Emma Dent Coad is quoted in the Guardian...
“The week after Grenfell, the previous MP gave an interview to the Evening Standard saying that I was also responsible for the fire because I’d sat on all these committees.
And that was a lie."
So, what was the lie? Over to you, readers
So, being on the TMO does not qualify, Emma?
ReplyDeleteEmma colluded with the Tories over Tenant Management. She heard from the many, not the few, about how bad things were at the TMO. Others have suggested that she was terrified that the Tory Council would privatise the housing stock if too many complaints about the TMO were received. I have never heard Emma confirm that or for that matter provide an explanation for her failure to go public about the TMO. She certainly knew that people at Grenfell were worked up about the TMO' s oppressive attitude and the decisions that were made about the refurbishment long before the fire.
ReplyDeleteEmma served on the TMO Board compliantly for four long years and toed the collective responsibility line in the same way that Juliet Rawlings, Regg Kerr Bell and Tory Councillor Maighread Condon Simmonds all did. In other words, she did not actively dissent.
I think she has some explaining to do.
EDC failed in her professional duty as a Board Member. She also failed in her political duty as a member of the Labour opposition to scrutinise Conservative behaviour and hold them to account.
DeletePerhaps she was just enjoying the trappings of power - which unfortunately is what RBKC is all about.
Puffers....
DeleteWankers, to be precise
DeleteTory Councillors heard complaints about the TMO too. Like Emma, they heard from the many, not the few. Tory Councillors effectively argued that the TMO had the total support of Labour Councillors as well as their Tory counterparts which, immediately put the complainants on the back foot. Emma knew all of this.
DeleteEmma was in a unique position. When she stood down as a TMO Board Member, she became Leader of the Opposition Group on the Council. She could have influenced all of Labour councillor colleagues to change policy and stop backing the TMO. Instead, she let Council tenants go on suffering misery and incompetence from the TMO. I think she thought - such is life for those who pay rent. My god Emma had enough ammunition to use against the TMO and end the cross party political support for the TMO. For example, she knew about the following and the list is not exhaustive:-
(i) the bullying of tenants,
(ii) blacklisting of those tenants who did not roll over,
(iii) poorly executed major works and repairs,
(iv) a £ 9 million overspend on the Decent Homes'
Partnership budget,
(v) The £ 9 million overspend on the Decent Homes Partnership budget was all the more concerning because the TMO managed to be overspent to this tune after the Labour Government in 2008 increased the TMO's Decent Homes' Partnership funding by a further £ 12 million because the Audit Commission informed Government that the TMO was "EXCELLENT"
(vi) Emma told me that she was very concerned about the 30 findings in the Memoli Report. Memoli, a Solicitor, was brought in to investigate the TMO shortly after the Audit Commission gave the TMO a three star rating.
(vii) Emma saw around 200 Council Tenants revolt at a meeting of the TMO in 2008. The Police could not contain the situation. Emma sat on the platform as a Director of the TMO and saw the suffering.
Memoli's findings should have been enough on their own for Labour to stop playing the Tenant Mis-management charade.
It seems like Emma and other Labour Councillors gave way to expediency, to prevent transfer of the housing stock to a private undertaking,when they really should have been opposing the TMO.
DeleteIn the Guardian interview, Emma is trying to rebrand herself by putting distance between her & Corbyn. She cannot distance herself from the TMO. Ian Henderson,a Tenants' Champion, would have been Labour's best prospect for Kensington at the next election. She shafted him.
ReplyDeleteShouldn't we be asking the Guardian for a 'correction'. It surely can't be right to have an elected offical lying in the national press.
ReplyDeleteI think you are right!
DeleteWrite a letter- they will publish it ( But l do not really understand why The Guardian has always gone easy on Dent Coad )
DeleteStrange how The Guardian decided to interview Emma Dent Coad on the fifth anniversary of Grenfell. I wonder how many of mates in the Parliament steered The Guardian in her direction.
DeleteThe Guardian gave her an opportunity to make Grenfell all about her- telling HER story. Letting Grenfell survivors know that she suffered, just like they did. She came across as being in victim mode - when all the Grenfell survivors whom I know are in fighting mode.
How about handing back your OBE useless corrupt TMO former chair Juliet Rawlings? Also publc money meant for our housing paid to her
ReplyDeletepartner and family. Reg Kerr-Bell colluded with Tony Redpath and Rock Feildkng-Mellen in the (thankfully stopped) misselling of Wornington College and furnished his home expensively when TMO Chair when other tenants had no heating or water. Where is the public scrutiny of his? Emma Dent Coad is no saint, but she is not at the heart of the roots of the problem. Perhaps ask Dizzy Lizzy who was also on the KCTMO board, in with the RBKC Leadership ,(having never been in a Tower block after 11 years on the council) who does away with as much council scrutiny as possible and was seen hugging Reg Kerr-Bell at the Town Hall?
Reg Kerr-Bell is currently sucking up to Kim Taylor-Smith and Doug Goldring. And they're quite happy to let him do so because, just like the TMO, Kim and Doug are surrounding themselves with sycophants who will question nothing and support everything the Council does without question. Resident participation in the TMO was a lie. Resident participation with the TMO's successor, the Kim and Doug double act, is exactly the same.
DeleteJuliet only has the MBE not the OBE.
DeleteCorrection: Dizzy Lizzy was in with the RBKC Leadership having her eye on the prize and turned a blind eye, deaf ear and dumb face to the corruption that riddled this borough. She now has the prize and we have next to no council scrutiny. RBKC now ignores and dismisses FOI requests. Scrutiny reduced to a bare minimum. Dent Coad does not actually pull any strings, other than those in her top down Marxist Assembly K and C Labour Party shambles
ReplyDeleteEver since the TMO's inception the Tories have quashed any opposition to the TMO by claiming that if the TMO was not allowed to manage the stock the stock would be sold off.
ReplyDeleteThis lie started with the resident ballot to create the TMO in 1996. During the ballot residents were told that if they did not vote for the creation of the TMO their homes would be sold off to Thames Water or a "French water company".
It was total bollocks but it got the Council what it wanted - residents voting for the TMO.
And if any resident ever suggested the TMO wasn't up to the job they would be threatened with the same lie - it's the TMO or having your home sold off to the highest bidder.
The problem was that so many people believed it that they happily repeated the lie to residents and would not countenance any alternative to the TMO.
Those repeating the lie included not only included Tory Councillors, who could be relied on to repeat and lend credibility to whatever the Council wanted them to, but the Labour leadership as well, including Cunningham, Atkinson, the Hoieirs, and many others.
They should all have known better than to fall for the Council's deceit and dishonesty but didn't.
Gullible or stupid? Probably both. But most definitely unwise.
Fair enough. I accept that the Tories threatening complaining tenants that their homes would be sold off if the TMO folded was a dreadful lie designed to put the frighteners on.
ReplyDeleteEmma Dent Coad also knew it was a Tory lie.
So why did Emma Dent Coad do nothing about the excesses of the TMO?
She has some explaining to do. She always said that there was nothing an opposition Councillor could do and she was lying when she said that. Truthful honesty is what we need from that one.
The only Councillor who stood up to the TMO over bullying was a Tory bloke, Sam Mackover. Judith Blakeman also tried very hard to address various problems. She is highly regarded by people at Grenfell. It si a pity that Ian Henderson was not a Councillor during the TMO's existence. He would have known exactly to proceed.
DeleteDear Emma,
ReplyDeleteIt is never too late to apologise for:-
(i) your misjudgement,
(ii) and your many shortcomings over the TMO.
I think you would find it cathartic to apologise. You will feel cleansed by the tragedy of facing up to where you went wrong.
If every Black and Jewish person who votes Labour switched their vote to the Lib Dems at the next General election, we would have a Lib Dem MP.
ReplyDeleteShe was very insulting to that Black Guy.
DeleteEmma is a former Labour MP. Why didn't she call in the NEC/ NCC to investigate all of this homophobia in the Kensington Labour Party.
ReplyDeleteLesbians and Gay Men should perhaps switch their votes to the LIb Dems too at the next General Election. The more that she denies the existence of homophobia, the more suspicious Lesbians and Gays should be.
Suspicious? Yeah that's right. Wasn't she implicated in a racism row? Homophobia and racism are easy bed fellows.
DeleteMore trouble for EDC. Is she going on the RMT picket line at Euston today with Jeremy Corbyn MP or Richard Burgon MP? Hope it is not too vulgar for a descendant of Catherine de Medici and Christopher Columbus.
ReplyDeleteWhen Jeremy Corbyn, goes marching in,
DeleteWhen Jeremy goes marching in,
Emma wants to be in his Marxist number,
When Jeremy goes marching in.
You're hilarious.
DeleteShe's a right communist. So is Corbyn.
DeleteMore importantly she is a throughly unpleasant woman and a superb hater !
DeleteToo true 12.43pm. Henderson was a thoroughly decent, principled, man seen off by a woman who has racism in her heart.
Delete09.52. You're a wag!