Perhaps those in the Labour group responsible for promoting community cohesion in Harrow need to sharply focus on the reported inclusion/exclusion practice by Blairite Labours, like apparently in the Harrow East Constituency Labour Party (CLP).

*It has been reported that the meeting consisted of 16 people, including a London assembly member and his mentor, the Harrow West CLP chair.
‘The Labour right is rotten with Islamophobia, as highlighted by the Labour Muslim Network report on the topic. Keir Starmer and David Evans promised to implement its recommendations in full, but appear to have done nothing and are taking no action against most right-wing Islamophobes in the party’ reported at the SKWAWKBOX.

 

What happens in macro, happens in micro!

The report of the recent equalities survey and qualitative interviews of Harrow staff and internal stakeholders on race that focused on racism/ institutional racism at the council as well as the over/under representation of the communities at the staffing level, found the need to ‘develop an action plan and consideration of a follow-up survey to see what progress has been made following this report’.
The  most  recent  iteration  of  the council’s  Workforce  Profile:
“The  resilience  and  commitment  of  staff  is  key  which  the  senior  political  and executive  leadership  team  need  to  tap  into  and  engage  around  in  tackling  issues  of  racism and discrimination” the report points out.
“Following  the  publication  of  the  Independent  Race  Review  in  April,  we  have engaged with over 230 staff to undertake a process of co-production, to design our approach to tackling racial inequality in Harrow and as a result, producing the council’s first ever, Race Equality Action Plan” said the Harrow Council.
Elsewhere leader of the Harrow council Cllr Graham Henson has said “Diversity is one of our borough’s greatest strengths and we will continue to work to maintain community cohesion so everyone who calls Harrow home can feel safe and welcome.”
Given that achieving community cohesion being an integral part in addressing ‘inequalities’, it is odd that the leader has appointed and defends a cabinet lead for the community cohesion who seems to be unsuitable for the job and claims victimhood when her doings are questioned rather than committing to respect her role and responsibilities.
Cllr Henson was asked a direct question by Cllr Ashton, deputy leader of the opposition, at the Cabinet meeting on 23 September:
“You do have a member of cabinet who’s in charge of community cohesion, who has tweeted that she will take up arms against the Afghan government and its allies (at the time in recent past), and labelled Israel is an apartheid state and spread doubts about the AstraZeneca as presented a vaccine. And so really my supplemental question is, do you condemn or condemn these statements and is this suitable to have someone who has these things and thinks it’s acceptable to tweet these things and think it’s acceptable to have that person in charge of community cohesion?”

Soon after the Pinner South by-election, won by Conservatives, now Kenton West is set to have a by-election due to the death of the sitting councillor Vina Mithani (Conservative).
Apparently, Harrow Labours have been directed to select only a female candidate for this by-election, justifying that this is to redress gender imbalance in the ruling Labour group on the Harrow council (15F/20M).
Strange that they did not consider redressing such gender imbalance significant enough when selecting the Labour candidate for Pinner South by-election (the defeated male candidate was from the Harrow West MP’s Labour and Co-operative Party).
Labour seems to practise ‘positive discrimination’ subjectively as and when needed.
They decided to have a female only parliamentary candidate for Harrow East constituency at the last general election but when one was selected, some key Harrow Labours reacted badly and did not provide the expected level of help and support to her, with the result that the dedicated socialist Pamela Fitzpatrick, a Harrow councillor, lost.
It also looks that when women are invited  for the candidacy and come forward, they are treated badly:
“A growing number of women, like me, are speaking out about the abuse they have endured in the Labour Party over many years. I have started speaking more openly about the abuse and harassment I have experienced from a small group of men since 2016. I have tried all available complaint routes and been ignored” reports Pamela Fitzpatrick, a member of the Labour’s new National Women’s Committee.
“It’s clear that many women have had enough.  And our message.  ‘We defy you! Do your worst’!” says Ms Fitzpatrick.
What happens in macro, must happen in micro! This becomes more concerning considering the ‘community cohesion’ work at the civic centre being in most unsuitable hands.
Such is the situation that a petition supporting Ms Fitzpatrick’s was launched by her Harrow West Constituency Labour Party, started by Aghileh Djafari Marbini who herself experienced nastiness by the Blairites when she went through the selection process for the Brent and Harrow assembly seat.
Regarding Ms Fitzpatrick ongoing bad experiences of the Labour Party, most probably locally as well, Gareth Thomas, the only Labour MP in Harrow, was asked whether he offered any support to Ms Fitzpatrick, he has not responded.

Long queues at the St Ann’s post office not because of the Covid-19 implications but apparently due to big counter staff cuts.
Depressed counter staff at the post office are worried about 50 percent staff cuts and the extra work load so resulted. At times, only three members of the staff were seen who not only manage the counters but also try to help in processing the parcels using the self-service counters.
In February 2019, the Harrow Post Office branch was transferred to WHSmith High Street Ltd who are operating it from their premises at the St Ann’s shopping centre since.  WHSmith  has  been  operating  Post Offices within its stores since 2007.
Post offices have been a staple of British life for decades, variously providing a local place for people to pay their bills, collect benefits, drop off their parcels, and buy stamps.
However, the number of branches dwindled from about 25,000 in the mid-1960s to 11,638 in March 2020 which are mostly (99%) operated by franchise partners or sub-postmasters, who are independent business people. Only around 1% of post offices are Crown post offices, which are directly managed by Post Office Limited.

Dedicated socialist Pamela Fitzpatrick, a Harrow councillor and Labour parliamentary candidate for Harrow East at the last election, has been speaking out about the abuse many women have suffered in the Labour Party.
“A growing number of women, like me, are speaking out about the abuse they have endured in the Labour Party over many years. I have started speaking more openly about the abuse and harassment I have experienced from a small group of men since 2016. I have tried all available complaint routes and been ignored” reports Ms Fitzpatrick.
“It’s clear that many women have had enough.  And our message.  ‘We defy you! Do your worst’!” says Ms Fitzpatrick.
What happens in macro, must happen in micro!
Responding to Ms Fitzpatrick on the Facebook, a variety of oppressive experiences by women have been shared, like the one blow.
“I am one of those women who suffered misogyny and abuse in the LP … I have made at least three complaints to Labour using the online form, not one complaint has been acknowledged … The LP is a toxic environment for socialists and being a woman means you’re fair game for the bullies.”
Regarding Ms Fitzpatrick bad experiences of the Labour Party, most probably locally, Gareth Thomas, the only Labour MP in Harrow, was asked whether he offered any support to Ms Fitzpatrick, he has not responded.

In an outburst at the last cabinet meeting (23 September), councillor Assad asked the fellow councillor Marilyn Ashton, “Do you have a problem with me? Because I’m a woman of colour and because I am Muslim”.
The disruption took place when the leader of the council Cllr Graham Henson, chairing the meeting, mentioned the council using social media to inform its work, and was listening to Cllr Ashton’s supplementary question regarding what could impinge the reputation of the council.
“You mentioned social media. You do have a member of cabinet who’s in charge of community cohesion, who has tweeted that she will take up arms against the Afghan government and its allies (at the time in recent past), and labelled Israel is an apartheid state and spread doubts about the AstraZeneca as presented a vaccine. And so really my supplemental question is, do you condemn or condemn these statements and is this suitable to have someone who has these things and thinks it’s acceptable to tweet these things and think it’s acceptable to have that person in charge of community cohesion?” Cllr Ashton asked.
Cllr Graham said “I will look at the points you have made, and then I’m probably you know then may consider them, but it’s quite difficult to respond to a question if you don’t tell me what it is and others need to look it up and find out how we got what the context of why it’s been said because sometimes people’s interpretation is different”.
“Cllr Assad interruption was most inappropriate, not respecting the meeting protocol. Equally, concerning was that the leader of the council let the disruption go on and failed to uphold the discipline in the meeting” said Cllr Marilyn Ashton, deputy leader of the Conservation group, after the meeting.
“However, the council leader’s attitude towards me was calm this time, considering to that on previous such occasions” Cllr Ashton added.
It is well known that the twitter is a public platform, and that councillors, particularly cabinet members, have to be very careful about what they say. They can’t skip scrutiny – if they can’t handle this, they should not be in a public office.

The way the Labour Party is trying to give a feel of being centrist, bashing left and socialists, raises a serious question about their ability to unite the country if in power.
Credit to the social media (particularly Twitter, Facebook) that public is no more dependent on the socio-politically biased conventional media for educating public opinion.
For example, below are some interesting comments from  a present Harrow councillor Pamela Fitzpatrick, and past Harrow councillor Bill Phillips, both Labour but social justice activists!

Harrow council is good at generating data and would provide all kinds of figures to show residents satisfaction with its work, but the reality is very different!
It looks that general lack of challenging leadership by the Members has not only enabled veiling ineffectiveness and incompetence under the ‘pandemic cover’, but has given rise to under-hand practices discouraging residents to contact the council which include withdrawal of an email address (like for the council tax department) and withdrawing a number of phone lines. Long delays in replying to the resident’s queries.
Corporate Directorate (People) is less receptive!
Added to all this is rather immature attitude of some Members, enjoying generous taxpayers money but playing victimhood when concerns raised about their performance or lack of their interest in the ward matters while they are busy in raising their socio-political profile.
Feedback following the articles Harder for residents to contact Harrow council and Harrow council could do more in responding to Covid-19 provide examples of extreme difficulties in getting caring services, like in arranging council tax for a new house, setting garden waste subscription or in dealing with multiple garden waste subscriptions taken from a bank account, and in buying new food caddies. Delays in resolving disability matters.
In some cases, letter to the council have been shunted around, with the departmental responses being the same as received previously.
It is never too late for the constituency political parties to train their councillors and potential councillors about their role/responsibilities, focusing on serving the ward first and providing good value for the taxpayers money.

In the overview and scrutiny committee in July, Harrow council chief executive Sean Harriss said “the pandemic has exacerbated this  issue (access to the council) as  there  used  to  be  staff  who  could  help  residents  face  to  face  in the Civic Centre help access services that were only online.
“The turbulence of demand  caused  by  lockdowns  had  also  overwhelmed  the  system. What  had been planned was for the number of access points to be expanded within the Borough’s  libraries,  to  help  meet  demand  and  provide  better  access  to services”. 
Along with such short-comings in accessing the council, another reason which can’t be pinned on the pandemic, is that Harrow council seems to be systematically distancing its relevant officers from the community, more so in the people services directorate. This has not been addressed.
The restricted access to the council for the help and support compounds by certain  features on the council’s less than helpful website which are not fully equipped to handle particular issues that residents have.
Mr Harriss had somewhat different focus on the website issues: “though certain aspects of this service could be improved  there  were  challenges during  the  pandemic  that  required  Council Staffs’ capabilities that ultimately hindered other services, such as  delivering business grants during the pandemic” he said.
Harrow council claims to have distributed £62m in government grants to over 900 local businesses, but has failed to provide a list of the businesses who received the grant, despite a freedom of information request by a resident. This has raised questions about the Harrow council transparency in money matters!
The concerns in accessing the council become more tense considering Mr Harriss alert about how  far  into  the  future  the  Council  could be  affected by the Covid-19 pandemic in its day-to-day work.
“It  would  affect  the  Council’s work  over  the  next  9  to  12 months. Work  would  be  impacted  in a  number  of different  ways,  and  it  was  believed  that  there  would  be  extreme  pressure during the winter months. There could also be a significant spike in unemployment, housing could be seen as challenge for the future as well as pressures in social care” alerted Mr Harriss.

Describing the controversial actions by the Labour party leader, general secretary and some national executives, Pamela Fitzpatrick, a socialist and trade unionist who was a parliamentary candidate for Harrow East last election, said “The banning of people through proscription, the punishment of those associating with banned people, dictating who members can be friends with and what we can read are the actions of dictators in fascist states”.
Ms Fitzpatrick has been threatened with “auto-exclusion” from membership of the Labour party by the party’s Compliance Unit on the grounds that she is allegedly a supporter of Socialist Appeal, an organisation that the Labour party under Starmer’s leadership is not easy about.
Ms Fitzpatrick was interviewed by Socialist Appeal in May 2020 regarding why she was applying for the position of general secretary Labour party.
“Obviously one could not be a member of another political party such as the Greens and expect to continue to be a member of the Labour Party.  But what Starmer, Evans and some of the NEC are doing goes way beyond this.  Their actions in proscribing whole organisations and seeking to expel anyone that has had contact with those organisations past or present is seeking to prohibit who members can associate with  – the magnitude of this action cannot be ignored” Ms Fitzpatrick states.
“So many of our MPs are silent on this or even support such actions should be a wake-up call to us all. Fascism does not arrive one day with soldiers in trucks with guns, it arrives like this” Ms Fitzpatrick pointed out.
The Labour party has lost successive by-elections under Starmer unpopular leadership, narrowly surviving the last one. Many feel they can’t trust the party that treats its own in such an oppressive manner, to unite the nation if in power.