Cllr. Liaquat Ali

The recent Labour Leadership contest in Waltham Forest: a tale of Grace Williams, Liaquat Ali…and Clyde Loakes

July 30, 2021 Cllr. Clyde Loakes, Cllr. Grace Williams, Cllr. Liaquat Ali

As local news outlets have reported, in the election to find a new Council Leader following Clare Coghill’s resignation, the Labour Group has plumped for Grace Williams, with Liaquat Ali a close second. The general feeling on the Labour benches is that Ms. Williams will provide short-term stability, though many also believe that after the 2022 local elections, there will be a further Leadership contest, with both of this year’s candidates very likely to stand again. Given such a scenario, it’s a good moment to put Ms. Williams and Mr. Ali under the spotlight, and try to understand who they are... »

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LBWF ‘communication’ with local residents: the yawning gap between rhetoric and reality

July 13, 2020 Cllr. Clare Coghill, Cllr. Liaquat Ali, LBWF spin

As this blog has previously reported, though LBWF stridently declares that it wants to ‘communicate’ with residents, even help them become ‘active citizens’, able to drive policy, what transpires on the ground is often very different. Communication turns out to be a one-way street, while those who raise issues that are at odds with LBWF’s rosy self-image find themselves studiously ignored. To further underline the prevailing malaise, a correspondent supplies the following vivid account of dealing with the Town Hall, which is particularly shocking because it involves several senior councillors:... »

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A new outbreak of sectarianism in the Town Hall?

September 20, 2019 Cllr. Liaquat Ali, Masood Ahmad, Prevent, the Labour Party in Waltham Forest

As this blog has reported previously, some councillors in Waltham Forest seem to find avoiding sectarianism, whether national or religious, rather difficult. Now news emerges of what appears to be a further example of this unpleasant phenomenon. Annually, LBWF celebrates a variety of nation days, normally with a reception and flag raising ceremony. The 14 August is Pakistan day, and this year, it was marked in the normal way. However, during the reception (which was chaired by Cllr. Liaquat Ali and attended by the Mayor), events took a somewhat unusual turn. For, at the instigation of the expe... »

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LBWF Director of Governance and Law Mark Hynes and Labour Councillor Liaquat Ali: Punch meets Judy, again

December 17, 2018 Cllr. Liaquat Ali, Mark Hynes, register of interests, the Labour Party in Waltham Forest

At the beginning of November 2018, The Waltham Forest Guardian’s Alice Richardson reported that at a full Council meeting in 2015, the Labour Cabinet portfolio holder, Cllr. Liaquat Ali, had failed to declare an interest. She explained: ‘On the council’s website, Cllr Liaquat Ali, who is a private landlord, is recorded as being present in a full council meeting on July 9, 2015 where private rental licences were discussed, but there is no record of him declaring an interest during the meeting. The council’s list of interests declared at meetings shows that fellow cabinet member for health, Cllr... »

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The Waltham Forest Matters Annual Awards for 2017

December 29, 2017 Cllr. Alan Siggers, Cllr. Anna Mbachu, Cllr. Chris Robbins, Cllr. Clare Coghill, Cllr. Clyde Loakes, Cllr. Hather Ali, Cllr. Liaquat Ali, Mark Hynes, Martin Esom

It’s that time of year folks, and as this blog rapidly approaches the treasured 100,000 hits mark (OK, we admit it, 50,000 of them come from Cllrs Loakes and Robins) here are our awards: Picture of the year (From a couple of years back, true, but just too much of a cracker not to include) Sentence of the year ‘The company Knice Industries ltd is dormant and had never traded and that the councillor has applied to strike the company off the Companies House Register’ Mark Hynes, LBWF Director of Governance and Law, tells it like it is to a resident Social observation of this year (and every... »

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Hather Ali, of ‘bed in a shed’ fame, to stand for Labour in Higham Hill (naturally) UPDATED

October 10, 2017 Cllr. Liaquat Ali, the Labour Party in Waltham Forest

News reaches this blog that the Labour Party has chosen Mr. Hather Ali as a candidate for Higham Hill in the forthcoming local elections. This is certainly very surprising, because a couple of years ago Mr. Ali – the nephew of longstanding Labour Cabinet member Liaquat Ali – was involved in a rather unsavoury but very public Residential Property Tribunal (RPT) case concerning a ‘bed in a shed’. The story is as follows. In 2002, members of Hather Ali’s close family, including his mother, purchased 305 Higham Hill Rd., and rented it out. However, when, in response to a complaint, LBW... »

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Waltham Forest’s Safer Neighbourhoods Board and MOPAC funding: a scandal in the making

September 13, 2017 Cllr. Liaquat Ali, Gang Prevention Programme, Policing/crime

Previous posts have dealt in depth with the travails of the Waltham Forest Safer Neighbourhoods Board (WFSNB) – its inability to hold regular meetings, the incompleteness of its minutes, and the fact that it publicly named constituent members without asking their permission, or (bizarrely) even informing them that they had been signed up to serve. Now it emerges that there are major concerns about the way that the WFSNB has handled funding from the Mayor’s Officer for Policing and Crime (MOPAC). The story is as follows. Over the FYs 2015-16 and 2016-17, the WFSNB has (by its own lights) devote... »

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Knife crime in Waltham Forest: a nasty little scandal (5)

July 5, 2017 Cllr. Liaquat Ali, Gang Prevention Programme, Policing/crime

I hear from reliable sources that some of those community representatives who are currently listed on LBWF’s website as members of the Waltham Forest Safer Neighbourhoods Board (WFSNB) are both astonished and perturbed that their names have been made public, since they have never given permission for this to happen, and in addition claim that they have neither received any briefing about their supposed roles and responsibilities, nor even met anyone who has authority for the outfit’s functioning. Their reactions are entirely reasonable. For it is axiomatic that those who stand up to be counted... »

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Cllr. Liaquat Ali’s new Cabinet role: a square peg in a round hole?

June 28, 2017 Cllr. Clare Coghill, Cllr. Liaquat Ali, the Labour Party in Waltham Forest

A couple of weeks ago, the incoming LBWF Leader Clare Coghill announced her first Cabinet, and one of the most notable developments is that she has moved Cllr. Liaquat Ali MBE JP from the community safety portfolio to take on ‘Transformation and Commercial Operations’, covering everything from ‘digital and smart technology’, via ‘revenues and benefits’, and ‘civil contingencies’, to ‘financial sustainability’. This is self-evidently an exacting and complex brief, requiring detailed technical expertise, and it is reasonable to ask whether Cllr. Ali is an appropriate appointment. It needs to be ... »

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The forthcoming William Morris by-election: ex-Labour Titan Afzal Akram bounces back as a Tory (and with a bang) UPDATED

June 15, 2017 Cllr. Afzal Akram, Cllr. Liaquat Ali

Politicians in Waltham Forest are often good for a laugh, and the forthcoming William Morris ward by-election is not short of crackers. Labour is standing Umar Ali, brother of the recently deceased Nadeem (a thoroughly decent man, by all accounts), and son of Liaquat, the third in command of the party’s Town Hall contingent of councillors. Umar seems to have kept a low profile in the past, and so many are wondering what he has to offer. Questions are also being asked about how he arrived at the candidature, since no one seems to be sure when the selection process occurred, and who was involved... »

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