigation.

I will await the response from our officers on your query but please do not hesitate to contact me should you wish to discuss this or any other matter in more detail.

Earlier Brent Council leader Muhammed Butt had also replied to Rendall Mallakee:

Dear Rendell

Thank you for bring this matter to my attention. 

I am on leave at the moment but will be asking the officers to explain the case to myself and will respond to your points about statutory declarations and short hold tenancy agreements. 

I sincerely apologise that you feel that one my Councillors conduct was not up to expectation. 

Please do not hesitate to contact me for anything else. 

Kind regards

Muhammed