Howard Dawber & the spirit of the East End

This is a touching & gracious message sent by Howard to all Party members in East London (Howard
 is on right of picture outside West Ham CLP selection meeting)

"This is the last email from me.

I have failed to secure a nomination from a Constituency, so I will not be on the shortlist for the City and East London Assembly seat.

I would like to thank everyone who supported me, voted for me and particularly those who stood up at meetings to propose me, or asked their friends to come and support.

It's been a wonderful experience and I have met some great people.

It was an honour to get 152 votes in total across three different boroughs, and to come second three times to different very strong local candidates.

There are some good comrades left in the race, most of whom are friends of mine, so it would be wrong to single out anyone.

Having the chance to represent the people of East London is a huge privilege and responsibility.

This is the most exciting and dynamic part of London, which can claim to be the capital city of planet earth.

The people of the east end are the most entrepreneurial, resilient and inventive I have ever known.

It is the spirit that inspired the suffragettes who used to meet under the lamppost in Barking, the courage of the Bryant and May Matchgirls who went on strike over their conditions, the courage of the Poplar rent strikers, the dock workers, the shipbuilders who formed the first Trade Unions.

It is the spirit that got the East end through the blitz and then gave the women at Ford's in Dagenham the strength to fight for equal pay.

The spirit of men like Will Crooks, who was born in a workhouse but went on to be a Labour Councillor and MP.

The spirit of women like Annie Clara Huggett, who kept campaigning for Women's votes even though she was arrested several times.

The spirit of local Bangladeshi people in Tower Hamlets who stood up to the National Front in the 1970s and 1980s.

And the spirit of Labour activists who stood up to the BNP just a few years ago and kicked them out of Barking and Dagenham Council. For this is the East of London - where local residents came together to defend their Jewish neighbours at the Battle of Cable Street.

And where local people defended their German neighbours from reprisals during World War Two.

Where young and old came together to welcome the world at the 2012 Olympic Games.

I am sure that whoever wins the selection will live up to the spirit of East London.

I hope that they get everyone's full support.

With a Tory Government and a Tory Mayor, we can't afford the luxury of splits and factions within the party.

We need to be one team and one campaign after September.

In the meantime from Barking to Bethnal Green and Docklands to Dagenham, we need to make sure we have a Labour Mayor in May next year so I will be working hard to try to make sure we are in the best possible shape to take on the Tories.

We also need to campaign to keep a universal postal service and to stop the Tories destroying Royal Mail. 

Sign up to support the CWU campaign at:

http://www.cwu.org/peoplespost.html

That's all from me. I hope to see some of you soon.

Fraternally,

HOWARD

Howard Dawber for City and East

http://www.dawber.london/

West Ham Votes for Jeremy Corbyn and Tom Watson

A little late but last Thursday West Ham CLP narrowly nominated, Jeremy Corbyn, as Labour leader ahead of Liz Kendall, Andy Burnham and Yvette Cooper. Tom Watson, was nominated as Deputy leader beating Caroline Flint, Stella Creasy, Angela Eagle and Ben Bradshaw. Local boy Unmesh Desai was also comfortably nominated as the City & East GLA candidate ahead of Murad Qureshi, Howard Dawber, Abdal Ullah, Ashton McGregor & Feryal Demirci.

It was one of the largest West Ham meetings (122 members) I have attended and took place in the Vicarage Lane Community centre in my ward. All members were invited to give speeches and make nominations. I think probably a fifth of those present spoke including young and new members. The speeches were often quite passionate and waiting for the results was tense and rather exciting.  Everyone behaved themselves (even Red Tel) and  I think we did our CLP proud.

As a Party member I nominated Andy Burnham for leader and spoke in favour of Stella Creasy for Deputy. As a UNISON delegate I nominated Murad Qureshi for the GLA seat who has the support of Greater London UNISON.

Afterwards there was food and the traditional Labour Party raffle. When everything was cleared up a few die-hards went down to the Black Lion to further analyse in detail the results and debate the merits (or otherwise) of candidates.

"Crisis, what crisis?"... CONDEM porkies about National Debt

 You would think from recent announcements by Osborne (and whatever Libdem spokesperson) that we are indeed about to go cap in hand to the IMF at any moment. 

This BBC graph based on IMF figures reported upon yesterday on Labour list by Howard Dawber makes you think "wot?".

Just look at the current and projected debt levels?

This is what Howard said "49. THE WHOLE JUSTIFICATION OF THE DEFICIT REDUCTION PACKAGE

The ConDems have based their whole economic policy on the idea that the economy is tanking, that there is no spare money in government, but that growth is strong enough to cope with a massive reduction in public spending. In their analysis Britain’s deficit and debt puts us on a par with Greece and if we don’t take drastic action the whole economy will collapse. Labour’s plan to halve the deficit in 4 years, generally regarded as ambitious but workable by economists, is too slow. They want to halve it in two years.

Why is it a bad idea? The ConDems have their facts wrong, and on top of that have the wrong strategy as well. Despite being faced with the worst world-wide recession in decades, Labour took brave decisions to support the banks, stimulate the economy and keep spending under control. As a result, unemployment when Labour left office in 2010 was lower than when Labour came to power in 1997. Interest rates remain the lowest they have been for decades. Having got the economy out of recession at the end of last year, growth is now higher than expected – the economy grew by 1.1% from April – June. Unemployment fell in the last quarter and is lower in the UK than the EU average. Our banks have been stable and secure.

And what about our terrible, terrible debt – the reason the Tories keep talking about the “unavoidable” cuts? UK debt as a percentage of GDP reached 68.7% earlier this year and is still rising. That’s not great. But it is comfortably lower than the other G7 countries like Germany, the United States, France, Canada, Italy or Japan. Last time the Tories were in power they put up our debt from 34% of GDP to 51% to help get through the recession of the 1990s. This time they are doing the exact opposite to what most countries around the world agree is the right way to get back into sustainable growth. For a comparison with our major international competitors see this graph. The “savage” cuts programme is not just wrong because it is not based on a real understanding of the economic position of the country, it is wrong because it may reverse the positive trend of growth.

The Bank of England says that the ConDem plans will lead to a slower recovery and higher inflation than previously expected with Labour’s plans.

Finally we taxpayers are already £5bn in profit on the government’s investment in Lloyds and Royal Bank of Scotland. Within a year of the end of the recession Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling’s decision to step in with funding has been proved not just right but very profitable too. The Tories, incidentally, want to sell these shares off at a loss to benefit their friends in the stockbroking and hedge fund industry".