INAPPROPRIATE BEHAVIOUR

The Dame is getting a stream of messages accusing Sam Gyimah of moving to the head of the recent Grenfell Memorial Walk.

Gyimah was told by a Ghanaian lady in Akan-the most widely spoken dialect-that he was disrespecting the bereaved by positioning himself at the head. 
He got the message and moved away. 
But the thing is this....
Gyimah is an educated and sophisticated politician and before doing a Vicar of Bray was a Tory minister.
What did he think he was doing?
He should have known better....

PLEASE HELP THE DAME!

It seems that nothing is sacred these days...

During the last Grenfell Memorial Walk a senior politician somehow managed to inveigle his way into the front of the walk and position himself amongst the bereaved.
There is only one reason for this sort of vulgar behaviour and that's to try to get into the limelight for electioneering purposes.
This particular fool only dropped out when told to do so by a lady who thought his behaviour undignfied and insulting.

If any reader can identify this chap please drop an email to the Dame. The content and sender will remain anonymous.
Emails only please....

Really, the Lib Dems are just too much....

They say they are all for saving the environment but no party destroys more trees than the Lib Dems.
The Dame's butler tells he has a special skip to deal with the tons of election leaflets that pour through the bronze double doors of her Kensington mansion.
 
Dear xxxxxx


We are full speed ahead! The only independent poll of Kensington voters in the election so far has us within three points of the hard-Brexit Conservative candidate. From tonight, we aim to close that gap.

Here's how you can help: 

Show your support at Hustings - Sam will be in action tonight at 7.30pm at the Al-Manaar Muslim Cultural Heritage Centre, 244 Acklam Road, W10 (please RSVP here) and tomorrow night at 7pm at St Mary Abbots Church, Kensington Church Street, W8 4LA.
 

Join us at the Hub - We are sorting and delivering a huge number of personalised letters today at 28 Clarendon Road, W11 3AD. 
Please come any time tomorrow to pick up and deliver the rest of the letters. 
We need your help to tell voters aware that Labour is losing in Kensington and that a vote for Sam is the best way to back Remain.
 

Hit the streets to canvass tomorrow and over the Super Weekend - Tomorrow, we will canvass all day - come to the Hub at 28 Clarendon Road, W11 3AD any time from 9am and we'll send you out from here. Please sign up for the Super Weekend canvassing sessions below.   

Person to person connection works! In elections, nothing is more effective than going out, meeting people and hearing their views and concerns. Door by door, staircase by staircase, leaflet by leaflet, we can close the gap and win Kensington.  Here is a short video from Aria and other volunteers out and about recently on why they are backing Sam - if you're not sure whether you can make the time to join the effort, it's worth a watch!

NHS? HEALER START TO HEAL THYSELF

All parties seem to think that throwing money at the NHS is the cure-all: yes, money is needed but more than that is the need to strip out layer after layer of useless tiers of management and equally useless managers.

A TYPICAL 4 HOUR NHS MEETING! 

Talk to any clinician and watch their eyes roll as they describe chaotic management and gross waste.
The rumour is that in the bowels of Chelsea & Westminster there are several hundred thousand pound plus scanners still in packing cases!
But on to a more mundane example...

The Dame was chatting to the head of her excellent GP surgery and raised the question of the many patients on its books who have moved well out of the area. 
The poor old doc sighed and said, 'yes, we know but the government won't allow us to remove them'

Sheer madness!

Madder still is the number of people who don't keep appointments. One doctor alone said she had at least one hundred 'no shows' a month. 
Multiply that over the several doctors and you can see the magnitude of the problem.
A £50 fine for a missed appointment without good reason should concentrate the mind-especially serial 'no shows'.

SAM AND HIS CAR CRASH OF AN INTERVIEW

A kind reader gave this LINK of Sam Gyimah being demolished by a listener on LBC.

It's excruciating listening and reminds us that the Lib Dems are so clueless that they send their senior candidate for a mashing at the hands of a self-employed small businessman.

No wonder the only business Sam started failed.There is a two fold mystery...

• How did he ever get a job with rapacious Goldman Sachs
• How did he get a ministerial job with the Tories

Sam was far too grand to take up an invitation to chew the cud with the Dame.....

SAM GYIMAH WILL BE TOXIC FOR KENSINGTON VOTERS

"You can't pay?
Well, sell up then!

This elderly lady is being persuaded to vote for a man who represents a party that would impose a TOXIC annual tax on her home. 



It would be a tax so punitive she will have to find many thousands of pounds a year from her fixed income to continue to live in her little Kensington abode.

DAME'S LITTLE BLOG HITS NEAR 2000 UNIQUE VIEWS YESTERDAY

The viewing numbers speak for themselves....close to 2000 on a daily basis!

MISS HORLICK? YOU ARE JUDGED BY THE COMPANY YOU KEEP

Today's Times runs an investigation into the business of owning and trading freeholds: it is not a pretty story but one of greed and lack of principles.
Nicola Horlick, the Lib Dem candidate in Chelsea and Fulham is what's known as a 'personal friend'(such an odd term) of one of the protagonists, Vincent Tchenguiz, the very colourful businessman and investor in Cambridge Analytica.

Tchenguiz on left

Actually, Horlick is more than a friend...she is a business associate for Tchenguiz was a big shareholder in her company, Bramdean, which dropped $30 million investing in Madoff. 




Self styled 'superwoman' Horlick claimed Madoff was good at 'calling the markets'!
If the Lib Dems get power they will probably make Horlick Chancellor of the Exchequer....

A MASS EXODUS OF INCOME LIGHT RESIDENTS?

There is a flyer circulating around Kensington causing much wailing and gnashing of teeth amongst Labour and Lib Dem bigwigs. It's really something they wanted to keep quiet.....
The flyer suggests that if Labour won they would slap a tax on homes worth £2 million-plus with the flyer suggesting an additional £6,000 a year
This is such nonsense.....the true figure is probably likely to be considerably in excess of that...in fact more likely to be £18,000 a year. 
This may not be in their manifestos but it's very much on their 'wish for' list.
George Monbiot is advising the Labour Party to replace Council Tax with what he calls a Progressive Property Tax: in other words, a tax based upon the value of your house or flat.

So if you are a little old lady like the Dame..... with a home she has owned for decades and worth a shade over £2 million you will have to move out or do a deal that the unpaid tax be added to your death tax.


The interesting thing about Labour and Lib Dem policies is that they are devoid of any encouragement to wealth creators; you know those horrid people who pay vast amounts of tax and employ millions. 

COUNCIL TO RESTORE THE DANIEL MOYLAN MEMORIAL BENCH

THE MOYLAN MEMORIAL BENCH IN SPLENDID ISOLATION

IN THE DISTANCE!

The Dame’s 'Bench' correspondent reports that the Council’s Housing Management Department under the wise and courageous guidance of Councillor Kim Taylor-Smith is working hard to restore the Daniel Moylan Memorial Bench to its rightful place on the Cremorne Estate.

The bench had been a gift from the TMO to ex Cllr Daniel Moylan's former housekeeper, who just happens to live on the estate. The bench was originally installed behind her flat, in a locked garden, where she could gleefully point it out to passers-by, most of whom proceeded to walk away slowly. 

The Council relocated the bench last year after the Residents Association pointed out that it was in a fenced-off part of the estate’s gardens where no one could actually reach it, let alone sit on it.

In a rare bout of common sense the bench was moved to the communal garden of the Cremorne Sheltered Housing Scheme where many of the elderly residents have, rather shockingly, taken to using it as a bench. It is now often being sat on. 

But following a strenuous campaign of vigorous lobbying by two of the estate’s residents the Council have decided to move the bench back to its original location.

A Council spokesman explained: “We are indeed working hard to restore the bench to its rightful place. It is to be admired from afar and gazed upon lovingly. 

It is not meant to be sat on. It will take us the best part of three months to move it but we'll get there in the end.”

When it was pointed out that this was the kind of nonsense the TMO spent far too much of its time on the spokesman replied: “Yes, it is the kind of thing the TMO would do. But the Council is not like the TMO. There are seven letters in Council and only three in TMO”.

DENT COAD TO REPORT LIB DEM CANDIDATE TO THE COPS

Labour’s general election candidate for Kensington and Chelsea has said she will report her Tory renegade Liberal Democrat rival to the police, alleging he made a false statement implying she had a role, as a local councillor, in discussing the flammable cladding used on Grenfell Tower.

Emma Dent Coad said Sam Gyimah’s claims were “shameful” and accused him of whipping up false rumours that could lead to her being the target of violence.

She has given him several days to withdraw his comments and a complaint to the Metropolitan police under the Representation of the People Act would be issued later on Sunday.

YOU COULD NOT MAKE IT UP! BARRY & LEVERNE MAKE UP NEW RULES.....

This really is utter nonsense and Barry Q and Leverne P need to reverse this ruling. 
Cllrs Blakeman and Atkinson are right to ask for the written advice given to the Mayor and question the purpose of this gagging.

Dear Councillors

I understand that you are receiving queries about the reasons for the cancellation of public speaking at the next Council meeting.

As you know we are currently in the pre-election period which is described as a period of heightened sensitivity and during which we have to be particularly careful that Council resources are not used or seen to be used for party political purposes.

The Council meeting on 4 December falls within this period and Barry’s and my advice to the Mayor was that the public speaking element of the Full Council meeting on 4 December should be cancelled on this occasion. We took the following matters into consideration;

• The members of the public wishing to speak at a Council meeting have the right to raise whatever issues they like. We do not and should not try to control what they want to say;
• It is quite possible that those who speak will raise issues which are politically sensitive in the run up to the election;
• Officers and Council resources (including the cost of DemSoc) cannot be used to facilitate such discussions in this period of heightened sensitivity; and
• Before coming to a decision we sought the advice of DemSoc who support the cancellation

Notification of the cancellation was posted on our website on Wednesday so that the public had plenty of notice.  The next opportunity for the public to speak at a meeting of the full Council will be on 22^nd January 2020 and registration for this will open online on 8 January.   

Regards

LeVerne

Subject: Re: Council meeting on 4 December 2019 -Public Speaking

"There is no logic at all in banning the participation of residents in the December Council meeting for fear that they will transgress ‘ purdah’ whilst allowing the council meeting itself to go ahead. 
After all elected councillors are far more likely to seek political advantage of a council meeting during an election period than are ‘civilian residents'. 
I fear that the reality is that the council leadership fears exposure to public criticism and is simply frit .  
Was the advice given to the Mayor put in writing? 
If so may l see it please. 
Residents have every right to be furious at being gagged in this cowardly and illogical way". 

Cllr. Robert Atkinson 

Dear Mrs Parker

I received a copy of Our Borough through my letterbox this morning, despite us supposed to be in pre-election "purdah". 

Can you please explain why residents are not permitted to raise urgent important issues, such as the proposed closure of the Pembridge Palliative Care Unit, at the next Council meeting, but the Council is permitted to send out its new newsletter? 

This issue promotes work undertaken by the Council and contains a significant feature about former councillor Marianne Alapini, which could also be deemed to be 'Political', given her previous role.

Cllr Judith Blakeman

A FAMOUS VICTORY AND A 'CLARION CALL' TO OTHERS FIGHTING DEVELOPERS

Click to enlarge

Cllr Ian Henderson is the sort of Highland warrior you want in a tight corner. 
He and Andrew Barshall fought long, hard and alone to drive Affinity Sutton out of their trenches.




Many thought it impossible to defeat what was in effect a property developer but Ian and Andrew led the residents in such a battle that Clarion admitted defeat and agreed to do what always should have been done and upgraded this much loved Chelsea landmark.

Henderson

Barshall

YOUR MP IN WAITING WHO GAVE $27 MILLION TO MADOFF!

ANSWER THE QUESTIONS!

Nicola Horlick refuses to answer questions about her business life: we are entitled to ask why.
How you operate in business bears directly on your suitability to represent the hardworking and honest voters of Chelsea & Fulham.
No one should vote for any candidate who REFUSES to come clean about a chequered past....
If you vote in C&F you should be insisting she answer-especially her relationship with controversial 'businessman', Vincent Tchenguiz.
No doubt the Dame will receive some idiotic letter from her lawyers.

• What success has she had in the various businesses she has owned from Bramdean to restaurants?
• What is her relationship to Vincent Tchenguiz 
• Why did she invest in Madoff's funds having never met the crook
• How can she claim Maddoff was 'good at calling the markets'
• She blamed the collapse of her  Chiswick restaurant on 'mothers who don't go out': is that not a spurious explanation for a bad investment? 
• Money & Co is struggling to find success. Why is she not focused on saving it and investor's capital rather than playing around in politics.
• To lose one director of Denmark Square is unfortunate: to lose four in one fell swoop smacks of disaster.

'BOMBER' MCDONNELL DOESN'T LIKE THE ENGLISH

Auld Beardie's political theorist mentor(tough work!) is another terrorist admirer.

This is what John McDonnell had to say about Republican terrorism and reported in the Irish Times.

UP THE PROVO'S

“It’s about time we started honouring those people involved in the armed struggle. It was the bombs and bullets and sacrifice made by the likes of Bobby Sands that brought Britain to the negotiating table. 
The peace we have now is due to the action of the IRA.”

One wonders what the parents of these child victims feel about the 'bombs and the bullets'.

VICTIMS OF MC DONNELL'S BOMBS AND BULLETS

Let's face it....under McDonnell's smarmy exterior is a violent man struggling to get out.
The Dame's ancestor was imprisoned in Ballina, Mayo for Sinn Fein membership but in those far off days, Republicans did not target children.

AULD BEARDIE HAS SENIOR CITIZENS' MOMENT AND WONDERS IF HE WAS THERE

The man with the beard is holding a wreath which is about to be laid 'near' the graves of four Palestinian leaders connected to Black September, the terrorist group who carried out the murderous attack on Israelis during the 1972 Olympics.
But before we start criticising 'Auld Beardie' we should remember he's even-handed and very happy to show 'comradeship' with the equally murderous Provo's.....
Anyway, 'Auld Beardie' says, 'he was there but not involved'.
How on earth can sane and civilised Labour councillors like Blakeman and Atkinson be led by this hideous man. 
He makes Johnson seem saintly....

THE BREXIT PARTY CANDIDATE SAYS IT'S NOT JUST BREXIT

A couple of local parliamentary candidates have come on whining to the Dame that they have not been asked to 'strut their stuff' on her little blog. 
The answer is simple....you ask the Dame. 
The Dame is far too busy to solicit stuff and in any case, if you don't know about her blog (which gets some 6000 unique views weekly) you have no business claiming to know your patch.
Anyway, Jeremy Maddocks who is batting for the Brexit Party in Chelsea & Fulham pitched his policies at the Dame and here they are. 

Maddocks

Dame,

The Brexit Party “does what it says on the tin”.  
We want a clean break Brexit which leaves the EU institutions; Single Market, Customs Union and the ECJ within a few months of the election.  
Boris Johnson’s Treaty does not give us that but it does mean we will stay in a transition phase during which we are locked into all the EU institutions, pay £39bn and £1bn every extra month we stay in with no guarantee we will ever leave the transition and if we do, the political declaration and treaty commit us to alignment on regulations, taxes, foreign policy all adjudicated by the ECJ.  
None of that sounds like Brexit to me or any of us who support it.


I was a lifelong Conservative who worked for the Conservative Party for many years before I became disillusioned with the pathetic reaction of MP’s to the democratic decision of the electorate.  

I worked as a Conservative Party Agent for several politicians including Kenneth Baker whom I much admired for his loyalty to Margaret Thatcher, one of our greatest ever Prime Ministers.  

I joined the Bruges Group some 30 years ago – an organisation set up after Margaret Thatcher’s Bruges speech to campaign for the values she encapsulated in relation to the EU.  
And I worked in Eastern Europe and Africa to spread democracy for the Thatcher Foundation and build democratic organisations in Africa.  
And for the last 25 years, I have worked in the international technology business.  
In Britain, we are in that lucky minority of the world which has fostered and respected democracy over hundreds of years and it saddens me to see how politicians use every possible mechanism to squander this legacy. 
Of particular concern to me is the way that the Conservative Government has recently lost control of crime.  
Theresa May massively reduced stop and search powers and overwhelmed police with paperwork rather than reforming and enabling the police to stop crime.  
All Police Officers who have enhanced stop and search powers should be trained to do it courteously and respectfully and must have body worn cameras but only to be used extensively in high knife crime areas as part of a package of measures to take back control of our streets.  
And the people who suffer most from the rise in knife crime are young men in poor areas and particularly, ethnic minorities.  
But it has spread across our cities like a virus.  

I know this too well – my former neighbour and a close friend of the family was shot and murdered a few years ago and his funeral was held in St Ethelreda’s in my street in Fulham.  
My daughter was threatened and asked to pay money walking home from Lady Margaret school in Parsons Green.  
My son was mugged at knifepoint by three men at Bishops Park tennis courts and I cannot count the number of similar stories of friends and local people mugged, injured or worse.  This Government has failed and no amount of pre-election publicity or gimmicks can hide that failure.  
The very least they can do is apologise to the nation.

Small and medium sized businesses are being crippled by business rates and yet, the large corporates seem to have different rules apply to them.  
The same corporations who want the status quo to remain in the EU because contrary to what they might say, they don’t all like global competition and cheaper goods in our shops.  
I am not in favour of more taxes for businesses or hard working people.  
Every pound taken in tax is a pound of real money taken from an individual or a business that employs those people.  
And we all know how Government is incredibly good at wasting vast fortunes on crazy schemes and initiatives.  
The irony is that as tax rates reduce, the economy prospers and more tax is raised.  
The private sector and small businesses are the engines of growth in our country and it is our entrepreneurs and hard-working Britons who really pay for our hospitals and schools and police, not the Government.
I am Jeremy Maddocks and my campaign to be elected as Member of Parliament for Chelsea and Fulham is focussed on Brexit, Crime and the economy – and thereby a brighter future for our nation so that everyone can have a better life.  
I will do “what it says on the tin”.

THE DAME ASKS MR. GYIMAH A COUPLE OF QUESTIONS

When in coalition Nick Clegg forced Cameron into setting up the Police and Crime Commissioners.

Shaun Wright

The Dame has asked Mr. Gyimah, the Lib Dem candidate for Kensington whether the £50 million a year is money well spent.

In the eyes of senior policemen, it been a disaster of an experiment costing to date well over £300 million since its setup in 2012.
Shaun Wright was responsible for the Rotherham area where 1300 children were abused.  This 'must read'  LINK highlights the many failures of a Clegg driven idea: one he now thinks a failure as luxuriates in SF with his $4 million a year Facebook salary 

Wright fought hard to keep his £100k a year allowance.
So, Mr Gyimah....how are you going to wriggle out of these questions?
The other question is this, Mr. Gyimah...are the Lib Dems so bereft of local talent that they have to send out nationwide search parties? 
Why not the highly regarded local person, Linda Wade instead of you?

A CREDIT TO THE COMMUNITY

This is Rodolpho....
We residents owe him an enormous debt of gratitude. 
In fair weather and foul Rodolpho clears up the mess left behind by piggish people who dump their rubbish on our streets.


Were it not for Rodopho and his team collecting food waste et all we would all be drowned in a sea of rubbish and beset with swarms of rats and other vermin.
Most of the rubbish is generated by visitors and Airbnb renters. 
Thank you, Rodolph....you are and your colleagues deserve a medal! 

THE DAME ACCUSED OF SUPPORTING COMRADE CORBYN

Dear Dame,

I am shocked you have totally failed to alert your readers to the catastrophe awaiting them were Mr. Corbyn to become Prime Minister and Mr. McDonnell Chancellor of the Exchequer.

What sort of planet do you inhabit?

This duo plan to introduce confiscatory land taxes that will force any cash poor constituent with a 2 bedroom flat worth around a couple million to sell up and move out of Kensington.

Worse, Dame: there will be such a cascade of selling that the bottom will fall out of the Kensington and Chelsea & Fulham markets. Those with mortgages will be forced into negative equity.

It's all very well you sabotaging the Lib Dems but compared to Corbyn's anti-semitic, Marxist Labour Party they are mere amateurs....you are a very silly old woman to support this horrible, envious nobody.

Yours truly,

Mrs xxxxxxx

Address withheld

SAM GYIMAH NOW STANDING IN EAST SURREY!

Jo Swinson wants to be Prime Minister: in fact, she told us she would be better than both Johnson and Corbyn(well, she may be right about old Steptoe).
But if she wants to be PM she needs to organise her little flock better. 

It seems that self-styled superwoman, Nicola Horlick's leaflets are finding their way into Battersea homes and Sam Gyimah thinks he's standing in East Surrey-at least that's what his website tells us today!
Come on, Jo...make up your mind who you have standing in Kensington and C&F!

BUCHAN HITS OUT AT CARPET BAGGERS

Dear Dame,

I notice you have not asked Felicity Buchan any questions on issues relevant to Kensington constituents so I sent her questions I would like answered. 


I suppose you are being your usual partisan self.

I notice Miss Khan(now sent off to work in the Lords) and Miss Horlick have answered none of your questions so you should be praising Buchan for answering the questions I set her.

Through no fault of my own, my humble flat is worth £2.2 million. 
Labour supported by the Liberal Democrats will hound me out of my home of many years as my fixed income will not cover the additional tax. 
The idea it can be rolled up and paid on my death is just another confiscatory tax.

If you are like me you would be mad to vote for a party that aims to destroy your way of life.

Angrily yours, dearest Dame,

Name and address withheld

"It is wrong this reader describing the Dame as partisan."

The Dame

BUSINESS RATES

I would like to see Business Rates reformed and it is something I am very focussed on.  Too much of the burden of business rates is falling on High Street Retail.  We need streets like High Street Kensington and Notting Hill Gate to be revitalised and if elected I will work with freeholders, businesses, Local and Central Government to achieve this.  

I agree with the Treasury Committee’s conclusions that we need reform of Business Rates.

LAND TAX ON MY HOME

The Labour Party is advocating an annual Land Tax akin to a Wealth Tax on Property.  

This is not just on properties of over £2mm.  

We estimate for the average property in Kensington this will mean an additional bill of a whopping £6771 per year. (That is based on an annual 0.7pc Land Tax based on the average property price in Kensington minus the average current Kensington Council tax bill).  

The LibDems have also supported such a Land Tax and were the first to introduce the concept of a Mansion Tax on properties over £2m which Jo Swinson has personally supported.  

As you rightly point out, this is a huge and unexpected bill for those who may have low and moderate incomes including the elderly.  People should not be forced out of their family home by a tax which has nothing to do with their ability to pay it.

INHERITANCE TAX

The Lib Dems have also advocated massively increasing Inheritance Tax by introducing a lifetime gift transfer tax taxed at income tax levels with threshold of only £250,000.

THE EU

 I have always campaigned for a negotiated Brexit deal and a deal which protects the rights of European citizens living in the UK.  We have an agreed Brexit deal with the EU - which passed Parliament at its first reading.   I think it’s important that we get this agreed deal through Parliament and we provide certainty for business and individuals.  We cannot have years more of uncertainty and paralysis.  We need to move on to focus on the important domestic agenda - police, schools, NHS.

The Liberal Democrats say they will revoke Article 50 but they will never be able to get enough MPs to form a Government, so they will get into bed with Corbyn and the SNP -which causes more uncertainty.

The Brexit Party will not be able to win in Kensington (if they take 500-1000 votes off the Conservatives then all they do is increase the likelihood of a Labour victory in Kensington).

The Lib Dems are being very opportunistic about this seat and not thinking about what’s in Kensington voters’ interests.

NO CARPETBAGGER!

I’m local - I’ve lived in K&C for 25 years and I live and breathe the issues here.  

I’m intimately involved in the community here.

The Lib Dems can’t win in Kensington.   

In the last election in 2017, the Labour and Conservative Parties were both on 42pc with the Lib Dems a whopping 30 percentage points behind.  In the 2018 Local Elections, the difference between the Conservatives and the LibDems was even greater.  The LibDems will point you to the Euro elections but we all know turnout there was very low and the Euros are notorious for protest votes.  The Conservatives did not even campaign in the Euro Elections in Kensington.

I believe that Kensington needs a hardworking local MP and not someone who jumps party and constituency.

         

Thank you, Mrs xxxxxx for these interesting questions.

Felicity