In 2007, the Government passed legislation which permitted the creation of community councils in London, with the aim of enhancing community governance in urban areas. These new community councils would have similar powers to the parish councils that exist elsewhere across the country.

Central government - both this one and its Labour predecessor - wants to encourage localism, a greater devolution of power and decision making to the lowest possible level. A Government white paper last year set out support for new parish councils and made it clear they wanted to see more councils established to take greater control over local services

Already local residents in Queen's Park and London Fields have started campaigns to set up their own councils to change their community for the better.

Would it make sense for us to have our own council in Forest Gate?

It wouldn't mean leaving Newham, just having some powers transferred into the hands of local people and an ability to spend money on the projects we consider priorities. For example, the new council would have to be consulted on any planning applications, such as the one submitted by Obsidian for the re-development of our town centre. The lack of effective planning enforcement is something that has long blighted Forest Gate Town Centre. Other possible powers which could have a positive impact on how we as residents could improve Forest Gate include managing community and leisure centres, establishing a 'village hall', street cleansing and community safety. It may even be possible to take over the local parking provision to ensure that it better reflects the needs and desires of the local population. 

The new council would be funded by a precept - an additional amount of money collected alongside the council tax. It might also receive a grant from Newham to enable it fund services it took over from them.

In order to establish a new parish council here Newham, as the 'Principal Local Authority', would have to first undertake a 'community governance review'. They could decide to do this themselves, or we can petition them to do so. If 10% of the electors in the affected area signed the petition Newham would be legally obliged to carry out a review within 12 months. 

Together the existing wards of Forest Gate North and Forest Gate South are home to about 20,000 people, but the area covered by the council need not exactly match those boundaries. However, that makes a sensible starting point for thinking about this.

I think there are exciting possibilities here for local people to re-engage in the governance of our community, but what do you think? Is this an idea worth pursuing? Why not head over to Woodgrange Web and join the debate - http://bit.ly/yKo35I

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Seriously, is there anything they're not better than us at?

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

This is something I wrote for my company's blog, which was published yesterday:

In the past weeks, Microsoft has released a slew of iOS apps, including SkyDrive (with 25 gB of free online storage), OneNote for iPad, Halo Waypoint, and My Xbox LIVE, Lync 2010 for iPhone and Lync 2010 for iPad, in addition to previous releases like Bing, Photosynth, and OneNote for iPhone.

And there are strong rumours that Office for iPad is in the works. With Windows 8 tablets like to appear at some point in 2012 and Windows Phone 7 already in the market, the big question is why would Microsoft bolster its rival's business by offering products which may keep them away from its own devices? At first glance, it looks like madness.

But Microsoft is a software company first and foremost (notwithstanding their excellent range of PC mice & keyboards, and the XBox business). 90% of their revenues comes from software, so it makes sense to put its software on as many platforms as possible. Right?

Well, kind of. Most of those apps are free (OneNote allows 500 free notes, then it costs £2.99), so there's no revenue attached. But there's huge value in user data. By putting apps on to the only tablet with any significant market scale and tying them back to online services they get to see exactly how users behave. It's like a giant user testing laboratory and Microsoft engineers will use that information to figure out the best implementation of their apps on their own tablet version. Putting XBox LIVE on iOS extends the platform onto the world's most popular handheld gaming device.

But those arguments don't hold true for Office. The two cornerstones of Microsoft's business are the revenues it earns from its Office and Windows franchises. Nothing, but nothing, is allowed to compromise that. Ever.

Although there is a huge and flourishing market for premium (i.e paid-for) apps on iOS, price expectations are set pretty low. Even for iPad there are few apps priced over £9.99. Apple's own iWorks app (Pages, Keynote and Numbers) cost £6.99 each. Even with their larger feature sets it's hard to see how Microsoft could charge anywhere close to the current lowest price for Office on Windows or Mac (the Home & Student edition is £72.99 on Amazon; the business edition is £100 more expensive but includes Outlook). 

So Microsoft has to make a judgement call - will Office for iPad sales be additive to desktop sales, or cannibalise them? And would a lower price on iPad exert significant downward pressure on Office prices for PC, even if the tablet versions are functionally limited? 

My best guess is that there may well be more iOS apps from Microsoft through 2012, but we won't be seeing Office for iPad anytime soon. The risk to core revenues is simply too great. Those looking to move their entire working lives to iPad will have to wait a little longer, or explore the non-Microsoft options.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

In a comment on John Gray's Labour Blog (which is actually it's title, not a description I've given it) I asked, in relation to what I perceive to be a lack of transparency in the way Newham council conducts its business:

Why is vital business always conducted behind closed doors at Labour Group meetings rather than in public council meetings?

Why were the public and the press excluded from the [council's] discussion about the new £40 million offer to the OPLC?

Councillor Gray replied:

I am amazed that there is anyone who can question the huge overall benefit from the Olympics and that any council (especially a Labour Council) would not want to have a direct public ownership stake in the stadium.

I was a Council officer (in a different council) for over 15 years and political groups have always debated and voted on policies in private.

Unsatisfied by this response, I pressed the matter further:

You say "I am amazed that there is anyone who can question the huge overall benefit from the Olympics and that any council (especially a Labour Council) would not want to have a direct public ownership stake in the stadium."

Apologies if I'm being a bit thick, but I'm afraid you're going to have to enlighten me. Whilst I agree that there will be overall benefits to London and the UK from hosting the Olympics (even at the vastly expanded cost of £9 billion) and I am personally looking forward to attending a number of events in the summer, I cannot see why Newham council would want to have a direct stake in the future ownership of the main stadium once the Games are over. If the benefits are so obvious, why aren't Greenwich, Tower Hamlets, Waltham Forest and Redbridge taking a similar stake? Why isn't the Greater London Authority?

Of course the Olympic stadium should remain in public ownership, but the OPLC is a public body, so Newham's investment won't make the ownership any more public than it already is.

The question therefore remains, what additional benefits will Newham people derive from the proposed £40 million investment that they will not get if the stadium legacy is wholly funded by OPLC?

The answers to that may lie in the report that you and your colleagues considered back in December when you approved the £40 million investment offer, but that document has not been published and your meeting was held behind closed doors. Quite why an arrangement between two public entities should be regarded as 'commercially sensitive' is beyond me.

Councillor Gray again responded:

Again, purely in my personal opinion, I don’t know why (and maybe they are putting in a bid for all I know) but suspect that the simple answer is that the stadium is in Newham. I also think that the GLA have no legal ability to do what you suggest. Nor at this time the political inclination.

The OPLC is a “public body” at the moment, but that doesn’t mean that it will be always.

Look, I believe in public ownership, I am a believer in “Municipalism” and that the role of a Council is not just to be an “enabler” of services. 

The potential of the Stadium is enormous and IMO (sorry BBM) it is quite right and proper that the Council wants to play a prudent role in its future.

Whether you think it is a good thing or not all, public entities have a duty to negotiate to get the best commercial arrangement possible, whether it is a with a private or public body – so of course, you cannot make your negotiation position public.

Feeling that my basic question had gone unanswered, I tried again

You talk about potential and municipalism, but make no mention of concrete benefits to Newham people resulting from the £40 million we are putting in.

The business case for the investment that the council approved would have included some kind of benefits analysis as part of the return on investment calculation, so there must be a list of them written down somewhere. Why not just share that?

If this investment is such a great deal for the people of Newham, why aren't the mayor and the council trumpeting it from the rooftops?

This prompted the following, frankly unenlightening reply

I honestly think that I have as much as is possible at this moment.

The key thing to remember at this time is that there is no "deal" to actually talk about. There is a proposal which is being negotiated. The proposal (as in any other negotiation) could be turned down, amended or withdrawn. In the midst of negotiations you just don’t generally trumpet things from the rooftops

And there I think we must leave it.

The post to which the comments were attached has sunk down below the first page of Councillor Gray's blog and I sense that we're really only talking to each other. To his credit John Gray has remained entirely polite in his replies to me, which is not a courtesy he always extends to commentors on his blog or others he perceives as political opponents. And at least he has a blog, which is more than can be said for the mayor or any of his other colleagues (as far as I am aware). 

Maybe at some point we'll find out what we'll be getting for our money, but I'm not holding my breath. Sir Robin is hell bent on taking some kind of control of the Olympic stadium, and spending a big chunk of our cash to do it. The idea that he might explain himself to the people who will actually paying for it is not one that will detain him, even for a nanosecond.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

I'm glad to see that Mike Law has done a rapid u-turn and re-started his blog.

GIven the utter uselessness of the 60 Labour councillors when it comes to holding their mayor to account and the spinelessness of the Newham Recorder, Mike's blog is pretty much the only place where serious questions get asked about what is going on in Newham.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Apparently it costs the US government 1.8 cents to make each 1 cent coin. Which is nuts, when you consider that a penny is pretty much worthless.

I have no idea how much it costs our government to mint the 1p and 2p coins, but I wouldn't mind betting it takes a loss on each one.

Why do we still have copper coins? You can't buy anything with them and they just fill your pockets up needlessly.

It would be far better if we got rid of the 1p and 2p pieces and priced everything to the nearest 5p. No-one would miss them. And it wouldn't necessarily put prices up, as I can't see retailers moving their £9.99 price point up to £10 - they'd be more likely to go down to £9.95.

New Zealand got rid of their coppers in the 1980s, and went so far as to abolish the 5 cent coin 5 years ago. They now make change with just a 10, 20 and 50 cent coin.

It's time we followed suit. So let's make a change for the better and say goodbye to our copper coins.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Sir Robin

Johnny from the X-Factor

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

I'm somewhat at a loss for words at the news of the death of Steve Jobs

Obviously I didn't know him personally, never met him, but Steve Jobs probably had more impact on my adult working life than almost anyone else. The tools I use daily are almost all the result of his vision, his perfectionism, his drive.

There's a quote from his 2005 Stanford address that should stand as a guide to us all in the time we have left to us:

"Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

A new post by me on my employer's blog about the Amazon Kindle Fire and its potential impact on the tablet market.

Enjoy!

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

People have expressed surprise that the mayor has proposed to borrow £40 million to lend on to West Ham United FC to part-finance their bid for the Olympic stadium. They ask how one of the poorest boroughs in London can afford to take on such debts.

What they obviously don't realise is that Newham has already has massive debts. According to the draft statement of accounts for 2010/11, the council's "total external borrowing at 31st March 2011 was £1,186 million."

 Against that, "the Council had investments of £303 million."

 Which leaves a net position of £883 million of debt.

That level of debt is truly shocking, but what is more alarming is the massive growth in those debts during the mayor's reign.

As at 31st March 2002 Newham's total external borrowing was £616 million. With investments of £91m that left a net debt of £525m.

Today's total debt figure of £1,186 million represents an increase of 93%. Even taking the major increase in investments into account, the net debt position has increased by 69% over the past 9 years.

Although the council claims that the current debt is "well within [our] approved borrowing limit" it is a frighteningly large sum. According to the 2001 census (the most recent data on the council's website) there are 91,822 households in Newham.

That means the council owes the equivalent of £12,916 per household.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Last week the Newham Recorder published a story headlined Newham councillors getting £25k each expenses, claiming that the average councillor received £24,333 to service their wards.

The story also stated that "the basic allowance for councillors newly elected last year was reduced to £9,579."

It is a sad reflection on local journalism in Newham that neither claim is quite correct. 

The £24,333 average applies if you only count the 40 members of the council who served the full 12 months from April 1 2010 to March 31 2011. It completely ignores those who left the council at the May election and those who joined after it. This tends to inflate the average, as those 40 councillors were generally more senior. 

The basic allowance, sadly, hasn't gone down. The reason new councillors only got £9,579 was that they didn't serve a whole year and therefore only received a pro rata portion of the allowance.

There are plenty of reasons to attack the mayor and his cronies for their free-and-easy attitude to taking home our money, but the Newham Recorder does none of us any favours by getting the numbers wrong.

So if the Recorder got it wrong, what is the truth about councillors' allowances?

Well, in the year ending 31 March 2011 the 61 members of the council (the mayor and 60 councillors*) collected a total of £1,221,752 in allowances and expenses. This works out at an average of £20,029 per member.

But even this doesn't really tell the full story, as some councillors get far more than others as a result of "special responsibilities". The top 10 earners in 2010/11 were:

• RA WALES   80,695
• AR BAIKIE   49,776
• IK CORBETT   42,811
• RJ CRAWFORD   42,811
• U  DESAI           41,776
• C  McAULEY   41,776
• A  KELLAWAY   37,002
• JH LAGUDA   33,499
• EH SPARROWHAWK 32,809
• CW FURNESS 32,231

Councillor Baikie's allowance includes an additional special payment for serving 2 six-month terms as deputy mayor.

The full report on members' allowances in 2010/11 can be found here: http://goo.gl/EGDP7

When looking at the above figures it is worth remembering, for context, that average income for a household in Newham is £27,600 a year.

_________________________________________

* That is 60 'full-time equivalents' made up of 39 people who served a full year, 21 who served 1 April to the May election and 21 new councillors who took over their seats and served from the May election to 31 March.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

When the Coalition came into office last year they agreed as part of their programme of government to reduce the number of MPs in the House of Commons from 650 to 600, which will save the taxpayer about £12 million a year and result in seats that are much closer together in terms of size.

The Boundary Commission, which decides on how parliamentary constituencies are made up, has produced its initial proposals for England. These include an overall reduction in MPs for London, but the  changes for Newham and the surrounding boroughs involve a slight increase in representation.

The commission found that Newham was too large for two constituencies, as both the existing constituencies (East Ham and West Ham) have electorates in excess of 86,000, which is over the maximum permitted under the new arrangements. Therefore they have proposed a West Ham and Royal Docks constituency containing nine wards, including three (Beckton, Boleyn, and Royal Docks) from the existing East Ham constituency; a revised East Ham constituency that contains six Newham wards and two wards (Clementswood and Loxford) from Redbridge, which are currently in the Ilford South constituency; and a new Stratford constituency with five wards from the north west of Newham, together with the four southernmost Waltham Forest wards.

The full list of wards for the new proposed constituencies are:

West Ham & Royal Docks constituency:

• Beckton
• Boleyn
• Canning Town North
• Canning Town South
• Custom House
• Plaistow North
• Plaistow South
• Royal Docks
• West Ham

Stratford constituency:

• Forest Gate North
• Forest Gate South
• Green Street East
• Green Street West
• Stratford and New Town
• Cann Hall (WF)
• Cathall (WF)
• Grove Green (WF)
• Leyton (WF)

East Ham constituency:

• East Ham Central
• East Ham North
• East Ham South
• Little Ilford
• Manor Park
• Wall End
• Clementswood (R)
• Loxford (R)

The full Boundary Commission proposals for London are here: http://t.co/aoYHPPF

Unsurprisingly, an analysis by the Guardian shows that all three seats will be safe Labour. Based on voting in the 2010 election Labour's majorities will be 20,382 in West Ham & Royal Docks, 20,032 in East Ham and 16,926 in Stratford. The only minor surprise is that the Lib Dems will be the main challengers in Stratford (by a small margin, it has to be said).

The Boundary Commission will be holding hearings on its proposals for this part of London at East Ham Town Hall on Thursday 27 – Friday 28 October 2011. More information is available at www.consultation.boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk

You can also write with comments to Boundary Commission for England, 35 Great Smith Street, London SW1P 3BQ, or by email to london@bcommengland.x.gsi.gov.uk. The closing date for comments is 5 December 2011.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

• Crime and anti-social behaviour in Plaistow
• Squatting
• Tenancy Fraud
• Illegal Cars
• Drugs
• Garden Waste
• Blue Badge Fraud
• Truancy
• Timeshare sales
• Boy racers
• Dangerous dogs
• Landlords flouting safety regulations
• Street gambling
• Illegal property conversions
• Unlicensed street trading
• Illegal skips
• Anti-social behaviour in Stratford
• Crime and Anti Social Behaviour in Romford Road
• Sale of crossbows

The thing is that with the exception of crossbows - an issue that lives solely in Sir Robin's imagination - these are all important things that need to be dealt with. But by labelling every initiative a 'crackdown' you remove all meaning from the word. And you end up taking the same approach to everything - as the saying goes, if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

My look at Apple's influence on the tablet market, on the company blog: tinyurl.com/3hz7rg5

Once again, enjoy!

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

My thoughts on Google's acquisition of Motorola, on the company blog: http://bit.ly/qwUCIJ 

Enjoy!

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

My colleague Jonathan Akwue posted a great article yesterday about "the unlikely social network fuelling the riots" - not, as the Mail and others had so predictably claimed, Twitter and Facebook but BlackBerry Messaging.

It got wide pick-up across the media and was quoted in the Guardian and the New York Times, among others.

If you haven't already done so, I suggest you read it: http://bit.ly/q1uNfg

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Last week the "London Borough of Newhamgrad" blog site was hacked into and 3 months' worth of recent posts were deleted. A headline was posted declaring "You've been hacked".

For anyone not familiar with the Newhamgrad site, it describes itself as "an insight into the most dictatorial local authority known to Britain." It is run by an anonymous group (I'm not one of them and have no idea who they are) who have enough connections inside Newham Dockside to come up with the occasional juicy tale, though mostly it's bitchy political gossip.

Websites get hacked all the time, but this was no drive-by attack by a bored teenager - this was a deliberate and targeted act.

The intolerance of the Wales regime and its supporters for any kind of dissent or challenge is legendary in the borough - former councillor Alan Craig once described it as "Mugabe without the bullets". The usual response to any criticism of Newham Labour is to label the opponent a Tory or a Trot (oddly, some people have difficulty distinguishing between the two) and expect that it is enough to damn them, but this surely represents a new low. Whoever did this went beyond politically illiterate abuse and committed an offence under the Computer Misuse Act 1990. Such offences are punishable by up to 12 months in jail.

Why would anyone want to risk that kind of penalty, just to remove some political tittle-tattle from the web?

The posts that were removed might have been a bit embarrassing for those concerned, but nothing fatal to anyone's political career. And certainly nothing worth going to prison to suppress. They covered:

• Cllr Armarjit Singh's voting for the West Ham stadium loan without declaring that he had received hospitality from the club 
• Cllr Ayesha Chowdhury's living in social housing despite owning (or having a significant interest in) a property portfolio that the site claims is valued at £2.4 million 
• The recent Sunday Times allegations about payments by West Ham to an executive at the Olympic Park Legacy Company 
• Lyn Brown MP's hiring of an unpaid intern when she had previously campaigned for a 'living wage for all' 
• The Newham Campaign Forum - a fund into which all Labour councillors are said to pay a percentage of their allowances 
• Cllr Unmesh Desai's desire to succeed Sir Robin as Mayor * Plans to establish a 'free' school in Newham 
• Cllr Richard Crawford's portfolio of responsibilities 
• Newham's failure to investigate a Freedom of Information request that it said it would investigate 
• Cllr Paul Schafer being referred to the council's Monitoring Officer 
• A Charity Commission decision not to investigate a local charity over its relationship with Newham Labour Party

On Thursday a notice appeared on the Newhamgrad site stating "This site has been the target of hacking attacks for weeks as well as been subjected to an attempt by spammers to 'scrape' IP addresses from our website and set up spiders to trawl it. Newhamgrad will be down until it carries out further investigations. We will be back."

I hope they will, if only to prove that the regime's critics will not be silenced so easily. And I hope that next time someone takes exception to something that appears on the site they deal with it via the comments section. Of course, if they think Newhamgrad goes too far they always have recourse to the law - but taking the law into your own hands is never the answer.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

The Sunday Times carried a detailed story yesterday alleging that West Ham United made payments totalling £20,000 into the bank account of Dionne Knight, a director of the Olympic Park Legacy Company. This arrangement was put in place by Ian Tompkins, who is the director of West Ham who masterminded its Olympic stadium bid and Ms. Knight's lover. In a previous life Mr. Tompkins was director of Communications at Newham Council, where he worked closely with the Mayor, Sir Robin Wales.

West Ham claims that the payments were for 'consultancy work' helping to prepare procurement documents for contracts to convert the stadium after the Olympics and that, as far as they were aware, the OLPC had given permission for Knight to do the work. They also claim the payments were on behalf of the Legacy Stadium Partnership, the joint venture entity with Newham Council that will own the 250-year lease on the stadium; as the partnership didn't have a bank account set up they paid Knight directly. 

According to records at Companies House, Legacy Stadium Partnership LLP was first set up on 12 April 2011, but the Sunday Times says that the first payments were made to Ms Knight in the month before the OLPC made its decision in February. Quite how West Ham could have made payments on behalf of an entity that did not even exist is not explained.

Since the story emerged both Knight and Tompkins have been suspended from their jobs, pending internal investigations. Knight has admitted she hadn't told OLPC about her work for West Ham.

The Sunday Times, perhaps predictably, has billed this as a "corruption scandal" and local anti-Labour blog London Borough of Newhamgrad uses the same word in its summary. That's going too far, at least on the evidence to date.

But there are a number of fairly obvious questions that arise from all this about what Ms Knight knew about the status of the bids to take over the stadium and what she might have discussed at home with Mr Tompkins, and what he may then have communicated on to his employers at Upton Park to help them construct a winning tender. The OLPC says 'chinese walls' were in place and Ms Knight had no access to key information, or influence on the outcome. But as she was working for West Ham without their knowledge it is unclear how much of a grip OLPC had on the situation. One might also ask why West Ham, on behalf of the joint venture, felt it necessary to hire a consultant to work on stadium conversion procurements before it knew the outcome of the OLPC process and why it thought there would be no conflict of interest in hiring an OLPC executive to do it while the bidding process was ongoing. 

Of course Newham residents will have an interest in finding out the answers to these questions, as we are the ones on the hook for the £40 million loan being made to the Legacy Stadium Partnership (to the principle benefit of West Ham United FC), should the whole thing go horribly wrong. And if the 20 grand paid to Ms Knight was on behalf of LSP, as WHU say, half of it is our money - for which the Mayor is accountable.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

This is something I posted a few days ago on the e-Democracy web site:

The BBC is reporting that Newham libraries are to remove all foreign language publications, quoting the Mayor as saying the move will "encourage people to speak & learn English."

The decision has, predictably, comes in for some criticism from members of communities that will be affected by the move. But the Mayor rejects this, saying, "English language is something that we're pushing very strongly.

"Two things about the English language: You need it to get a job; secondly it brings a community together.

"Public money should be spent encouraging people to speak and learn English. Whenever I raise that with my residents they all agree with that."

Leaving aside for a moment Sir Robin's self-aggrandising description of Newham people as "my residents," this is an interesting position, and much more in tune with current Conservative thinking, which rejects multiculturalism as a failure, than the view taken by the left since at least the 1960s.

In a speech earlier this year in Munich David Cameron said, "We have allowed the weakening of our collective identity. Under the doctrine of state multiculturalism, we have encouraged different cultures to live separate lives, apart from each other and the mainstream." He added that we need to make sure that "immigrants speak the language of their new home."

I wonder if this apparent conversion to Tory thinking is a just an excuse for a bit of mean-spirited penny-pinching, trimming into the prevailing political wind, or whether the Mayor genuinely believes it. If so, will he follow up by axing the translation services that put the borough's myriad communications into a variety of community languages, on the basis that if people want to transact with government they should do it in English? It would be controversial, but would have the merit of consistency.

There is some small irony in a Scottish mayor presiding over a London borough with an ethnically diverse population positioning himself as a champion of Englishness. It would be fascinating to know what other councillors think of all this, and whether they were consulted before Sir Robin decided on this latest campaign.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »