We wrote about this earlier, we believe you aught to have more information about the current allegations against the Leader of the Council.
Damien White – the leader of the council has been accused of Gerrymandering. This is a serious allegation.
Cllr Bob Perry, a former conservative councillor, recorded a number of meetings secretly. He did this as he had previously reported bullying and wrong doing to the conservative HQ only to have his issues ignored.
The meetings Bob recorded included nearly all the conservative councillors. In these meetings the leader of the council boasted about how he has used the up and coming boundary change review to enhance the chances of conservative councillors to be elected by changing the boundaries on a political basis rather than keeping these changes to what they should be, and that is for the good of the residents making use of natural boundaries.
The leader of the council also stated that the CEO of the council was willing to let him make these changes.
The Council have refuted these allegations as ALL officers of the council should be neutral in all things.
They can’t both be right – Either Damien is lying or the Council is – I will leave you to make up your mind on that.
Either way, the rest of the councillors who were at these meetings are culpable as they knew further wrong doing was happening, but they chose not to do anything about it. Is this because the leader holds each of the councillors extra payments in his hands and can remove them with ease if the councillors do not follow his direction?
We had the recording transcribed, the transcription is below.
The allegation is being taken somewhat seriously with the council agreeing to perform a review using an independent manager. However the person the council put forward for this role has ties to the current council.
The story has been taken up by the following :-
Evening Standard here
Romford Recorder here
TimeFM here
MJ (Municipal Journal) here
BBC Radio London here
The Yellow Advertiser here
If you are interested in the details
The transcript – click at the bottom of the page to see the follow on pages
I’ve been increasingly irritated by Mr White’s efforts at self-publicity in his frequent “Message from the Leader of Havering Council” section of the “Living in Havering” special updates – seemingly taking credit for every council initiative and becoming increasingly sanctimonious in his tone regarding Havering Citizens’ behaviour during Covid. Many thanks to you, Paul, and to all of our RA Councillors who continue with efforts to hold this “Leader” to account. Perhaps we should let the dust settle a little on this Boundary issue before responding to the consultation?