£548000 is a large sum of money to take from the poor and give to... who? The money in question was taken from funds designed to combat real deprivation and apparently bullshitted away on the Olympics, while all the while the Labour leadership of our council categorically lied through its teeth and told the public that it was doing precisely the opposite. It is however a drop in the ocean compared to the scale of the betrayal of public trust which has been perpetrated on the people of Walthamstow and the rest of the Borough. Where did this and all the other money go?

The public doesn't know, nor, apparently do our councilors who are supposed to have been scrutinising public expenditure in Waltham Forest, but who have failed to do this. Instead, it has been through the dogged determination of Nick Tiratsoo, an individual, that the scandals of how money has been flowing from projects supposed to help the very poorest in our community ended up in places it shouldn't. Maybe the police now investigating our wonderful local authority will find out what has been going on. Or the Public Accounts Committee.

The hole in our local Education budget is in the millions. Waste is endemic. Anywhere you look in Waltham Forest there are the tell-tale signs of a local authority where complacency, greed and incompetence were the norm, all spiced with the arrogance and personal dishonesty of the leadership of a political party which for years put pigs bladders on sticks up for election as local councilors.

Five council officers are currently 'under investigation' for not reporting an alleged £240,000 profit-boosting fraud by EduAction, the company which used to run education in the borough.