Almost Nailed On

Peter Carlyon writes:

In theory, there could be few better candidates for a London constituency than Sagal Abdi-Wali. The newly minted boss of Camden council also spent two years as cabinet member for housing, a time in which she told The Londoner “we’ve changed the culture of the council”. But some of her former colleagues aren’t so sure. “I’ve never heard a bigger load of bollocks in all my life,” scoffed one former Camden official who’s worked extensively with Abdi-Wali, when we put this claim to them. 

On Thursday, the 42 year-old Somali refugee is hoping to see off a scandal-hit Zack Polanski to become Holborn and St Pancras’ new MP. Bookies put her as almost nailed on to succeed. Since she looks to be on the brink of victory, we wanted to get to know Labour’s candidate for Holborn and St Pancras — to understand more about who she was beyond the somewhat timid PR drive seeking to propel her into parliament.

We found those keen to praise her sunny personality and commitment to her area. But over days of reporting, and in conversations with over half a dozen current and former colleagues, we also found many people questioning her track record — both at Camden council and in her widely vaunted image as a local charity worker.

Abdi-Wali and I meet in a Costa Coffee near Euston. It’s raining, and with her team in full campaigning mode we have just 15 minutes to speak. She arrives wearing a bright pink and purple hijab and white Adidas trainers. She sits down, smiles warmly, and sets out her offer to the people of Camden: “I know this community really well. I’ve seen the issues that people have here. That’s what made me get involved in local politics, and I’ve been affected by them myself.”

It’s a solid pitch, and one which Camden Labour hope will be enough to overcome any squeamishness over Abdi-Wali’s close ties with Keir Starmer. As chair of his local party for four years, she worked alongside the former Prime Minister and can be seen embracing him upon his arrival at Downing Street in 2024.

Abdi-Wali has spent almost two decades working in and around Camden council. She became a local government officer in the 2000s upon completing her degree in political science from Leeds University. She spent the next 15 years bouncing around different departments before eventually landing in digital services — a role she gave up in 2022 to become the councillor for Camden Square. It’s been – as former housing minister Steve Reed phrased it in an interview with her earlier this year – a “meteoric rise”. In the view of her opponents, though, such a rapid ascension has not necessarily been a good thing.

‘It’s difficult for me to have an opinion about her, because she didn’t turn up to trustee meetings’ 

Andrew Feinstein was a local Labour activist (and before that a member of the African National Congress in South Africa) before spinning out to launch his own party, the Camden People’s Alliance in 2024. This time around though, he’s backing Polanski.

“The idea is to move away from careerist, mendacious politicians,” he tells me — that’s Keir Starmer — and with the former MP for Holborn and St Pancras playing such a prominent role in elevating Abdi-Wali up the Camden Labour Party ranks, he sees many of the same qualities in her. “I don’t think she sees the value in engaging with people except at election time.” 

She frowns when I raise Feinstein’s criticism that she’s being careerist. “I think anyone who’s seen my life and my track record and my career wouldn’t say anything like that,” she says strongly. Abdi-Wali first came to the UK as a child refugee fleeing the Somalian civil war and speaks powerfully about her gratitude to the borough that granted her family sanctuary. “I’ve literally dedicated my life to community service and giving back.” 

While Abdi-Wali’s political career is well-documented, there isn’t much readily available information about her volunteering and community work. On Companies House, she is listed as having previously been a director at two organisations: the Council of Somali Organisations and Voluntary Action Camden (VAC). Her role at the latter, from 2021-23, was to help connect charity workers with potential sources of funding — exactly the kind of community-rooted work her reputation suggests she’d excel at. But, according to one senior figure of the charity, she was hardly ever there. 

“It’s difficult for me to have an opinion about her, because she didn’t turn up to trustee meetings,” this person says. When she did attend, Abdi-Wali would often sit through the online meetings without saying anything. “It’s the regular commitment bit for her that was challenging,” they say reluctantly. By 2023 there was a “restructure” of the trustees and Abdi-Wali left. Of course, that’s only one charity. But one local Labour party insider we spoke to questioned just how much Abdi-Wali really has worked in the local voluntary sector: “I don’t think too many people on the ground see that. Who can back that up? Who’s saying that apart from her?” 

In response to a request for comment, the Labour party refused to provide a list of charities Abdi-Wali has worked with. Instead, a spokesperson said that “Sagal’s 20-year long record of volunteering in her community is commendable. If anyone would like to challenge that, they should say so on the record.” They also provided a quote from Danny Silverstone, a school governor at Primary Hill alongside Abdi-Wali and a fellow volunteer at VAC. “I’ve seen first-hand the substantial time, care and energy Sagal Abdi-Wali has put into her voluntary work, including at Voluntary Action Camden and as a school governor at two local schools.” 

How about housing?

Asked to outline her priorities for Camden, Abdi-Wali tells me that “the thing I’m most passionate about is housing”. She took on the role of housing boss shortly before the housing ombudsman found Camden to have one of the highest rates of maladministration in the country, with council properties plagued by chronic leaks and pitiful response times. Why, I ask, should the people of Holborn and St Pancras elect someone from the same party responsible for these failings? Former Labour MP Emma Dent-Coad announced that she would be backing Polanski over Abdi-Wali, telling the Camden New Journal that “there are huge problems at Camden council” and that “Holborn and St Pancras needs an MP who understands that the current housing model has failed”. 

Abdi-Wali is resolute that she’s changed the culture of the council since taking over. “The number one thing is that we’ve increased the number of residents panels,” she says, though admits that this is “just the start” of what’s needed. However, two former colleagues expressed skepticism about her housing credentials.

“She was a terrible housing chief,” one former official told us, overseeing a surge in the number of households in temporary accommodation — like many London boroughs in that time — and an increase in the number of tenant complaints to the housing ombudsman. A separate former employee in the housing department remembered Abdi-Wali as a “very peripheral figure” who they were surprised to see appointed as the council’s housing lead. 

In the run-up to the election, housing campaigners have also been sharing their dissatisfaction. As we have previously covered, leaseholders in her ward complain that she didn’t respond when they wrote with concerns about their defective homes. Over the weekend, housing safety campaigner Fiona Garrett shared a similar experience in a blog post. Garrett, who set up No More Falls after her son Joshua fell to his death in Holborn due to a faulty railing, said her emails asking to meet the Labour candidate had gone unanswered for weeks — in contrast to candidates from the Greens, Conservatives and Lib Dems – only getting an answer as her case attracted more media attention.

The ming vase lives on

It’s been observed multiple times in this short, frantic election campaign that Labour’s strategy seems not dissimilar from the “ming vase” approach that propelled Starmer into Number 10: keep your head down and stay out of trouble. Despite granting The Londoner an interview, Abdi-Wali’s team repeatedly rebuffed our requests to go out canvassing with her — normally a bread and butter piece of political coverage, at least for a party confident in their candidate’s ability to talk with people on the doorsteps. 

The Green Party has been running a far bolshier campaign, mobilising a small army of eager young door knockers, who have been seen everywhere from Somers Town to Primrose Hill pounding the concrete. Janice, a woman in her 50s who lives in Camden Square, told me that the Greens had posted three flyers through her door and that she’d probably vote for them. She’d received just one from Labour. A stall at the Green Party conference even instructed attendees to hightail it back to Camden to fight the good fight.

Labour’s social media strategy, too, has been restrained. It mostly consists of photos with cabinet members and Abdi-Wali’s straightforward, selfie-shot video diaries cataloguing each day of campaigning. Polanski’s Mamdani-esque approach, it is not. Despite this, several people praise her warmth and down-to-earth demeanour.

Even a scathing article about Camden Labour published by Tribune last week titled ‘The Dark Arts of Camden Labour’ admitted she is “much more charming and socially adept” than Starmer. “She’s this warm person with strong local roots” agreed local Labour party activist and former BBC journalist Martin Plaut, who has been out campaigning with Abdi-Wali. “She’s a Camden girl,” he said, when pressed for more substance. “She’s Camden… she’s just Camden normal.”

Will this be enough? Frankly, it would be astonishing if not: Labour has held onto Holborn and St Pancras ever since it was established in 1983. The borough also has a sizeable Muslim population, with whom Abdi-Wali’s story is said to be going down well at the doorstep. And the election comes right when an ascendant Andy Burnham is battening down voters who may otherwise have swung Green. Punters on online prediction market Polymarket put her chances of winning at over 90%.

The only insight of any personal depth came on the streets of Camden Square — Abdi-Wali’s home turf — when I approached a guy wearing a beanie and asked whether he knew her. “I went to Quran class with her!” he said excitedly. “She’s a good person. A good footballer as well. She used to play attacking mid and she’d bully all the boys off the ball in the playground. She was a baller, you know.” Unfortunately for Abdi-Wali, this fellow doesn’t vote.