Today’s Sunday Times featured a letter, allegedly signed by a number of council leaders – at least one has denied signing it – against an NEC (Labour’s National Executive Committee) motion concerning the controversial ‘HDV’ (Haringey Development Vehicle’).

As the SKWAWKBOX revealed the author of the letter, who had touted among council leaders asking them to sign it, was also the person responsible for the content of the motion – Newcastle City Council leader Nick Forbes.

Forbes had objected to the original motion, which had then been extensively amended to reflect his wishes – and not a single NEC member, including Forbes, had voted against it.

The media have featured excerpts from the motion, which they have characterised as ‘telling’ or ‘directing’ the council to ‘halt’ the HDV. But the SKWAWKBOX brings its readers the full wording of the motion:

The NEC welcomes the urgent intervention of Labour LGA representatives and the appropriate shadow cabinet members in an effort to resolve the matter amicably in consultation with all of the interested parties. If however that approach proves to be unproductive before the next scheduled full council meeting then the NEC strongly advises that the process to agree the HDV with Lendlease is paused and that contractual arrangements are not signed prior to May’s local elections after which they should be reviewed.

No halts, nothing but advice that the proceedings should be paused until after the local elections – and that only if the various parties are unable to find ‘resolve the matter’.

As one senior Labour source told the SKWAWKBOX, “Not exactly aggressive interference, is it?“.

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