Let Battle Commence-But Don't Hold Your Breath

Cllr Lightfoot Throws His Hat Into The Ring

left: Leadership material?

Cllr Warwick Lightfoot has told friends that he intends to stand for the Leadership of Kensington and Chelsea when the position becomes vacant. This means that there will be at least four people competing for the post, including Cllr Tim Ahern, Cllr Nick Paget-Brown and Cllr Timothy Coleridge.All four are in the Cabinet and all have voiced concern that the current Leader, Cllr Cockell, has remained in post too long and has become stale. None of them have the courage of their convictions and have been prepared to mount a challenge. Radical change in Hornton Street is required; this pussy footing around is not a good sign. Let's clean out the stables!

Who is best qualified? The question is challenging. Taxpayers need to assure themselves of a few things before deciding

They must insist on a rigid term-no more endless squatting a la Cockell: and a promise to reduce the ludicrously high allowance of £1100 a week engineered by the greedy Cockell with the help of Mr Myers, his minder.
 Two of the candidates are rich and two are poor.  Three have served as Mayor of Kensington and Chelsea. Two are extroverted and two are introverted. Two (Cllr Paget-Brown and Cllr Lightfoot) stood in the election to be West London Representative at the GLA but lost out to Deputy Mayor Kit Malthouse.

A shortfall in the line up so far is the absence of a woman candidate-surprising considering the egos in that part of the chamber. Cllr Julie Mills, the current Mayor, thinks she is the bees knees but judging from her performance at the opening of the Portobello Lavatories, she is not leadership material. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO6QIhnxFQg&noredirect=1

Cllr Fiona Buxton is said to have ability but(sadly) she has ruled herself out because of family commitments. Cllr Joanna Gardiner is ambitious but could not handle the job. Power quickly went to her head during her Mayoral year when she decided to use the Bentley and driver to do her personal shopping: definitely an unsafe pair of hands. Cllr Victoria Borwick stood against Boris Johnson to be the Conservative Mayor of London and came a strong second. She currently serves on the GLA and is a spokesperson for Law and Order and Environment, but her intentions are not known. Cllr Elizabeth Campbell, Cabinet Member for Education and Libraries, has excelled herself as “toad” to the current Leader and has demonstrated no intellectual bandwidth whatsoever. But she thinks mightily of herself.

The dark horse is of course Cllr Daniel Moylan. The oxygen and publicity of a leadership contest might be too tempting for him. The boy, Cllr Fielding Mellen is definitely dust in this contest, which will frustrate his puppet master, Cllr Cockell. The Dame hears that Cllr Lightfoot has promised his close friend Cllr Palmer that he will run his election campaign (just like ex Cllr Phelps ran the Cockell leadership campaign and managed to beat Cllr Moylan by the Chairman’s single casting vote). If Cllr Lightfoot will listen to a gypsy warning, the brain dead (and political liability) Cllr Palmer is not the person to let within a million miles of a contested election.

It is time for the candidates to start their campaigns and tell us why they think they would be a good Leader. With this number of contenders, maybe there should even be a “Primary”. Step forward Cllr Christopher Buckmaster, Chairman of Kensington and Chelsea Conservatives. We need a bit of order in the system.