Category: Campaigns

Waltham Forest’s MPs, councillors and local campaigners were out in force on Saturday asking local residents from the Black and Minority Ethnic communities to register to vote. Only one third of Londoners of African origin is on the electoral register, meaning that thousands of them may miss out on their chance to vote in May’s local elections. Operation Black Vote campaigners and a multitude of local campaigners and volunteers, were joined by MPs Neil Gerrard and Harry Cohen, Greater London Assembly Member Jennette Arnold, and local councillors.

I organised the drive as part of the ‘5 Million Strong’ campaign, which aims to register 5 million ethnic minority Londoners by the deadline of March the 13th. I am delighted that Operation Black Vote came to my borough. Continue reading “Operation Black Vote!”

A group of mums living on the Beaumont Estate, Leyton, has formed a new group to save their children’s summer scheme. The Beaumont Residents And Tenants Summer Scheme’s (BRATSS) inaugural meeting was attended by Leyton MP, Harry Cohen, who pledged to assist the mums with their fight. Continue reading “Save the Beaumont Summer Scheme!”

The borough’s ‘Lives not Knives’ campaign took a step into the classroom in November. 14, 15 and 16-year-old pupils from George Mitchell school, where I am a governor, received a talk from the borough’s Superintendent Stewart Rivers, and the council’s violent crimes officer, Mike Jervis, on the dangers involved in carrying knives.

The teenagers were told that 13% of kids living in Waltham Forest now carry knives but that if caught, offenders face a stiff five-year jail sentence and other harsh punishments. The students also learned that the British Transport Police is about to begin conducting regular knife searches on the buses.
Continue reading “George Mitchell says Lives not Knives”