Camden Council pleaded guilty to two health and safety breaches concerning the lack of fire detectors, alarms and a viable escape route at a council-maintained block of flats in which a blaze took the life of 35-year-old Magdalena Fink in November 2017. The council have been ordered to hand over £500,000 of taxpayers’ money in fines. It will also cover the £41,000 legal costs of the London Fire Brigade, who brought the prosecution. 

Worse still, the council were warned in a 2013 risk assessment that the block urgently required a new fire alarm system, replacement fire doors and removal of flammable cladding on the only escape route.

Cllr Matthew Kirk of the LibDems said: 

“This is a huge amount of money which could have bought a lot of benefits for Camden residents… no officer has taken responsibility for this clearly dramatic failing.”

The Camden Council member responsible for planning, regeneration, economic growth and “Camden’s ambitious council house building programme” since October 2017 is none other than Danny Beales. A councillor since May 2014, Beales’ tenure at the top has been plagued by mould, damp, and fires. Yet despite the dangerous living conditions, the Camden cabinet voted to put council home tenants’ rents up by 7% in January.

Beales is bidding to be underwhelming on the national stage as he hopes to unseat Boris Johnson at the next election…

Camden Labour Group’s chief whip Lazzaro Pietragnoli has resigned after his secret abusive Twitter account @PHillmum, which he used to publicly attack and humiliate colleagues, was exposed. The account – with which Pietragnoli masqueraded as a mother of three living in Primrose Hill social housing – called fellow Labour councillor Maryam Eslamdoust a “scumbag” and her husband and fellow councillor Thomas Gardiner a “disgraceful man”. Pietragnoli also frequently used the account to praise his own work and achievements. Not exactly subtle…

Last week, Pietragnoli blamed the account on his own wife, university professor Valentina Arena, when confronted by the Camden New Journal. In reality she had nothing to do with it, and didn’t even know that her name had been used in now-deleted reports by the Camden New Journal…

Just one week later, Pietragnoli fessed up to the Camden New Journal:

“I want to confirm that she [his wife] was never involved in the twitter account nor had she any knowledge of what I told you last week. That twitter account was set up by me as a prank, which clearly evolved into something very negative and abusive for which I am sorry”. 

All in all a humiliating affair… 

Camden Council has spent £93,000 on an anti-racism training contract, despite cutting £230,000 worth of jobs. Priorities…

The council’s Library Service has committed to slashing jobs in order to save £230,000. The council will cut management/ back-office roles and frontline staff as part of its Mid-Term Financial Strategy and instead hopes to recruit more volunteers to compensate for this loss. The council will also cut further jobs to ensure the new Library Service structure costs remain within the revised service budget. Guido wonders why the council – which is clearly hard-pressed for cash – chose to waste £93,000 on ‘woke’ training instead of saving some of those jobs…

Slides leaked from the anti-racism training session include lessons on “types or racism” such as “white privilege, micro aggressions, intersectionality, [and] tone policing”. Sounds like £93,000 well spent…