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Tuesday 1 January 2013

A BANKER'S VIEW OF OPERA HOLLAND PARK!


A POMPOUS BANKER
This comment from ex Cllr Fairhead is interesting....he still believes his other, ex councillor colleague, Andrew Lamont is a councillor!
Can Fairhead be so out of touch he had not heard 'Cllr' Lamont had been convicted of the possession of serious child pornography and booted off the Rotten Borough?

In this email Fairhead tells us planning decisions should not be reflective of aesthetics-merely of money.

Fairhead has a skewed idea about 'investment'.
The 'community'....meaning you and I, had little say in whether we wanted millions of pounds spent on a Cockell 'folie de grandeur'. But then ex cllr Fairhead doubtless felt the 'community was also 'pleased' to see £27 million spent on Exhibitionist Rd and  a further million of a party to 'celebrate' it!
I suppose he thought the £1million loss making Chelsea Care was a cracking good 'investment' too! He was in on that decision, after all.
We should not forget that Fairhead was a cabinet member for 'purse strings' when Pooter went off on his expensive jaunts to the States. Did he join the chorus demanding Pooter pay back the money for his mystery guest dinner? Of course not.
Opera Holland Park has not just cost us all millions: it could now cost us the Park itself.
We should be very wary....maybe Mr Fairhead is angling to put one of his 'waste disposal facilities' in our Park!

And another thing....is the Dame's memory failing her or is not  David Potter an ex banker.....what a coincidence that they both agree with each other!




> Message Received: Dec 31 2012, 12:57 AM
> From: "Thomas Fairhead" 
> To: "'David Potter'" , "'Fergus Kinmonth'" 
> Subject: RE: Holland Pk Opera canopy proposal. Action
>
Dear All

I entirely agree with Mr Potter.  Opera Holland Park has reached an artistic standard of which the Friends – and all the rest of us – are entitled to be proud.  It is not something to be merely tolerated and limited in the interests of “conservation” (which are in this case just demands for someone else’s subsidy).  As we all know, far from being the “focal point of the Park”, the terrace is closed when the Opera is not in season.  And the funds provided by the Council for the conservation of the Holland House frontage were provided in the explicit context of the Opera’s cultural importance and the investment the community has made in its success; in no way do they justify opposing this application.

We all hope this application is granted as soon as possible.

Best regards

Tom Fairhead



From: David Potter [mailto:david@davidpotter.org
> Sent: 30 December 2012 22:13
> To: 'Fergus Kinmonth'
> Subject: RE: Holland Pk Opera canopy proposal. Action

Dear Fergus

Frankly I disagree with you. The Holland Park Opera seems to me to bring culture to a wider audience. Everything has plusses and minusses (like wind farms). If it helps the Opera to continue at less drain to public and private costs then I would say "so much the better". I do not agree with the view that "CONSERVATION" means nothing ever changes, no trees get cut down and replanted, no vista is ever changed (how were the great vistas of London or Northumberland changed, develped or improved?). I am sorry but this approach is "advanced nimbyism" and smacks of the worst type of conservation = either no change or neglect.

I will be interested to hear other views

Happy New Year

David

51 comments:

  1. This email exchange sounds to me like two dinosaurs talking. Obviously out of touch because they both think that their chum (disgraced ex Cllr Lamont)is still on the public payroll

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Fairhead IS one of the dinosaurs of the Conservative Party. Not so long ago, as Cabinet Member for Finance, he got carried away in public debate in the manner of the current Finance jitter and shouter (Cllr Lightfoot). Our Tom, in a rage of excitement and screaming, told the Council that "not since the great Victorian philanthropists was anyone spending on the scale of Kensington and Chelsea on great civic projects". The deluded monster was introducing Pooters "21 projects for the 21st Century", which are now coming home to roost. ergo Exhibition Road, £100 million Holland Park School (not one extra space) and so on

      Good on you Tom! Prat

      Delete
  2. Ex Cllr Fairhead is a well meaning person. He rejoiced in his Leader when he was a serving Councillor and became a champion of the 21st Century Project. However he has since told friends that some of the project contents, for example the pink granite from China for Exhibition Road, may have gone a bit too far

    ReplyDelete
  3. Fairhead is one of the Tory riff raff. His wife makes loads of money and they have a grace and favour home in the Downton Abbey grounds at the weekend. His missus told him that since she was making the bread he should stop wasting time in Hornton Street and instead do the dishes in the country.

    Enough said

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Impertinence! Thomas Fairhead is an accomplished country gentleman

      Delete
    2. Friend of the Family1 January 2013 at 11:29

      It is not grace and favour. Mr Fairhead wishes it to be known that a market rental is paid for the property

      Delete
    3. Fairhead has form. Tatler refers to him as "Cabinet Member for Finance in Kensington and Chelsea". Goes down well at Downton soirees.

      Prime Minister Pooter loves to read this stuff. After all, as Leader of a Borough with turnover in excess of many small countries this gives him "weight in the world of affairs". Quite so.

      Delete
    4. Ex Cllr Barry Phelps1 January 2013 at 12:13

      11:14
      You mean a banker from Essex playing at being a country gent!

      Delete
    5. Tom has only been in the social columns once. And it was Country life, not Tatler. He sat next to some worthy who was photographed and the Editor wanted to know who Fairhead was. K&C was all they could find. No land or family or anything like that

      Delete
  4. The picture of Fairhead is ancient. He is now old, bent and wrinkled. Seems to be an affectation of Hornton Street Finance Ministers. Cllr Lighfoot also uses a website picture of himself which is 30 years out of date.

    ReplyDelete
  5. To Mr Fairhead
    Mate, your artistic standard is costing us rate payers £1 million every year. You know where you can put it

    ReplyDelete
  6. "Economic analysis determines political action". I said this many years ago and it is still true. The opera loses bundles of money and the Cabinet is trying to cook the books to make it survive. This has nothing to do with "conservation" or "standards" or anything else for that matter

    ReplyDelete
  7. It is time for Prime Minister Pooter to bring some order to this confusing debate

    ReplyDelete
  8. Concorde also reached a pretty good technical standard. Fairhead, your head is in the sand. Deep in the sand.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Fairhead's email is the worst sort of patrician rubbish that has appeared on the Hornet for a long time. Dame, you should not give exposure to this kind of thing

    ReplyDelete
  10. It is unfair to describe Fairhead as 'Patrician'. My man, Phelps has looked him up in 'The Book'. He finds they are merely common or garden Essex farmers. Please do not traduce us ancient families by comparing us with mere Essex yeoman stock!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Essex boy. That figures.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Why does the tax payer have to foot the bill for the loss making Opera when in fact it could be replaced with another outdoor pursuit or pastime which is popular (and either breaks even or makes profit). It is clear that as the Holland Park Opera consistently loses money year in year out, there is a very strong case for it being given the chop as there are similar and probanly better opera in London. I know that a number of Councillors are very keen on Holland Park Opera but to be honest it is all very middle class and has more than a hint of social climbing, snobbishness and on top of that elitism. This at a time when there are people in particular in North Kensington who are really struggling to make ends meet; to continue with the opera is a sham. I think the Council is also being neglectful when it is on the one hand prepared to underwrite this Opera and yet at the same time continues to make cutbacks in the core services. It is one thing providing a core service which loses money but another to underwrite an Opera, which also loses money. One is for the common good and the other simply an expensive pipe dream. The Council's role in my view is to provide core services such as Street lights, Social services, Rubbish collection etc and they should not get themselves involved in projects which lose bundles of other peoples money. The outlay is such to the tax payer that it could warrant a public meeting to discuss the future of the Holland Park Opera. If not how about an in depth feasibility study to ascertain whether this opera is a viable or not, although I suspect the former). Why does it lose so much money anyway? Are the performances not quite good enough compared with the competition? Is it not good enough? Is it a poor relation to Covent Garden and ENO? As it is a public space should it not be used for events which are more accessible and would have a broader to residents? Is it too expensive for most residents? For me it does nothing except spoil the view of a superb vista. If I really wanted to go to opera I would probably either go to Covent Garden, ENO or Glyndebourne.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Fairhead was always an interesting character. He saw himself as someone of status and value, mostly based on his income and social status. People like him were entitled to make decisions for the masses, or maybe the term should be plebs. It was the duty of plebs to go along, be grateful and ask no questions. Council officers hated him with a perfect hate, whether they were admin assistants or directors, probably because no matter who you were, he talked down to you, usually from a standpoint of ignorance.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Almost certainly bullied at a minor Public School. And no good at sports. It inflicts lifelong damage

      Delete
  14. Well, he has no reason to be stuck up...inherited wealth and then working for a punky little 'bank'
    Probably jealous of his successful wife

    ReplyDelete
  15. Fairhead is a typical OHP patron. A certain age, short of cash, unable to afford the best, yesterday's outfit, but dying to have a night out with familiar music and other dinosaurs. Pooter very cleverly spotted this unserviced sector of the grey market and rushed in with his bottomless pit of council tax to indulge his social pretensions. And the poodles wagged their tails. The rest is history

    ReplyDelete
  16. "Pompous banker" is hardly the way to describe ex Cllr Fairhead. Unhappy little runt is closer to the mark.

    ReplyDelete
  17. longsufferingofficer2 January 2013 at 09:11

    Fairhead and Coates.
    Cut from the same cloth.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Brilliant! Hornton Street w******

      Delete
  18. Mr Fairhead should think about taking over Opera Holland Park from the Council. He could become a Patron Of The Arts and a philanthropist in a single stroke. And subsidise the opera with his own money

    ReplyDelete
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