Total: 16 posts
Posts in: Corruption
Corruption of democracy in local politics.
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Original Atkins report data doesn’t add up, and is full of holes.
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PHE’s method of presenting data is unscientific and misleading, and appears designed to minimise the levels of toxic emissions.
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Average levels of benzene and naphthalene at the southern boundary near the soil hospital have been up to 2 times higher than the legal limit for at least seven months.
Investigations
Local Democracy
Commentary
Ealing Labour
Berkeley Group
Features
Corruption
Exposes
Ealing For Sale
Peter Mason’s foreword to Ealing Council’s 2023-2027 Land and Property Strategy [pdf] promises to “retain assets for maximum resident benefit.” It’s a reassuring commitment from the council leader who styles himself as protector of public services.
But scroll through Mason’s 26 page document, and you’ll find the reality: 760+ community assets across Ealing marked for “strategic review” - the euphemism that precedes disposal. The strategy …
Local Democracy
Commentary
Children's Centres
Personal
Corruption
The Pied Piper of Ealing
A couple of weeks ago, big kid sang at the Royal Albert Hall in “Ealing Together: Harmony in Diversity,” performing lyrics by Jewish socialist and renowned children’s author Michael Rosen in a new song “Ada in Ealing”, a celebration of a former Ealing resident, and the world’s first computer programmer and a pioneer of mathematical logic, Ada Lovelace.
Tonight he performed in his school’s musical version of The Pied Piper of Hamelin, a story about …
Local Democracy
Commentary
Podcast
Children's Centres
Corruption
AI
So it Goes: AI on the Absurd Logic of Ealing Council
🎧 I fed my satirical piece about Ealing’s democratic innovations into Google’s NotebookLM.
Two AI hosts discovered how perfectly logical it is to close children’s centres while voting yourself a 70% pay rise. They marveled at the mathematical elegance of spending £1 million on councillor allowances to save £750,000 on community services. They found it remarkable that one person could tweet about “putting people before buildings” and then close the very buildings …
Campaigns
Local Democracy
Commentary
Children's Centres
Ealing Labour
Features
Corruption
Exposes
Perceval House W5: Where Local Democracy in Ealing Goes to Die
The Children’s Centres Crusade
Chapter 1: The Art of Political Contradiction
In the London Borough of Ealing, our elected representatives have perfected something remarkable: the ability to hold completely contradictory public positions without experiencing any apparent cognitive dissonance.
Take our Council Leader. On January 15, 2015, he tweeted: “Think its really important that we put people before buildings. Important we keep activities going & that can be done in a …
Local Democracy
Commentary
Ealing Labour
Features
Personal
Corruption
ToryBoy
ToryBoy The Movie is the account of filmmaker John Walsh’s disillusionment with what he saw as the corruption, lies, hypocrisy and general incompetence of Blair’s Labour government, and his conversion to the Conservative (Tory) Party general election candidate for Middlesbrough in 2010.
Under his own steam and £15,000 of his own money, John found his opponent, Sir Stuart Bell, the serial incumbent Labour MP, invisible and unknown to his local constituents who nevertheless voted him …
Investigations
Local Democracy
Commentary
Ealing Labour
Features
Housing
Corruption
The Property Lobby: the Hidden Reality behind the Housing Crisis in Ealing
There will be 14,800 new homes in 23 new developments in Southall over the next few years. 14 units over 10 stories high, and 7 over 20 stories high. Up to 40,000 new residents (and their cars)!
One third of the total new developments in the whole of Ealing borough (only Acton is getting it worse).
So not happening so much in the ‘white’ or richer areas of the borough, for some reason.
None of these homes will be genuinely affordable to most people currently living in overcrowded …
Campaigns
Local Democracy
Environment
Commentary
Gasworks
Ealing Labour
Berkeley Group
Health
Corruption
Pollution
Weasel Words on Air Quality Monitoring
Weasel words from Ealing Labour Council, who for six years have shown utter contempt for the health and wellbeing of Southall’s schoolchildren forced to live in the toxic stink created by Berkeley Group’s unsafe development of the old Gasworks site. 1/11
aroundealing.com/news/240000-in…
Take Blair Peach Primary School, adjacent to the highly contaminated old Gasworks site in Southall.
In 2016, Ealing Labour Council removed a functioning air quality monitor from the school grounds. …
Investigations
Local Democracy
Commentary
Ealing Labour
Berkeley Group
Features
Corruption
Ealing Monopoly
Who wants to know more about how, twelve years ago, an exclusive group of rich, mostly white, middle aged men in suits planned to take advantage of the financial crash and austerity politics to sell Ealing's public land and buildings for profit like they were playing monopoly? 
A few familiar and influential names including, of course, the late Tony Pidgley of Berkeley Group and Southall Gasworks infamy.
A five year plan to sell off our public assets for £20m profit.
Not a single one …
Local Democracy
Commentary
Ealing Labour
Features
Corruption
Exposes
Ealing Labour Leaks
Is anyone interested in seeing a selection of leaked WhatsApp group messages from some Ealing Labour councillors?
An inside look at what they really think about Bell, Mason, Sharma?
The institutional bullying and corruption they kept quiet for years?
#EalingLabourLeaks
A couple things before I get started.
My source has obviously said that it's ok to publish these.
I've edited the screenshots to remove some names. I don't want to embarrass people unnecessarily, or make them feel …
Local Democracy
Environment
Community
Commentary
Ealing Labour
Housing
Health
Corruption
Pollution
From the Southall Big Plan AGM in 2017
Some perennial problems that our elected representatives seem to be unable - or unwilling - to do anything about.
Some things never change!
Priority from nine years ago - clean streets! 
Julian Bell's Ten Year Plan. 
40% 'affordable homes' then. 30% 'genuinely affordable homes 'now.
Toilets?! 
'We care about Southall', they say.
That must be why they handed it over to the developers, and turned into a concrete jungle. 
Encouraging people to take more exercise by …
Campaigns
Environment
Commentary
Gasworks
Ealing Labour
Berkeley Group
Health
Personal
Corruption
Pollution
Exposes
Strawberries for Pigs?
Little did we know at the time, but these little strawberries were usually engulfed in a toxic plume of benzene, naphthalene, and god only knows what else.
Sensibly, the wife refused to eat them.
We later discovered that official planning documents for the nearby old gasworks, which was being dug up in the open air for new homes to be built on the contaminated land, stated that no vegetables should be grown on the land. Ever!
Ealing Council Leader Julian Bell publicly blamed 'the wrong kind of …
Local Democracy
Environment
Gasworks
Ealing Labour
Berkeley Group
Features
Health
Personal
Corruption
Trigger Vote for Sharma
In July 2019, I attended a public meeting with Public Health England to discuss air pollution problems created by the development of the old gasworks site.
At this meeting, I asked Public Health England if it is true that people with Asian and African heritage are genetically more at risk from poisoning from naphthalene – one of the main causes of the stink coming from the gasworks site.
Do you know what they said?
Yes.
Yes, Asian and African people are genetically more at risk from poisoning …
Campaigns
Local Democracy
Environment
Gasworks
Ealing Labour
Berkeley Group
Features
Health
Personal
Corruption
Pollution
Exposes
Southall under Siege: the Neighbours from Hell
‘A lack of scrutiny,’ says John Freeman, Regulatory Services Officer at Ealing Council.
He’s talking about lessons to be learned from the council’s response to the new asphalt plant built in neighbouring Hillingdon borough in 2014.
‘We didn’t expect there to be so much odour from a new building, or so many complaints.’
Moving swiftly on.
Oppressive odour
The highly contaminated old gasworks site in Southall has been kicking up a stink, too.
Carcinogenic benzene and naphthalene, among a cocktail …
Investigations
Environment
Gasworks
Berkeley Group
Health
Corruption
PHE cover-up, continued
This is a follow-up post to my previous PHE cover-up note.
Here is a graphical representation of what my earlier post found - …
Investigations
Campaigns
Environment
Community
Gasworks
Berkeley Group
Health
Corruption
Pollution
Exposes
Berkeley's School Governors Board Member
This has shocked us all to the core.
@BerkeleyGroupUK's Head of Construction at #SouthallWaterside asked to join the board of governors at the adjacent Blair Peach Primary School.
This is from the minutes of that meeting (29/11/17). 1/7
"The HT reported that a smell/odour from the building works has on certain occasions been extremely strong, resulting in headaches ad asthma attacks. In addition, a white cloud / mist was apparent for two days." 2/7
"The HT confirmed that she …
Investigations
Campaigns
Environment
Gasworks
Berkeley Group
Health
Corruption
Pollution
Exposes
Visit to Southall Waterside (aka The Green Quarter)
Visit To #SouthallWaterside
1:40 @damian_leydon 'We had to shut the site for 2 days when it snowed, it was unsafe... it cost me a lot of money to shut the site, but it was the right decision... We all know that ice can be dangerous!'
#SouthallLivesMatter
2:07 Visitor: 'Can we go into the soil hospital?'
@damian_leydon 'Er... no. No we won't be able to go in there today.'
#SouthallWaterside #MakingSouthallStink #Southall
Old story, but: 'Berkeley Homes is threatening hundreds of …