Saturday, 25 February 2012

The Dame Puts Down A Boastful Pooter

The Dame was readying herself for an evening 'on the town' with that old reprobate, disgraced Ex Mayor Mr Phelps, when her 'hotline' phone tinkled. It was a very puffed up Pooter on the 'blower'. "Well, Dame, you will be pleased to hear what I am going to tell you: I am going to freeze your council tax".
"Excellent news, replied the Dame, but Pooter the majority of Council's are doing that; in fact quite a few are cutting council tax.... so not much to crow about.
The Dame then took Pooter to task...."and, had you not indulged your ego blowing £25 million on Exhibitionist Rd and £100 million on the Holland Park School, we might have had a tax reduction."  Piling on his discomfiture the Dame accused him of building up the £178 million in reserves by blatantly overtaxing residents, year in, year out, just so he could build monuments to his vanity. "

What No Tax Reduction?
Ending her conversation the Dame took one last swipe at a now deflated Pooter, " I won't go on talking to you: I read that you cost us taxpayers £260 an hour.... nearly as much as the £250,000 a year we pay to keep Exhibitionist Rd clean".

With a faint click the line went dead.......

40 comments:

  1. WASP25 February 2012 at 10:51

    We should not forget that Cllr Cockell is the Leader who happily spent $416 to entertain a fellow London councillor to a slap up dinner in New York and and another $200 to entertain a "friend" to dinner on a Saturday night during another junket to New York.

    All of this in the mistaken belief that this abuse of council tax would never be found out. Freedom Of Information put paid to that

    ReplyDelete
  2. Owl25 February 2012 at 10:56

    In the middle of the deepest recession that the Western World has known since the 1930's, Cllr Cockell has the distinction of opening a £29 million "refurbishment" of Exhibition Road with pink Chinese granite and knocking down and rebuilding a perfectly good school (Holland Park School) at a cost of £100 million when the national benchmark cost of a new secondary school is £25 million.

    This is called hubris

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous25 February 2012 at 10:58

    Hubris it may be.

    But it is also a council out of control and a complete failure of democracy.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Person Familiar With The Situation25 February 2012 at 11:10

    Cllr Cockell has confided to his inner circle that he intends to remain as Leader of K&C until May 2014 so that he can preside over the opening of Holland Park School in Sept 2013.

    The school will open as an Academy and Cllr Cockell considers that this will be his crowning achievement.

    The Headmaster and School Governors are expected to commission a bust of Cllr Cockell and there will be a naming ceremony for the "Sir Merrick Cockell" building

    ReplyDelete
  5. Fly On The Wall25 February 2012 at 11:42

    Cllr Cockell has let it be known that he would like the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge to officiate at the school opening

    ReplyDelete
  6. Mosquito25 February 2012 at 11:42

    It is as clear as day; Cockell's 'work' is all about HIM. Why would we want to honour a man who has pillaged funds from ordinary Council taxpayers to spend as he wishes on high-profile projects that will glorify him.

    'Pooter' is far too benign; we should rename him Caligula Cockell.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous25 February 2012 at 11:46

    The poker game is not yet finished for Pooter. He needs more time.

    His offer to underwrite the £30 million cost of a Kensal Green station with council tax was not enough to swing it his way. Now he needs to offer to PAY FOR IT using council tax. Not a problem - there is already £178 million in the bank from over taxing. £30 million is nothing

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous25 February 2012 at 11:49

    Riding around in the Mayor's Bentley until he was found out and public opinion put a stop to it.

    You know these guys by their actions

    ReplyDelete
  9. Anonymous25 February 2012 at 11:55

    Exactly so 11.49

    Foreign "dignitary" arrives at JFK airport in New York and is met by stretch limo and wafted into five star New York hotel.

    K&C council tax pays for it, New Yorkers get a buzz about another VIP and Cockell feels really puffed up.

    But the Dame knows better.....

    ReplyDelete
  10. Insect Swatter25 February 2012 at 12:00

    Why couldn't Cockell just use a Yellow Cab on his trips to New York? Everyone else does!

    And at the end of the day he is only a local Government councillor. Not anything special.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Kensington Resident25 February 2012 at 12:03

    If conservative councillors in K&C had any balls they would get rid of this menace at the annual Leaders election in May

    But hard pressed tax payers need not hold their breath

    ReplyDelete
  12. Anonymous25 February 2012 at 12:24

    K&C is spending at the rate of £1 million a year to subsidize Holland Park Opera (Cllr Cockell is an opera lover)

    Council tax has subsidize the opera to the tune of £10 million to date

    ReplyDelete
  13. Snob25 February 2012 at 12:27

    Pooter does not have a clue about opera. By background and education there is little sign of culture

    But he thinks it is "cool" to be an opera lover

    ReplyDelete
  14. Anonymous25 February 2012 at 13:18

    I hope Pooter keeps a copy of Diary of A Nobody close to hand. Were he to do so it would constantly remind him that Mr Pooter was a source of constant amusement to his betters and even those on the same social level

    ReplyDelete
  15. Accountant25 February 2012 at 13:51

    If you look at the Council Tax proposals put to the last Cabinet meeting, it would be very easy to cut to Council Tax, retain the same level of services - and still keep their Triple A credit rating - which recent events have shown is meaningless anyway. So why won't they?

    ReplyDelete
  16. Anonymous25 February 2012 at 14:15

    The council needs a war chest for the vanity projects like Holland Park School, Exhibition Rd and Kensal Green Station

    The only way to cut council tax is to get rid of the likes of Cockell and Moylan and put the Council in the hands of people who understand what a free market democracy should be about

    ReplyDelete
  17. Fly On The Wall25 February 2012 at 14:17

    Cllr Palmer continues to brief against Cllr Borwick

    ReplyDelete
  18. Anonymous25 February 2012 at 15:21

    I hear the Dame has the information on Cllr Palmer and telephone calls from am office other than Hornton St.
    Care to comment Up Yours??????????

    ReplyDelete
  19. Taxpayer25 February 2012 at 16:10

    K&C Council Tax is about £75m a year. So reserves of £178 million is equivalent to about two and half years of tax.

    This is the extent to which Cllr Cockell has overtaxed hard pressed residents in order to pay for his vanity projects like Exhibition Rd

    This burden comes on top of all the other tax increases that we have suffered in recent years

    ReplyDelete
  20. Anonymous25 February 2012 at 16:14

    Oops, I thought we had to cut back because we were running out of money.

    Silly me.

    So it really IS the Royal Bank of Kensington and Chelsea?

    ReplyDelete
  21. Tory25 February 2012 at 16:16

    These headline numbers are most disturbing. I had no idea. I always thought that K&C was a model Borough

    ReplyDelete
  22. Labour Voter25 February 2012 at 16:19

    Cutting back on Social Services in K&C is part of a cynical PR game of "we are in this together"

    The serious stuff, the vanity projects, are sacrosanct.

    The Cockell ego takes priority over the elderly and vulnerable residents of the Borough.

    Of course

    ReplyDelete
  23. Lord Kensington25 February 2012 at 16:24

    The Chairman of K&C Conservatives needs to get a grip. This is serious stuff

    ReplyDelete
  24. Anonymous25 February 2012 at 16:25

    Woah there (this is Oops again) do you mean we don't have to suffer filthy streets and other local service cuts? This is window-dressing?

    If so, I feel sick. How utterly cynical.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Council Officer25 February 2012 at 16:25

    I hear that we officers are now having our health insurance cancelled to pay for cabinet special responsibility allowances

    ReplyDelete
  26. Furious Resident25 February 2012 at 16:45

    Cllr Cockell also likes to use council tax to dabble in the profit and loss business (having failed in his own one man business venture).

    He used council tax to underwrite a performance of Holland Park Opera at Richmond Theater. "A sure fire profit earner". Of course it lost £20k.

    Then he took a punt (against the advice of Officers and residents) on Chelsea Care - another sure fire earner aimed at the "captive" K&C market. That lost £1 million before it had to be closed down. The liquidators were stunned to find out that the council "decided not to do market research before setting up the venture in order to save money".

    This is what we have as Leader of K&C.

    Pass the sick bag Buffy

    ReplyDelete
  27. Anonymous25 February 2012 at 16:49

    The hormone charged K&C cabinet supported Cllr Cockell in his Chelsea Care business venture after examining a business plan with trading margins of 8%. No one noticed that the industry works on business margins of 2%.

    Perpetual motion and the flat earth society are hallmarks of the Cockell Administration

    ReplyDelete
  28. Voice of Reason25 February 2012 at 18:07

    There can be little doubt that Exhibition Rd is a magnificent edifice (fit for purpose is a different matter), Holland Park School will be an architectural frontier when it is finished and Kensal Green Station would have a beneficial economic impact in North Kensington.

    But in Britain, over hundreds of years, we have developed institutions and processes that we use to allocate resources. Exhibition Rd should be the product of philanthropy. It is not, it is the result of council tax spending.

    Holland Park School should be the product of central Government funding (it is not because Building Schools For The Future judged the fabric to be in the top tier of British schools). Instead it is the result of council tax spending.

    Kensal Rise Station should be the subject of Transport For London investment appraisal. They have said there is no case to move forward with. It should not now become the subject of council tax spending.

    When the K&C council decides to side step these tested processes of the United Kingdom and declare UDI, it is a gross abuse of power. And it is evidence of a council straying a million miles from its core purpose of clearing the dustbins and sweeping the parks.

    And when the councillors go further and dabble at being an impresario (Holland Park Opera) and entrepreneur (Chelsea Care) it is clearly a train that is running out of control.

    It is time for the democratic deficit in Hornton Street to be removed

    ReplyDelete
  29. Anonymous25 February 2012 at 18:22

    Well argued Voice of Reason!

    The behavior of K&C council is as out of order as would be a decision to give my boy a Ferrari for his 18th birthday

    ReplyDelete
  30. Anonymous25 February 2012 at 18:28

    A good attempt at balance from Voice of Reason. But the reality is that Exhibition Road is a mess, Holland Park School will cause permanent damage to two Conservation Areas, according to the official pre-planning report on the School and Kensal Green is a pipe dream divorced from reality.

    ReplyDelete
  31. Surprised25 February 2012 at 18:33

    Why is Cllr Palmer briefing against Cllr Borwick?

    They are both members of the Conservative Party!

    ReplyDelete
  32. Fly On The Wall25 February 2012 at 18:48

    Cllr Cockell is egging Inspector Palmer on.

    Cllr Cockell is afraid of Cllr Borwick

    ReplyDelete
  33. Anonymous25 February 2012 at 18:50

    Squalid

    ReplyDelete
  34. Anonymous26 February 2012 at 11:40

    The half of society not naturally endowed with 'balls' is far more likely to stand up for residents' rights, than the craven gang of 'boys' lurking in the Town Hall.

    ReplyDelete
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