The Dame asked a few of her neighbours what they thought of Sloane Street since the improvements.

The unanimous view was worth the wait.

Sloane Street now has a very pleasant continental feel to it.

“ A pleasure to walk down”

“ Pity this approach to public space was not adopted for Exhibition Rd”

“Gives a feeling of a grand vista: before it all felt like  a ‘main rd’

“Like the way it melds in with gardens”

“Is it my imagination, but have the speeding supercars gone since the overhaul?”

“ The bus stops are now much better position than on the old street”

Walking down Sloane Street is now a real pleasure.

The  greater dividend for residents is that the £40 million costs were borne by Cadogan.

 Even the cost and maintenance of the plants, trees etc will remain the responsibility of Cadogan.

The Dame has a long held view residents’ interests are better aligned with a long-term family owner rather than some Middle Eastern sovereign wealth fund or, worse, a heavily profit driven public property company.

Anyway, the new look Sloane Street is a win for all

The caps fit

Years ago the Dame worked closely with Robert Maxwell. Those were the days when Maxwell was ‘saviour of the British printing industry’ and before the world was aware of his corruption.

She got a deep insight into his business deal-making. The Maxwell MO is exactly that of Trump. Even Maxwell’s complex friendship with Mother Russia mirrors Trump. Like Maxwell this will all end badly

Both men have the same psychological profile.

“We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.”

It’s clear new alliances are being forged by Trump and Vance and they don’t include Europe.

The Dame using a ‘medium’ friend managed an advisory chat with L. Palmerston. His Lordship shared many of Trump’s dealmaking attitudes to friendships.

During the seance his Lordship said best to forge a deep and lasting alliance with China and ditch the US.

Horrified she pressed Palmerston….“you mean get the US to remove all its nuclear weaponry here and us leave NATO?” “absolutely, dear Dame, greater safety and no tariffs”. You will get nothing but insults from this man.“

PS YOU CAN COMMENT WITH NO NEED OF EMAIL ADDRESS NOW

Dominic Cummings wearing trademark foolish headgear at Oxford Union

Dear Dame,

Cummings worries that he is becoming irrelevant so to get back in the limelight he claims to have orchestrated Johnson’s downfall

The Dame imagines he has been cold-shouldered by Farage, Tice and Lowe.

Cummings is clearly a bit mad.

The start of his interview was dotted with references to Pitt the Younger and Palmerston. That stuff may go down well at the OU but to most of us ‘unintelligentsia’ it’s like Cummings…irrelevant.

Cummings is like this government….quite incoherent.

Dear Kensington Society Members

RBKC is currently running a consultation on proposed changes to resident parking arrangements. The number of permits being issued is falling as is car ownership. The proposal presented by RBKC is to allow up to 2000 extra permits for those who own second homes within RBKC.  

• Currently, parking permits are only issued to residential addresses that are listed on the council tax register as a main home. People living in properties listed as second homes are therefore not eligible for a residents’ parking permit. In addition all new developments such as Holland Green and One Kensington are not allowed resident parking permits.

Kensington Society has concerns about this proposal for the following reasons:

• Proximity to commercial high streets and to tube stations mean that many of surplus spaces are taken by permit holders, making it sometimes difficult to find a space at certain times of the day
• It is difficult to see the logic of giving second homeowners this valuable facility when all new developments are required to be permit free
• There is a question as to how the 2,000 permit will be allocated. Is it on a first come, first service basis?  Will there be a waiting list?  Can ‘permit-free’ residents apply?
• If there is surplus capacity and the borough needs to generate more income, we feel that it would be preferable to introduce a visitor permit scheme such as exists in most other London boroughs

The Kensington Society will be submitting our comments and our response along these lines. You may agree or differ, however, we would encourage you to respond individually. Details can be found at https://consult.rbkc.gov.uk/communities/residents-permits-eligibility/. The consultation runs until 23 February 2025.

Yours sincerely

Amanda Frame

Chairman

Mayfield…hanging his head in shame

The Dame popped into Peter Jones’s Haberdashery Dept the other day and was saddened by what she found. Unlike booming Marks and Spencer it seems the partnership ethos that so invigorated John Lewis has all but gone.

At M&S the staff seem full of beans and enthusiasm led by dyed in the wool retailer, Stuart Machin.

So who is to blame for the precipitous fall of John Lewis and Waitrose?

When headhunters at Egon Zehnder presented their initial list of candidates to run the John Lewis Partnership in early 2019, outgoing chairman Sir Charlie Mayfield told them to try again and be more imaginative. Among the names turned up in their second trawl was Dame Sharon White….a civil servant with no clue about retailing.

So, the culprit is Mayfield, an ex army officer with no retail background.

He did nothing when chairing the company and then exacerbated the problems by appointing Dame Sharon White who knew even less about retail. What sort of fee did Egon Zehnder pick up for this disastrous choice? £500,000!

It just shows what happens when a non retailer tries to do retailing.

Hang your heads in shame White and Mayfield for ruining a once great partnership.

It is sad to hear of the death of Joan Hanham.

For many years she was an exemplary leader of the Council. The Daily Telegraph has a very full obituary.

If she can be faulted for anything it was the promotion of Merrick Cockell .

Cockell caused great scandal with excessive expenses and general uselessness.

The Dame had to work hard with the media to highlight the man’s manifest deficiencies. The Dame did manage to halt his peerage.

Hanham, on the other hand, was a highly competent and well regarded leader.

Workin’ class mate

According to the Times there is a growing concern about the rise of Reform. Labour strategists are plotting ways to combat the populist movement.

One brainbox has come up this killer idea…“let’s emphasise Keir’s working class roots”.

British voters have not the slightest interest in a politician’s social pedigree.

Only in the sadly depleted UK would a politician think it added lustre: so cheap and patronising.

No Labour voter thinks or cares whether their leader is working class or not.

It’s like Rayner calling everyone ‘Mate’ and thinking it makes her sound authentic. It just makes her seem slightly annoying and borderline ridiculous.

To defeat populism it might be a good idea to listen to what people want.

Nathan

Sara Sharif was killed by her family: others were complicit. Three judges are condemned for appalling decision-making. Those decisions allowed the return of little Sara to her death.

Williams

Judge Williams attempted to do an ‘Omerta’ to save shaming his useless judicial colleagues. Journalists fought back…..

The appeal court not only overturned Williams’s decisions but severely castigated him. Judicial heads must roll and Wiliams should be kicked off the bench.

There is an interesting angle to this. Cyrus Larizadeh KC who represented the murderous Urfan Sharif supported Judge Williams. What on earth can Williams’s decision to do with his vile client?

Raeside

This is Emily Eavis. The Eavis family, besides running the Festival, is mad about crazy Jeremy Corbyn.

Just recently 88-year-old Eavis transferred his ownership of the Festival’s Worthy farm site to his daughter, Emily. Was this tax planning and will it save IHT now farms are going to be hit?

In addition, Eavis spent £3.7 million(we understand) acquiring further land for the farm using the profits from the Festival. What was this about?

Festival profits this year were in the region of several million and donated to various charities.

The Festival itself is not a charity and is wholly owned by the Eavis family.

The current theory is that HMRC might claim that the value of the transfer should not just be based on the profits made but, much more importantly, on the brand value. 

Glastonbury Festival is a global brand. If offered for sale a private equity company would pay more than £300 million. Various rights within the Festival have considerable value such as branding and franchises.

To pay what could be a vast IHT bill Emily would need to raise a great deal of money so why did the family not set the Festival up as a charity? Was it because they were advised that at some stage it was worth hundreds of millions and they could share in the post tax capital gains?

Philippe de Villiers, the French politician and founder of Puy Du Fou theme parks is expanding in the UK with a proposed £600m site in Bicester.

de Villiers condoned the annexation of parts of Ukraine and decried sanctions against war criminal, Putin.

This link tells you all you need to know about de Villiers and his business associates. https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20140816-french-conservative-aristocrat-defends-plans-russian-theme-park

His business partner in Moscow is a EU-sanctioned individual. LINK

He has also been sanctioned by the US State department LINK

So, what we find is that de Villiers is in partnership with a sanctioned Russian individual. 

Is de Villiers a fit and proper person to be a major investor in the UK?

Patrick Vallance dominated our lives during the pandemic. He reminds us of those badly handled and miserable days.

The government has a good plan to link two great universities, Oxford and Cambridge. The idea is to link the 66 miles between the cities into an intensive innovation cluster area and, as importantly, a hub for globally renowned science and technology firms in life sciences, manufacturing, and AI.

This Fenland Silicon Valley is to be driven by Vallance.

This is atypical of all governments. Instead of thinking outside the box, it picks an ageing safe pair of hands.

This job should have been given to a young and fiery transatlantic entrepreneur: a man or woman able to relate to the new generation of tech entrepreneurs. One can just imagine what a turn off he will be to young tech pioneers as he drones on about his glory days. Now….someone like Chris Huhne? Different kettle of fish.

Marlborough

The other night Nigel Farage held a £25,000 a head party at a vulgar Mayfair club called Oswald’s. The intention was to raise money.

Dom Perignon, the preferred champagne of the parvenu flowed and ‘distinguished’ guests like James Marlborough and George Cracknell danced away with Lady Vicky Harvey until the small hours having gorged themselves on foie gras and Beluga.

Harvey

Yes, the Dame, a fearful snob would love to have been able to wear her new gold lame frock and mingle with the cream of society. But, how does all this resonate with Farage’s grassroots supporters?

Many are struggling small business people and most have rather Cromwellian and puritanical views of politics.

These dreadful and ostentatious displays of wealth set a nasty tone:

Farage, being a bit ‘middle’ middle class loves to be surrounded by aristocratic dross and ex celebs.

Serious potential donors like Dyson, Ratcliffe and other industrial titans will be very put off. Tarnishing one’s reputation by rubbing shoulders with some of the celebrity ex cons would not go down well with shareholders.

Persuading RBK&C’s FoI department to come clean on costs is like pulling hens’ teeth.

In the last couple of years just under £2 million has been spent or budgeted for.

This is a huge amount of money. The PR department under Price-Thompson has become an empire with around 16 staff beavering away. It would be understandable if there was tangible evidence of some sort of positive outcome but that is not the case.

The Dame knows a little about the PR Game. Over the years she has consistently advocated outsourcing to a grown-up consultancy or sharing the resource with neighbouring councils.

The publicity material put out by the Council is just embarrassing and unread and whatever advice is given to the Leader still leaves her floundering.

It is time the winds of change blew through the Council and a new, younger, leader untainted by the past put in the driving seat.

Is Henry Tufnell MP backwards in coming forward(back in image)?

There is nothing contemptible in an aristo being a Labour MP.

What is contemptible is pretending to be what you are not.

If Tufnell had been open about his background no one would have given two hoots. However, his gauche efforts at clambering up the greasy political pole by pretending to be common (like the Dame) are just embarrassing.

He has made a fool of himself for no reason.

Typical chaotic Lime/Forest scene

Wayne Ting, boss of Lime claims the council needs to ‘give’ his multibillion company more space. His words are his smooth as his looks.

Ting….Smooth operator

No matter now much space you give his riders they will still feel entitled to drop bikes as the fancy takes them. This is why on every London street we see the results of his company’s miss-management. He attempts to claim he is on some sort of divine social mission to enhance our streets. Most of us think he is looking to make easy money out of public spaces. Santander manages to have a socially responsible docking system but that costs money.

This is what Miss Pleasant, a PR operative for Lime wrote in response to yet another complaint. She also claims to be replying on behalf of a ‘Dominic’ who is responsible for Forest ‘excuses’. 

The issue here is caused by overcrowding as a result of high demand, we will be working with the council to see if there is further space that we can add parking to reduce pressure on the Hans Road bay as well as private parking locations in the area.”

Miss Pleasant attempts to present this as an isolated incident: it is not. It is greater London wide and is the result of lousy logistical planning by a money making private equity backed monster.

It is time RBKC got to grips with this. There is a mass of legislation it can deploy yet the officer involved seems out of his depth and passes the buck back to Miss Pleasant.

If you park your car badly it gets a fine and /or impounded. The Council should be doing the same with these bikes.

The Planning Inspectorate has ridden roughshod over houseboat dwellers, RBK&C and all who love this stretch of our river. The ‘Mysterious Moffats’ have been allowed to park their hideous mega boats despite 100% opposition: what a negation of democracy.

The Inspector’s decision can be challenged in the courts if there has been an error in law. If that is a possibility the RBK&C should fund the challenge.

The Standard has written an excellent summary https://www.standard.co.uk/homesandproperty/property-news/chelsea-reach-decision-mega-boats-houseboat-residents-b1195152.htm

The Dame’s many long-term fans will have followed this story for years. RBKC’s traditional markets are controlled and protected by parliamentary legislation: the London Local Authorities Act 1990. Council charges for market services must be “reasonable” and agreed with licensed street traders. Unreasonable, unagreed charges are unlawful. All unspent revenues must be returned to individual traders. The Market account is currently £200k in credit; funds are owed back to the traders. 

RBKC has long proved itself incapable of tolerating the existence of publicly owned assets, particularly in the north of the Borough. Numerous, attempts have been made to steal and/or destroy them. These are a few fairly recent attempts by RBKC to sell off and/or demolish:

*North Kensington Public Library – RBKC declared the interior stone staircase unsafe for children. Despite this, the building was leased to a private primary school. When the public objected, RBKC ‘reversed’ the lease.

*Morely College provided higher education for N. Kensington residents, for decades. It was set in spacious grounds; so was sold to a ‘private’ educational company – be demolished for luxury flats. Several hundreds residents attended a public meeting. RBKC’s Cllr Taylor Smith publicly announced the reversal of the sale. The College now flourishes.

*Portobello Court – 300 flats. RBKC drew up early plans to demolish the estate; replacing it with private luxury flats + shops. The Chair of the Portobello Court Residents Association knew nothing of the plans. Lawyers for the Grosvenor Estate wrote to RBKC. If the flats were to be demolished; the Estate would take back ownership of the land on which it sits. Shortly after WW2 it was leased in perpetuity to Kensington Council for public use. No more has been heard of the plan.       

*The Old Laundry and half the playground in Colville School was sold to a private French Nursery. The Nursery had recently lost its lease. Enquiries followed.

The Nursery owner was a baronet, who had evicted his own business from his own villa in Oxford Gardens.

No Colville School parents or local residents had been consulted over the plan.

The husband of an RBKC councillor was then Chair of Governors. Once the story was made public, RBKC backed off and Colville School continues to thrive.

Returning to the Markets; RBKC has long ’secretly’ planned to steal Portobello & Golborne Markets from public ownership. It will sell assets it does not own to the highest bidder. Successive public consultations have failed to deliver the result required to move forward. In 2017 RBKC published a report local tourism. Portobello Market has 6 million visitors a year. In 2019 Cllr. Faulks’ report on the local economy provided a detailed analysis of the Borough; without a single reference to or image of Portobello or Golborne Markets. In 2022 a rash of licence applications mysteriously appeared for hospitality tables and chairs to replace market traders. The public objected. All the applications were rejected. In January 2023 RBKC omitted to advise the public of 3 alleged public meetings to be held on one day. All were allegedly to discuss the future of the Markets. Days before the phantom meetings, the Dame published details. Hundreds of residents attended. By evening Cllr Kemahli rode back on the plan. Yet the current, £100k+ public consultation seeks to ‘improve’ Portobello Road, while co-incidentally preventing future market trading. This is the 4th or 5th consultation that’s failed to garner the required support for RBKC’s supposedly secret plan. Local residents know what’s intended and continue to refuse to accept the destruction of 500 people’s livelihoods. Kim Taylor-Smith claims to have “dealt with” the Grenfell survivors and now intends to “deal” with the street traders in a similar manner by unilaterally forcing up rents and other expenses. This, apparently without thought given to the possibility that by doing so, RBKC may breach parliamentary law.             

To protect residents, street traders and the public; this is a matter for the Leader of the Council; Chief Executive and Borough Solicitor. It is their duty to uphold the law and protect the public, rather than support the ambitions of a local politician.

Yours faithfully
A. Resident

The real price of Nick Price-Thompson

The Dame is a bit of a PR expert. She knows the tricks PR people get up using pseudo-scientific nonsense to get leaders to ante up more dough.

Mr Price-Thompson, the K&C PR boss, has built up a huge empire convincing Elizabeth Campbell all her troubles could disappear by pouring out endless drivel read by no one.

One bit of wisdom was to persuade those celebrating Diwali to use electric candles as normal candles caused fires!

The Dame decided it was time to see how much Thompson and team cost taxpayers.

Such information should be available at the touch of a button so why is her FoI taking weeks to answer?

No council needs an in-house PR team.

PR would be economically and efficiently managed bought in from external consultancies.

Sir Peter Bazalgette

The Milner Street Area Residents’ Association holds it 2024 Annual General meeting on Thursday, 28th November at St Simon Zelotes Church at 7pm.

After the meeting, there will be a party so residents can meet with local luminaries and, importantly councillors, the police and Joe Powell MP.

Peter Bazalgette, described as the most important man in British television, will give an address. The Dame was fascinated to read that his parents never allowed him to watch television until he was 12. What are his thoughts on smart screen usage by the young?

Those flooded by sewage a few years back might also get his views on Thames Water’s poor upkeep of our sewage system…Peter’s Victorian ancestor engineered the first effective London sewage system.

MISARA is a very proactive campaigning association.

We complain that our views are frequently ignored but MISARA is a powerful vehicle to amplify our voice and thus deserves our support.

ANONYMOUS

I am a former employee of Inc&Co. Despite exiting ….. years ago, I am still in touch with many great people who work in the companies and many people who have left over the years and here is some information to help provide factual information on the setup.

Dylan is not actively involved in the day-to-day operations of any of the companies he claims to have ‘founded’. Neither is JM. Instead, Dylan meddled and focussed his time at the group level, likely skimming off profits, racking up legal fees and ‘removing’ £13.7 million from Barclays. JM focus in group was craving validation spending all this time in the mirror or on his failed quest to become the next Steven Barnett, as a LinkedIn influencer. Neither one of these two individuals have any credit to take for any of the companies successes under the umbrella.

All company finances are centralised at Inc&Co, with decisions on payments tightly controlled at the top with an iron grip (THE FD who reports into SD). this includes the lack payment of staff pensions and also sale fees to former company heads. Individual businesses have no access to banks, budgets or funds and everything is managed and owned by Scott and hidden behind multiple layers of finance personnel within Inc&Co. JM was nothing more than a puppet craving attention, a distraction from the real operator and most likely developed by Dylan to take the fall. The staff at Inc&Co and the businesses have had the rug pulled from under them. He is a master fraudster and it beggars belief that Barclays have allowed this devastation. He doesn’t operate in plain sight, he hides behind multiple layers of group staff given he has no value to offer any of the companies. Most people haven’t even seen him in the flesh. Sometimes he would turn up for the odd board meeting refusing to put his camera on, but mostly he would use the sessions to discuss himself and his prior successes, a great opportunity for him to Gaslight the domain experts in the companies themselves.

Scott claims to invest in these companies, but in reality there is no investment, he siphons money, avoids paying creditors, and destroys thriving businesses. He’s a compulsive liar who thrives on manipulation. When challenged, he doesn’t hesitate to threaten livelihoods, pulling companies and jobs as leverage. He often takes to LinkedIn to spew abuse, masking his actions with smoke and mirrors all over the press and claiming complex PTSD. There have been many instances where JM has challenged SD and staff have been left unpaid. Despite being JM grade A arsehole, SD is the puppeteer. The FD? Few question marks there.

A RARE TRIBUTE FOR ALLCOCK FROM A PENTONVILLE PRISONER. IF HE IS SO GOOD AT SEARCH RESULTS MAYBE HE COULD SEARCH FOR INC FUGITIVES?

We know that Mr Dylan likes changing his name. Here that he has changed name yet again…. to Dylon!

When the Dame was a young thing she tie-dyed her T shirts with Dylon

The journalist’s trade mag, Press Gazette, the New Statesmen and PR WEEK have investigated PR Fire, Manchester PR company run by one Sam Allcock. It claims that he runs a series of websites purporting to be independent local news sources.

Below is an another Allcock ‘publication. 2 issues. 1. the genuine Financial News is not happy with this passing off. 2. Dave Antrobus listed as a journalist is on the run so one assumes ‘working remotely’!

PR Week the trade mag also looked into Allcocks’s activities…

These websites are nothing more than vehicles for paid releases put out by Allcock. Some of the stories on his various websites have been written by one Scott Dylan. The Dame has comprehensive evidence that Dylan, now serving time in Pentonville for contempt of court, is well known to Allcock.

From the ALLCOCK MEDIA GROUP!!!!Some of Allcock’s ‘papers’ go under these titles…the Bolton Gazette, Rochdale Gazette and Manchester Gazette. He has several others. We should be told whether Allcock was paid by Dylan. Step up to the plate, Allcock and tell us.

It would not be so bad if these ‘newspapers’ were standalone but they are not. They all connect back to Allcock.

You can read the full investigation

https://pressgazette.co.uk/publishers/regional-newspapers/network-of-pr-led-uk-local-news-websites-used-to-promote-paid-for-content/

and here

https://www.prweek.co.uk/article/1847691/pr-firm-placing-promotional-copy-genuine-news-investigation-claims