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.

A petition gathering hundreds of signatures asks the Labour party to immediately cease its purported action against the Harrow councillor Pamela Fitzpatrick and confirm in writing that she will not be auto-excluded from Labour membership.
Ms Fitzpatrick, a proud socialist and trade unionist who was a parliamentary candidate for Harrow East last election, 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.
“The interview took place more than a year before the NEC made the decision to proscribe Socialist Appeal. Anything a member is alleged to have done at a time when an organisation is not proscribed cannot possibly be a basis for auto-exclusion on grounds of support for that organisation” argues the petition by members of Ms Fitzpatrick’s 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.
“The Compliance Unit has provided no evidence that Pamela has supported Socialist Appeal as defined by the NEC” asserts the petition.
The petition could be signed here.

While some attention-seeking controversial Labour councillors are promoting themselves through all kind of activism, honest and dedicated Harrow councillor Pamela Fitzpatrick, a proud socialist and trade unionist who was parliamentary candidate for Harrow East last election, has been harassed by the Labour party.
“I have just received a letter from the Labour Party threatening me with auto exclusion because I was interviewed by Socialist Appeal in May 2020 on why I was applying for the position of General Secretary. I explained to SA I wanted fair procedures followed in the party” informs Ms Fitzpatrick, a member of the Labour’s new National Women’s Committee. 
Labour party’s such a behaviour has been widely condemned, including the following:

Harrow council says: “As we rebuild from the Covid-19 pandemic Harrow Council is investing in our high streets. Edgware, North Harrow, South Harrow and Rayners Lane are set to receive funding for a range of improvements to high streets. We’ve been working with ward councillors and the local community to drive forward this change (some residents and councillor don’t think so).”
In May, the government announced £576m allocations of future high streets fund, including £7,448,583 specifically for Wealdstone, Harrow. Possibly more places in the borough received dedicated funding for high street improvement programme, but Harrow council has failed to inform how much total high streets funding has been received and allocated to the targeted areas each.
Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick outlined the best use of this public money and said the investment will “make a huge difference to towns and cities across England”, helping them “transform themselves [into] desired places to shop, visit, live and work.”
In Wealdstone, an obvious improvement is the brightening up of the ‘square’ (photo), otherwise while local traders appreciate wall paintings and street decorations, they don’t know how well the Wealdstone money has been used, and their main concerns remain the crime, fear of crime and parking which renders Wealdstone less desirable place to ‘shop, visit, live and work’.
In Edgware, Canons ward residents see the use of £483K for decorating part of Whitchurch Lane (Edgware end), “waste” of public money. They want real improvements like street cleaning, addressing fly-tipping and more crime prevention measures. They described the so-called consultation as being  constructed in a way to deliver pre-determined outcome (many others in the target areas feel the same).
“We are completely opposed to the Edgware scheme – the money would be better served in street cleaning, which is much needed, particularly around Howberry Road” said the ward councillors.
Is the use of the street money on cosmetic street dressings for attractive visual impact in the council election year, saying that this is what residents want, good value for public money?

Communication has not been a Harrow council strength (answering/dealing with residents queries, response time,  inadequate website etc) but Covid-19 crisis management has made it worst where residents fail to get prompt, efficient or satisfactory response.
An example is the recent correspondence with Paul Hewitt (photo), corporate director people services, copying in the chief executive, regarding the following matter:
His attention was drawn to a ‘somewhat annoying practice, seemingly an extension of the previous corporate director’s apparent tactic to discourage officers, including himself,  working directly with the community where community/resident queries were often subjected  to the freedom of information (FoI)/complaints procedures etc. (Mr Hewitt, Hillingdon council’s head of child safeguarding at the time, joined Harrow to work under the director some years back).
Following the article  Harrow council could do more in responding to Covid-19 and a specific question, ‘in responding to Covid-19, how the Harrow council has reshaped its services in line with  the good practices highlighted by CQC?’, the Director of Harrow Adult Social Services, responded positively and said “I would be very happy to give an update on how we have reshaped and are responding to C19”- this was not a complaint!!
But then a Complaints Manager jumped in with an irrelevant website link, with the outcome that the director was not able to deal with this matter herself and therefore no professional answer received.
Since then, some others have a similar experience where their active issue-based interaction with the officers in People directorate has been picked and responded by the complaints manager.
It is reassuring that the community directorate seems to have no such policy to distance officers from the community or using a complaints manager to shunt around the issues (but then a very capable corporate director Community has now left the council).
We trust the chief executive would be interested in reassuring the consistency of policies and practices across the directorates, so that this could help in acquiring more public confidence in the council.’
After about a month, apparently Mr Hewitt sent the following inadequate message:
“Our complaints service do specifically deal with FOI requests, Member enquiries and MP enquiries, as well as complaints from citizens, as part of their official remit.
Also, as part of their role, the complaints team do often respond to general enquiries on behalf of senior officers when asked to do so, but we will need to make sure that this is made clear in the response, especially when it is not specifically a complaint that is being addressed.”

Former Deputy Mayor and Leader of Council, Cllr Chris Mote, sadly passed away late last night (29 July) after a short illness.
Cllr Mote was first elected in 1982 and now represented Pinner South ward.
He was leader of the Conservative Group and later Leader of Harrow Council between 2006 and 2008.

He currently served as Shadow Portfolio Holder for Adults & Older People.
Cllr Mote received ceremonial vellum scrolls to recognise his 25 years as Harrow Councillor at the Council Meeting on 16th January 2020 where he was described as “gentleman who is always polite and respectful – an example of how one should behave, not just as a councillor but as a person”.
Cllr Mote, deputy mayor in 2009 under Tory administration of the council at the time, was set to become Harrow mayor in the following year. But Tories, under Cllr Hall CPZ-hit poor leadership lost the council.

“Be responsible as Covid cases soar” appeals the Harrow council leader Cllr Graham Henson.
“Cases of Covid-19 are rising rapidly in Harrow and, while I don’t want to alarm people, I strongly urge you to be aware of your surroundings, understand the nature of risk and act sensibly” he said.
As of 28 July 2021, the following is the Harrow picture, as per the simple summary for Harrow published by the UK Government:
Between 22 July 2021 and 28 July 2021, 758 people had a confirmed positive test result, while 95 new cases on 28 July 2021 alone.
Between 12 July 2021 and 18 July 2021, 48 went into hospital with coronavirus. This shows an increase of 37.1% compared to the previous 7 days.
There were 40 patients in hospital with coronavirus on 20 July 2021 alone – 4 on the mechanical ventilator on that day.
Between 22 July 2021 and 28 July 2021, there have been 1 death within 28 days of a positive coronavirus test. This shows no change compared to the previous 7 days.
Overall picture: cases – 7-day average of 2,080 on 20/4/2021 has increased to 26,624 on 28/7/2021; deaths – 7-day average of 28 on 5/4/2021 has increased to 60 on 28/7/2021.
All this Covid-19 situation in Harrow, despite 166,488 people in Harrow had been given a first dose and 134,299 a second dose by the end of 27 July 2021.

Such an information should have been readily available at the Harrow council website and as an attachment to the Draft Economic Strategy that claims to have distributed £62m in government grants to over 900 local businesses.
This public information would have helped for everyone to see that the public money has been appropriately and fairly dispersed for the benefit of those who need it most, and not for any political gains or on the basis of who knows who, in the council election year.
Precisely for these reasons, the council’s grant allocating regime under previous administrations used to publish a list of who gets what grant and for what purpose.
Similarly, the tax-payers have a right to know how and for whom the following incoming Covid-19 money has been used:

For gaining public confidence in Harrow council’s handling of the Covid-19 funding, what stops the  council to have a dedicated web page, linked to the council website’s index page, to publish total Covid-19 money received, who decides how and where this has been/should be used, and a summary of who have benefitted from this additional funding.
By taking these simple steps (Covid-19 pressure not a valid excuse), Harrow council could reassure transparency in handling money matters, unless it has something to hide!

Labour’s recent London Conference has opened up all conflicts and contradictions in the Labour Party under ‘selected by some for some’ leader Keir Starmer.
“Labour has outraged members today by shutting down its London conference in the middle of the outgoing Conference Arrangements Committee chair’s speech, apparently because she was speaking critically of Keir Starmer – and, ironically, of the party’s anti-democratic conduct.” reports SKWAWKBOX (SW).
“The benefits of a July Zoom conference, being able to pull the plug on speakers compared to a November in person conference as was already agreed by the outgoing London REC, which we argued for on the NEC” informs the Labour NEC member Mish Rahman (@mish_rahman).
The Zoom meeting made it possible to kept off the agenda issues like the delay in publishing the Forde report, the rules prohibiting CLPs from discussing certain issues, the recent wave of proscriptions and much more.
Harrow councillor Pamela Fitzpatrick, socialist, trade unionist and member of the Labour national women’s committee, tweeted:
Ms Fitzpatrick has long and bitter experience of what has been happening in local Labour, especially in the Gareth Thomas (Blair/Starmer faithful Lab MP) Harrow West constituency.
(Sad that the silencing tactics of the national party show up at the council level – for example, critical voices are curbed by playing ‘victimhood’ and alleging targeting when cabinet members (at over £30K) are asked searching questions about their concerning conduct or performance.)
“Southside finally pull the plug, as members refuse to be silenced” Michael Calderbank reports .
“But if we’re to build an effective, united opposition to the Tories, then deeply factional and unnecessary attacks on socialist activists are clearly a major obstacle – and those responsible must be held to account” he said.

A big deep hole appeared on the busy Hindes Road (junction of Welldon Crescent and Radnor Road) on 17 July at the spot which had previous road problem, as the tarmac repair around the hole suggests.
The council installed barriers overnight, but has failed to carry out emergency repairs since.
Uninformed and concerned Greenhill Ward residents express disappointment: ‘Services like gas, water and electricity do carry out emergency services despite Covid-19, why the Harrow council has failed for days?”
Harrow council’s environment services are adequately staffed with skills to carry out such a repair work – why an apparent failure in this case (Covid-19 pressure is not an acceptable excuse)?
Back in March this year, National Audit Office reported that Covid has exposed the dire position of England’s local councils.  It reveals the precarious position of local government that struggle to provide acceptable services because of weak budgeting.
Councils with effective leadership and management have by now worked out how to provide good, responsive and efficient services.
Harrow council leader and the chief executive must now take an urgent notice of what has happened to the Hindes Road and arrange a long-term solution to the road condition.