Best Of

As a complete aside, does anyone know what is happening to Your Party? They are supposed to be having a vote on the name this month and only have a week left.

According to Open Council Data they now have 27 councillors, including 3 recent defections from the Scottish Greens, which is slightly larger than the Havering Residents' Association

Sadly no recent bust ups seem to have grabbed attention. Feels disorganised and fractious, but with enough support for the idea to make a go of it.

In Havering Residents Association? They're at it all the time.

Is that the People’s Front for Havering Residents Association, or the Popular Front for Havering Residents Association?

Hard to tell. At present, the council run by
Havering Residents Association +
Hornchurch Residents Association +
Upminster & Cranham Residents Association

There is also, in opposition, the Harold Wood Residents Association. There used to be an Independent Residents Association, who made Farage look like a wet centrist.

Havering Council is bonkers.

The multi culti way strikes again. This echoes the Victoria Climbie case, which prompted Trevor Phillips to disown all he’d previously said about multiculturalism

Astounding.

A headteacher was accused of ‘racially profiling’ Axel Rudakubana as a ‘black boy with a knife.’ That shut down her ability to raise the risk he posed.

We need our institutions to be able to speak freely about difficult issues.

This shows the risk of imposing an Islamophobia definition on the public sector.



https://x.com/clairecoutinho/status/1981638272842408307?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

The 'surprisingly high' turnout doesn't really feel like a positive to me.

It indicates that people were motivated to get out and vote one way or t'other, and bully for them, but what about those of us who see nothing good about either realistic option?!?

If I was faced with a choice between Reform and PC, I'd almost certainly be thinking 'fuck it, I shan't bother'. I didn't bother voting in last week's Surrey CC by-election - for the first time in my life - because the LDs were a shoe-in and the only realistic contender was Reform.

The fact that some are politically energised by something I find off-putting indicates an even deeper divide, I think.

Thoughts and prayers for all those PBers who thought the China spy story would bring down Starmer.

Rishi Sunak only politician to see witness statement in China spy case

Statement from security adviser, viewed by then prime minister, did not describe China as enemy

Rishi Sunak was the only politician to see a witness statement by the deputy national security adviser at the centre of controversy about the collapse of a case against two British men accused of spying for China.

According to letters sent to the joint committee on the national security strategy, the statement from Matthew Collins in December 2023, which was seen by the then prime minister and his advisers, did not describe China as an enemy, another key element of the case.

The letters also set out that by this point, the start of the prosecution process, both police and prosecutors were told that Collins would not call China an enemy as this was not government policy.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/oct/24/rishi-sunak-only-politician-see-witness-statement-china-spy-case

None of this is surprising but what is odd is this obsession with the word "enemy". The Act talked about "prejudicial to the safety or interests of the State". Surely spying is clearly that whether done by friend or foe? I still think the DPP got this wrong and was wrong to drop the prosecution.

Every other country I can think of regards spying by “friends” as… spying

Because that’s what it is.