NEW SCOTLAND YARD COMES TO CHELSEA

Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe was intending to attend the forthcoming meeting of the Chelsea Sector Working Group meeting on Monday 3rd June at Chelsea Police Station, 2 Lucan Place, Chelsea SW3 3PB. However, he has been taken ill so is unable to attend. A senior officer will be deputising for Sir Bernard. I am sure we wish him well for a speedy recovery.
Please let Roger Baresel, the SWG Chelsea chairman know if you plan to attend so a suitable room can be set aside. His number is 07903 580 399 or rogerbaresel@ntlworld.com


Due to time constraints there will be a limit of one question per person. This is a great opportunity to convince neighbours and other locals of the usefulness of the SWG.

FINDING THINGS FOR SILLY LIZZIE CAMPBELL TO DO

Cllr E. Campbell is one of those silly councillors who cannot resist the opportunity to 'showcase' herself. 
Some unkind fellow councillors sneer at her behind her back as she postures as a reincarnation of Lady Thatcher. This, in itself, is harmless: however, when she wastes money on exercises like this she needs hauling back into line.
It is NOT the job of the council, in hard financial times like these, to waste money on fripperies.....and Creative Writing Courses are, in the heads of most people, a waste of hard earned taxpayer's money. The only advantage is that promoting it gives the nine man PR team something to do!

Cllr  Campbell should never have been allowed back in the Cabinet. 
Officers don't take her seriously and so encourage her to involve herself in projects which keep her from under their feet.

THE STYLE OF THINGS TO COME?

The residents of Lancaster West wrote a charming letter to the new Leader, Nick Paget-Brown.
Had such a letter been written to Pooter the ever so grand Prime Minister would never have deigned to respond....most resident associations complained that he rarely had the courtesy to respond to communications irrelevant to his personal ambitions.
So what a pleasure to be able to produce Nick's gracious and warm response.

EX PM POOTER TO GO ON PLANNING TRAINING COURSE

COUNCILLOR TRAINING

Pooter is in a lachrymose state.Those bothering to listen hear him say-self pityingly- "my political career is at an end."
Oh for goodness sake, Pooter, cut the drama....


Anyone would think that you had been a real Prime Minister- rather than the leader of a smallish local council.

With much arm twisting, Pooter has managed to get himself on the Major Plannning Committee and the lesser Planning Applications Committee.
These are important for a man desperately looking to replace lost taxpayer income and looking for some non exec directorships to make up lost income.
Pooter's other hope is that a Lordship is on the way. He thinks he could be a useful 'Lord on the Board'.
His ambitions will be limited so he doesn't expect anything from Capco...but something property related  would be nice.
In the meantime his colleagues are suggesting- as he knows bugger all about planning- a 'councillor training' scheme is required.....
The Dame suggests disgraced ex Mayor Phelps and his friend, mysterious Michael French, give him some helpful hints....no names: no pack drill...but these two 'characters' will get the Dame's drift...

THE DAME HUMILIATED....SRA'S REMAIN THE SAME

DUNCE!

When the Dame makes a serious error she has compunction in putting up her hands and saying, 'Guilty, as charged'....

Was it just too much too expect that the over generous Special Responsibily Allowances would be reduced? It seems so judging from this irate letter from a resident.....

A LISTENING LEADER!

WELL DONE!

One of the great pretensions of the previous leader was his extraordianary belief that RBK&C Cabinet positions were on a par with the great offices of State-such as the Prime Ministerial office and the Chancellorship of the Exchequer...

Pooter dreamed he was PM and Warwick Lightfoot was Chancellor.....

Yes, as that very unloveable old rogue and ex Mayor, Barry Phelps would guffaw, "you could not make it up"!

One resident has written that our new leader has made an early win by dropping these ludicrous titles.

He rightly points out that this is an early sign of more humility and less hubris in the new Cabinet.

Taken with the reduction in SRA's it clearly shows that Paget-Brown is quietly settling down to do the things he promised.

As our resident said....

"You pledged in your acceptance speech that you want all Ward Councillors to reach out and connect up with residents. Humility in Councillors and accesss for residents will be key ingredients of this new policy and you have sent out a powerful signal"

Another made this excellent comment...

Councillors need to both BE more accessible and APPEAR more accessible.

"At the moment the contact details for most Conservative Councillors imply that they simply don't want to be approached - contact details point to the Town Hall or 1a Chelsea Manor Street. Only one Conservative-run ward has a regular surgery - Cremorne, once a month (and it'll be interesting to see whether that survives past the impending boundary change).

And more than one Councillor has made it perfectly clear that they don't expect to be contacted by residents who are apparently all perfectly able to engage a solicitor to deal with any issues they might have with the Council without having to "bother" their Councillor.
Nick has his work cut out and needs to crack the whip...."

Keep it up Nick and more of the same. You have nothing to lose and much to gain....at this rate the Dame will have nothing to scream about!

TIME TO LOOK AT PR.....

Nick Paget-Brown has started well with a symbolically important reduction in SRA’s:something the Dame constantly adjured him to do.

One of Pooter’s great pleasures was a team of PR people to boost his profile at every opportunity: necessary in the face of the many and constant issues he had with the national press, over his high falutin’ ways with expenses and misuse of the glistening Bentley.

Thankfully, Pooter is history. 
Now is the moment to look at the Council’s bloated PR Department. So overloaded with staff the Dept has to find jobs….hence the constant stream of inconsequential ‘news releases’ about rare frogs in Holland Park and the opening and closing of public lavatories!

Why does a small and uncontroversial borough need EIGHT staff costing £400,000 a year plus. It cannot be to produce the dreadful and unread Royal Borer. That can be canned and no one would be any the wiser or sadder.

That, in fact, would be the most earnest wish of Mr Pickles- but who listens to him?

So desperate is the PR Department to look busy they just produced a Guide to Council Services at a cost of £25,000. Did they not have the gumption to think of including the Guide in the Royal Borer?

Note to Nick…

1.    Reduce the headcount by 70%

2.    Amalgamate with H&F and Wandsworth

3.    Retain an external PR consultancy at a cost of c £130,000 a year

WELL DONE BUFFY BUCKMASTER...PRAISE WHERE PRAISE IS DUE

BRAIN SCANNER

A Labour councillor has just told the Dame the following... 

"Buckmaster has secured a 'pound for pound' promise to augment his charity funds, plus managed to do a deal with the manufacturer, so they will have TWO brain scanners which is pretty amazing."

All the Dame can say is "Well done, Councillor Buckmaster....that is an incredible feat".

It has been a stellar Mayoral Year for both the Mayor and his Deputy, Cllr Borwick.

Let's hope the new mayor and his deputy can deploy the same energy and enterprise.

Interestingly, Buckmaster made a very good point. He commented that the role of mayor was non political and thus there was no reason why a future Mayor should not be drawn from the Labour side(not Lib Dem and not Dezzie...please note)

When James Cecil, in a moment of naivety, suggested 

something to the same effect he was called up to Pooter's 

penthouse suite and told that if he carried on in this way he 

could kiss goodbye to a safe seat! 

Funny to think humble old Pooter had power of life 

and death over the political career of a Cecil!

CLLR DEZZIE...HAVE YOU CROSSED THE FLOOR?

Many of you recognise that the Dame is somewhat expert in the arcane and mysterious traditions of our ancient Rotten Borough: however this reader raised questions that stumped even the erudite Dame...
The only solution the Dame can provide is that the dear reader is colour blind...Dezzie was wearing a fawn-not blue gown: after all, most of his time is spent fawning to Pooter.

MAN IN TOWN HALL GALLERY

Answers please...or maybe Cllr Dezzie can explain?

Dear Dame

 I know you are very knowledgeable about protocol at the Council, so would like to ask you to clarify a particular situation at this evening's meeting that I witnessed from the Gallery. There are two matters I do not understand:

1, why was Cllr O'Neill sitting behind the Labour Group and wearing a blue gown, while the Labour Councillors do not ever wear them?

2, what does 'withdrawing the Whip' mean?

3, why was no one in the Council meeting commenting on this bizarre situation, if indeed the 'whip' has been withdrawn (sounds painful)? What is this 'whip'?

Yours confused

Curious in the Public Gallery

NICK LISTENS TO THE DAME!

Nick Paget-Brown made a commitment he would not just hear residents but LISTEN too...take note Cllr Weale!
Next year Ukip will launch a massive attack on the Royal Borough....as Farage has said, "We will win more than just a handful of  seats"
The Dame has even heard he plans to use the Town Hall for a major autumn meeting...not good news.

LISTENING

So Nick has made a good start by taking note of the Dame's constant urging to slash the hugely generous Special Responsibility Allowances. 
There are certain anomalies but it's a step in the right direction.
The Dame has to ask though what the hell we are doing paying a councillor £17, 500 a year to 'engage' with residents....she has never heard such nonsense. 
It should be the responsibility of every councillor to engage with 'their' residents...not just the honourable few like Cllrs Mills, 
Gardener, Borwick, Dent Coad, Freeman and Coleridge(apologies to those the silly old Dame has left out-you know who you are). And to those who are lazy and insolent to residents, like the awful Coates and Warrick...pull your socks up or next May will see you seatless.

A START

COLERIDGE...KEEPER OF THE COUNCIL'S CONSCIENCE

The Dame, in her wonderfully wise way, has always said of Cllr Tim Coleridge, “ He does not know how good he is.”

Certainly, in Chelsea he is hugely well regarded with many residents wondering why he did no push harder in the leadership stakes. 

But then Coleridge is the sort of fellow who would quail at the idea of calling colleagues up and bending their ear as to how brilliant he would be as leader..….just not his style, but something the ghastly Rocky had no compunction in doing.

Moylan? Well, yes but leopards etc...

Sensibly, Nick Paget-Brown has given Tim an important Cabinet post, but we will be expecting and demanding much more of Tim.

He has proven time and time again that he is on the side of residents and more than any other councilor he knows that dangerous days lie ahead.

As far as residents are concerned Tim Coleridge represents all that is good in public service….and that is something his Cabinet colleagues would do well to bear in mind. 

CAMERON'S OTHER PENSION PLAN

SCHMIDT AND GANG 'HAVIN' A  LARF' AFTER MEETING DAVE

Nothing better illuminates the depths this country has sunk to when David Cameron invites the boss of mass tax avoiding Google to 10 Downing Street for a fireside tete a tete.

The naive had hoped Dave would use the last meeting to berate the unctuous Schmidt about his company's gross abuse of our tax system: how little they know of our PM! 
Did they really imagine he would cross swords with Schmidt? 

After all, one day very soon, he might need to be googling for a job!

But what is really interesting is how Google manages to get instant access whenever Schmidt's Gulfstream plonks down in the UK. Here's the answer....

An old friend and Oxfordshire neighbour of Cameron is one Rachel Whetstone. 
Whetstone...an unpleasant and pugnacious political dogsbody, got very lucky and picked up the plum job as Head of Google Global PR. 

She then made an important marital alliance with Steve Hilton....the man responsible for getting Cameron into trouble with his 'modernisation strategy'. 
So to cut a long story short when Schmidt  wants to creep around the back passages of No 10 he just shouts. "Get me Whetstone."

This is the company that proclaims, as one of its tenets...
" You can make money without doing evil"...
   dodging tax is evil, idiots...

GO AWAY POOTER!

SIR POOTER REFLECTS....

Not content with wasting millions of pounds of our money on stupid projects and his bountiful allowances Pooter has commanded Mr Fitzpatrick of PR to commission a very expensive video .
The video allows the self obsessed Pooter to ramble on about his 'achievements'
How very sad....

WHAT A STITCH UP!

NOT TAKING IT ON THE CHIN!

Compared to Daniel Moylan Rock Feilding Mellen is a mere schoolboy. 
So why did Nick Paget-Brown favour this nonentity over Moylan: after all, they both scored the same number of votes.....



The Dame can reveal that Nick used admirable guile to ensure that Moylan did not get under his feet. 

Here's how he did it..... 

He offered Danny Boys Planning or some similar Cabinet post...but on a condition. That condition was that he quit his £15,000 directorship of Tfl and the £75,000 a year job as aviation advisor. 
Had he agreed it would have meant Danny Boys was short £60,000 a year.....so he didn't agree....and kept his £112,000 a year. 

So you see, 'loons'-swivel eyed or not-it's all about filthy lucre.

Danny Boys is livid. 
He never thought he would be given the Morton's Fork treatment....and particularly by N P-B!

POOTER RECEIVES HIS GOLD WATCH FROM LORD CADOGAN....YEARS OF FAITHFUL SERVICE REMEMBERED

Our ex Prime Minister,Pooter, has spent the last decade and a half living on the munificence of the taxpayer...surely a record! 
To celebrate his years of sponging off the taxpayer Lord Curmudgeon has agreed to lay on a vast feast.... an appropriate way of marking the going of a man who delighted in fine dining, travel and grand hotels....at our expense.

For Pooter....who loves a lord, this will be a glorious swansong and he hopes that he might soon be heading in the same direction as Lord C! 
He needs to replace the income lost as leader....and that which will be lost when he has to give up the LGA. 
The Lords's attendance allowance at £42,000 a year might prove quite handy, plus the redundancy money and pension he has negotiated from RBK&C

This is how the Dame imagines the feast....and she is pretty upset old Cadogan decided not to invite her!

READ THIS FRASER-HOWELLS!

Tories begin defecting to Ukip over 'loons' slur

Conservative activists have begun defecting to the UK Independence Party in protest at the Tory leadership’s “arrogant and insulting” attitude towards grassroots members.

MAN ON THE RUN

Prime Minister David Cameron Photo: AP

By Tim Ross, and Rowena Mason

10:10PM BST 19 May 2013

Local Conservative party campaigners, including the chairman of one constituency association, will this week pledge their support for Nigel Farage after one of David Cameron’s allies described grassroots Tories as “mad, swivel-eyed loons”.

Mr Farage uses an advertisement in Monday's Daily Telegraph to urge Conservative voters to back Ukip. The “loons” description, he says, is “the ultimate insult” from a party leadership that has betrayed the trust of its own supporters.

He writes in the advertisement: “Only an administration run by a bunch of college kids, none of whom have ever had a proper job in their lives, could so arrogantly write off their own supporters.”

The Daily Telegraph, which reported the comment along with other newspapers on Saturday, has not named the individual who made the remarks.

Lord Feldman, the co-chairman of the party, denied over the weekend that he had been responsible and was said to be considering legal action after internet rumours suggested he had made the comment.

The peer, who has known the Prime Minister since they were students at Oxford together, will be questioned by members of the party’s executive board, which he chairs, at a meeting in London today.

WHAT DO WE DO ABOUT JONATHAN?

AGGRESSIVE

Councillor Elizabeth Rutherford-like the dear old  Dame, is courteous, polite and well bred. 

She is difficult to move to anger.

However, it seems that our local part time agent and Spanish boutique hotel owner has done just that.

So angry is Cllr Rutherford friends say she will never speak to Jonathan Fraser-Howells again!

Fraser-Howells has form for upsetting people, but in dangerous times such as these it is unwise to antagonise the unpaid workhorses. 

These are the invaluables who go out on cold and rainy nights delivering leaflets. 

Many are being courted by Mr Farage....

Just recently, a long time Tory loyalist, Billy James was hauled before a kangaroo court. 

The charge against Billy was that he had felt compelled to spill the beans about Fraser-Howells business affairs at his Spanish hotel shared with his "ex" live-in lover...a man who has done time for stealing a huge amount of money.

The hapless canary, Billy James, was hauled up before a kangaroo court convened by Association Chairman Mathew Carrington and expelled from the Party. 

And there are mutterings that Chelsea and Fulham MP Greg Hands can't stand the sight of Frazer-Howells either. 

And then there was the lovely tea lady and sandwich maker for Courtfield Ward parties. She walked out in disgust after a Frazer-Howells encounter. Members know how vital these volunteers are: they cannot be taken for granted let alone gratuitously offended.K&C Tories are in deep trouble with falling membership and a need to replace 1a Chelsea Manor St with cheaper offices. 

With an agent like Fraser-Howells who needs a 

Labour Party? He does their work for them!    

TOP CONSERVATIVE DESCRIBES TORY GRASS ROOTS WORKERS AS 'SWIVEL EYED LOONS"!

Pounding the streets in support of Cameron and cronies is, as any local activist will tell you, hard and unrewarding work. So when a headline article appears in the Telegraph describing how a close aide and friend of the Prime Minister described those canvassers and fund raisers as 'swivel eyed loons' one can imagine the frontline troops getting as mad as cut snakes.
The Telegraph says Party chiefs are under huge pressure to reveal the name of idiot.
The Dame's little site is pathetic compared to that of Guido Fawkes so she hopes Paul won't mind if she  lifts his curious email to Lord Feldman, one of Cameron's close buddies.....make of it what you will. This is latest from the DTswivel eyed loons

FELDMAN

From: Guy Fawkes <guido.fawkes@order-order.com>
Date: Sat, May 18, 2013 at 10:54 AM
Subject: Swivel Eyed Loons
To: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@conservatives.com

Dear Andrew,

Could you be so kind as to give me anon the record quote condemning those who describe your party members as 
"swivel eyed loons"?

Thanks in advance.
Editor Guido Fawkes' Blog
Guido.Fawkes@Order-Order.com

Still no response…

A CONSERVATIVE BACKBENCHER(?) WRITES.....

The Dame decided to give prominence to this interesting comment from the ever shrewd Scribe...who is Scribe: he/she seems well plugged in.....

Lets not be too negative about the new Cabinet. Give them a chance. They won't set the world on fire but may be able to bumble along in a reasonably sensible way. 

Cllr Gardener is a person of integrity and is very resident friendly. 

Just like Cllr Coleridge who now knows that he has blown his Leadership chances and therefore is beholden to no one except his residents. Again, a person of integrity who does not need his SRA. 

Mary Weale is a plodder. She lost her job and now has no prospect of Westminster (which she wanted very badly) so maybe she will buckle down and start to read her briefs. Recent experience as Chairman of the Health Committee suggests that she is more focused on Council business these days. 

Julie Mills is an ace and....

Cllr Lightfoot is experienced although he is probably short term until he makes it as an MEP. On the debit side..... 

Cllr Campbell is a lightweight....

.....and Cllr Mellen is dead wood. 

But every administration has its calamities. 

Weatherhead and Warwick at Planning are ballast and the rest are untested. 

Oh Cllr Ahern? The Jury continues to be out. He pledged as Planning Chief to make the Planning system more resident friendly but failed abysmally - even though his ambition and articulation were spot on.

On the Officer side a new Chief Executive is expected so the review is on about Myers' favourites. The boring Mr Bore (Planning Director) knows that he is on borrowed time. Councillors say that the Planning No 2 is even worse than Bore so the Leader needs to start his search for an outside appointment.

The whole apparatus needs to try and engage with the Ward Councillors and the Resident Association Chairmen more effectively. Forces of nature like Amanda Frame at the Kensington Society need to be listened to. 

And the younger group of Conservative Councillors are pissed off by the mediocrity of Cllr Paget-Brown's Cabinet so that little time bomb is ticking away.

All in all, it could be a good prospect.

Reply

HELL HATH NO FURY LIKE A PISSED OFF PALMER

The Dame receives some extraordinary 'scoops'....

Before Pooter was eased out 'to spend more time with his family' he attempted to organise an initiative to dump the poor of our parish in Peterboro'....a city labouring under mass unemployment.
Local MP Stuart Jackson was very angry with Pooter and his migratory plans. 

Peterborough MP @SJacksonMP tells me joint Tory/UKIP candidates in 2015 are likely & wld seek UKIP support in constituency to do so himself

INCOGNITO Ukip VISITOR

So far, so harmless, but did the tweet resonate with local 'loud mouth' Cllr 'The Inspector' Palmer.

And who was the furtive looking fellow, with shades and dirty mac leaving Ukip's Bond Street HQ?

Could Cllr Palmer too, be pondering the idea of linking with Ukip to give himself the 'edge' in May 2013?

The truth please,Cllr!

After all, this leading backbencher was fuming at being omitted from the Cabinet. 
Even half asleep nonagenarian 'Dotty' Doreen Wetherhead got 'looked after'.

Lucky old Dotty..this Moylan loyalist can now add £35k a year to her pension....a fine reward for failure!

LONDON CLLRS CONSIDER UKIP SKIP

Fortunately this could never happen here in the Rotten Borough. Sensibly, we pay our Conservative councillors such whopping great allowances and SRA's it would not make financial sense to put their principles before pound notes....clever old Pooter!

EXCLUSIVE: Councillors quit, calling David Cameron ‘reed in the wind’

Leader: David Cameron was called “wishy-washy” by one of the four Merton councillors

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Joseph Watts

16 May 2013

Four London councillors have quit the Conservative party, with one today attacking David Cameron’s leadership as like “a reed in the wind”.

In a new blow to the Prime Minister’s authority, three members of the group told the Evening Standard they are considering defecting to Ukip because of its tougher stance on Europe and  immigration.

The fourth criticised Mr Cameron for “wishy-washy” leadership and for giving Lib-Dems too much influence.

All are serving members of Merton Borough Council and include former Tory group leader Richard Hilton and deputy group leader Suzanne Evans. They resigned the whip at a meeting last night.

Hillside councillor Miss Evans said: “Ukip is a tremendous threat and anyone who denies it is an idiot. The party has got backbone and is prepared to stand up for what it believes in.

“They don’t behave like a reed in the wind, which is how some people at the top of the Conservatives behave. Obviously I include David Cameron in that.”

She added: “Ukip is now more Conservative than the Conservatives. Nigel Farage said if Baroness Thatcher was still running the party there wouldn’t be a need for Ukip. I agree with him.” 

The exodus follows a torrid time for Conservatives at Merton, who have had three different leaders this year, and comes a year before crucial London Borough elections.

The disgruntled councillors say they became fed up with “dirty” infighting and local leaders who backed liberal policies.

Lower Morden councillor Mr Hilton said: “I am considering joining Ukip, but I haven’t made a decision yet. I do agree with an awful lot of what they are campaigning for particularly controlling immigration. On the EU the Conservatives have unfortunately not offered a vote before the next election.”

Raynes Park councillor Rod Scott also said he had not finalised a decision to join Ukip, but added: “I agree largely with what they stand for.”

Conservatives nationally are reeling after losing dozens of council seats to Ukip in elections a fortnight ago amid increasing grassroots discontent.

Ukip is also expected by many to come first in European elections next year. Leader Mr Farage said: “It’s obvious to us that at national, regional and local level, Cameron’s Conservatives are at sixes and sevens. This group at Merton Borough Council are another example of this. I admire their spine. My phone is always switched on.”