So the latest hole that the ruling party in Newhamgrad is trying to dig themselves out of is the one concerning their 'new' candidate in the Royal Docks: Steve Brayshaw.
It's funny as not so long ago we were copied into an irate letter from a local resident to Steve Brayshaw, in response to one of the spun up 'we love and have done so much for the Royal Docks' election leaflets. Labour have in fact done nothing for royal docks residents in terms of protecting them from more pollution - apart from Alec Kelleway who supported the airport, but then he also has more than £25,000 shares in WPP who owned Hill and Knowlton the PR company temporarily hired by LCA to 'push through' the expansion.
Not one other labour councillor showed any concern regarding the air and noise pollution levels, nor the failure of LCA to actually measure regularly for 8 years...they didn't want to listen to the evidence that childrens development is harmed by excessive aircraft noise either - despite Ofsted having identified nearly every school in the area having an above average level of children with learning difficulties.
Why was the resident so irate with Steve? Because in all the Labour bumpf Steve seemed to have suffered a severe case of amnesia - there was no mention of London City Airport at all! How strange, and FTF could hardly believe it, but we are innocent and naive souls here, always trying to see the best in people whatever they do.
Steve Brayshaw was in fact a strong objector to London City Airport's expansion at one point and he was in fairly regular contact with FTF and other objectors. He was active on this issue in an individual role, and indeed even turned up at Stratford Town Hall last summer to object to the 50% expansion plans. Steve was so concerned at the 8 years of lack of reliable noise and air data readings at the airport that he even wrote to DEFRA asking them about the data. Here's Steve's view on London City Airport Just 12 months ago in the Docklands 24 Paper. Strange what wanting to become a Labour candidate does to you.
“A call has been made for the application to expand
But now it seems, that he isn't worried about noise and air pollution anymore, nor the schoolchildren (shame on you, and we hope you can sleep at night) nor is he doubting the jobs claims! Apparently he is now claiming he's changed his mind (yeah right!) because of the 'jobs'. We are assuming he is not referring to the redundancies? And just how many directly employed airport jobs is he referring to have gone to residents in the Royal Docks in the past 20 years? He doesn't even know.
It seems to us that Steve Brayshaw traded in his concern for the well being of the community for becoming a labour candidate - kerching. Another one on the gravy train...isn't it just great that a candidate can forget all the harmful effects of the airport on the community, and the missing and flawed data with just a few months of spin?
