Ray Lewis, Boris Johnson’s first appointment as Deputy Mayor just two months ago, has resigned.

Lewis, who runs a highly regarded programme to help young black men get their livesback on track, was made Deputy Mayor for Young People shortly after Boris was elected in May.

However recent reports about his past including the fact that he had been banned from the Church of England and had faced several criminal inquiries led to him tendering his resignation today (Friday 4 June).

Howard Dawber said: “This is very sad - I have met Ray Lewis and was very impressed with the work he was doing at the East Side Young Leaders Academy.”

“This raises two issues - obviously now there is a question about whether Ray should ever have been appointed Deputy Mayor and secondly about Boris’ judgement. It is one thing to look at a project and think it is worth replicating - quite another to give someone an executive job with responsibility for delivering across the capital.”

“I am sorry to say that Boris is reaping the whirlwind of the long campaign he and his supporters waged against many of Mayor Ken Livingstone’s advisers. Now he and his advisers will be held to the same standards.”

“However with two senior advisers having now been forced into resigning, the wheels are beginning to come off Boris’ mayoral bus.”

Figures released this week demonstrate how Labour is investing in Bexley’s schools.

In 2005-6, Bexley received £160m for its education budget. In 2006-7 this was raised to £170m, and in the last year it has been £179m. Education Minister Jim Knight announced there will be at least £6m extra for next school year - although the full allocations have not be announced yet.

This year’s funding equates to £4,550 per child across the borough.

Howard Dawber said: “The Conservatives have failed to raise four Bexley schools out of special measures and also have failed to tackle the four local schools where fewer than 30% of pupils achieve Grade A-C GCSEs.”

“Although no local schools were in special measures when Labour ran the council, the Conservatives have blamed Government saying they don’t get enough money.”

“These figures demonstrate that Bexley has had above inflation increases in education funding for three years in a row - and that the Council is simply not spending these extra resources properly.”

“Labour has made education its number one priority - the Conservatives have made cuts their number one priority.”

Howard is still waiting for a response to his recent letter to Council Leader Teresa O’Neill asking what she plans to do to help sort out the 6 “failing” schools in the Borough.

See the detailed figures here.

We were campaigning in three places at once today (Sunday 22 June).

First of all we had a whole team of people out on the streets talking to local residents in Christchurch, the ward abandoned by Ian Clement as he goes off for his big job at City Hall.

People wanted to talk to us about the waste collection changes, parking, speeding along the residential streets and anti-social behaviour. More and more people are asking what the point of electing a 54th Conservative councillor would be when they don’t see much value from the other 53 of them.

(Pictured - Ursula Ayliffe, Labour’s local candidate for the council by-election, with Howard Dawber and local Labour campaigners.)

We were very pleased to have a vist from Kevin Bonavia, the Labour Party Candidate for Southend, and some of the Southend Labour Party who dropped by to lend their support to Ursula.

Secondly we of course have our web site which is updated every day - the latest news is our support for the campaign against TESCO’s proposed megastore in Bexleyheath.

Finally, Howard also appeared on the Politics Show for London today talking about Labour’s work against crime in Bexley. Watch the programme here.

On the streets (where it really matters), on the telly and on the web, all at the same time.

This is multi-channel campaigning for the digital age . . .