MAKER & SON TOOK HATCHET TO CUSTOMERS

Mrs Hatch below

Steve Hatch: multi-millionaire retired VP of Facebook 

The Dame is being very careful on this one. The woman she writes about has a rich and potentially litigious husband.

Sophie Hatch was a director of Maker & Son. 

Several local readers and many others lost tens of thousands of pounds when deposits they gave Maker & Son were lost in liquidation.

The boss of the company, Alec(Poppycock) Willcock claimed deposits were ring-fenced. He says so HERE

All customer deposits have been lost. 

Some of those customers were far from rich.

The Dame wants to ask Mrs Hatch-who has a home in the Royal Borough, what happened to the deposits. 

We are waiting Mrs Hatch....

A VULGAR LEADER

What on earth does E. Campbell think she's doing? 

This is North Kensington reports that the foolish woman is a guest of MPIM at their debauched event in Cannes. LINK

The Dame has always felt there was something 'new rich and vulgar' about Campbell: her trip to Cannes seems to validate the suspicion!

Major banks have refused to attend because of the reports of degrading behaviour. 

One paper reported.." The organisers of Mipim, the property industry’s annual “champagne, yachts and fun” bash in Cannes, have repeatedly warned delegates to “respect all individuals” and reminded the 25,000 attendees that “under no circumstances does Mipim register prostitutes”.

“What other industry on the face of the earth needs to remind businessmen that they can’t bring prostitutes to an industry conference,” asked Jane, a 29-year-old delegate from Manchester. “That alone tells you how backward property is.”

Cllr Campbell has a reputation for having minders and an entourage when pottering around the Borough. 

We need to know whether we taxpayers will be contributing to this purposeless jaunt.

Credit:
Tom Charles

Urban Dandy

FLOGGING OFF THE FAMILY SILVER

 

RBKC seems to think that it's safely out of the limelight and can go back to ignoring the North of the borough. 

The new scandal over the covert disposal of Canalside House has this week been exposed by the Dame's excellent partner 'This is North Kensington' (so no need to detail).

But what sticks in the craw is the sheer hypocrisy of renewed efforts by Tory Councillors to make an anti-Labour issue of the impending disposal by the Labour London Mayor of the redundant Kensington  Police Station whilst secretly themselves flogging off Canalside House to the private sector 

At least the Police HQ is being replaced by a new, purpose-built facility in Hammersmith whereas nobody seems clear as to where the social & charitable organisations currently housed in Canalside House are to go.

And the London Mayor can point to a serious lack of money necessitating his sale - whereas RBKC Council has so much cash that, despite record inflation, it has no need to raise council tax.

But RBKC Tories seem to have a visceral loathing of handsome buildings in the North of the Borough being occupied by public services. 

There are few enough nice-looking public buildings in the North of the Borough, but as soon as the Tories notice them they then line them up for disposal.

One would have thought that lessons would have been learned by the scandals of the attempted disposals of North Ken Library, Kensington Adult Education College and The London Lighthouse but feeling that they are no longer in the public eye, the Tories are back to flogging off venerable public assets to the highest bidder. 

Is North Kensington going to let them get away with it? 

And will  Labour Councillors wake up in time to articulate public fury about North Kensington's needs once again being trampled on by plundering Tories?

Credit: Tom Charles

            Urban Dandy

POLICE & CRIME COMMISSIONERS...ANOTHER TORY DISASTER

 

This is Andrew Snowden. He is one of the 50 or so Police and Crime Commissioners who infest the police service.

Snowden is the PCC for Lancashire so he should be telling us how his police force has managed to so bungle its missing person search but he remembers the maxim...' there's a time to lie low and a time to lie loudly' and so is keeping his trap shut.

Snowden is paid nearly £90,000 a year with a deputy costing £60,000. Their office setup costs taxpayers over a million a year.

Neither he nor deputy has any policing experience. 

They got these well-paid jobs purely because they were ex councillors.

Replicate these costs across the country and you will see that we spend over £50 million a year on these nonentities.

With the money wasted at least one hospital could be built or three primary schools.

Over the 12 years of their existence getting on for a billion pounds has been wasted....just think how the money could have sensibly been spent....

RESIDENT TAXPAYERS SECOND CLASS CITIZENS AT COUNCIL SPORTS CENTRE

 

The Dame thought it was about time to 'trim up' so popped down to the Chelsea Sports Centre owned by us residents.

Monthly membership is around £50 per month but if an RBK&C employee you get a sweet deal of just £28 per month.

Residents pay high taxes to fund council staff salaries. 

Why should we have to subsidise their gym membership?

LABOUR AND CONSERVATIVE CAN'T BUILD 'THE NEW JERUSALEM'

Dear Dame,

No great surprise that the Centre for Social Justice claims research shows half the population thinks their lives would be better in Australia or New Zealand.

The rider to the research is that the respondents were probably all those struggling to run a business. 

If you are one of the hundreds of thousands of State employees you have 'never had it so good' with a job for life and a chance to retire early on an inflation-proofed pension.

This government, over the last eleven years, has masterfully managed to maintain the decline set in motion by proceeding governments.

Rishi Sunak's only solution is to rush around like a little boy playing soldiers and thinking we will be impressed.

Gawd help us alll!

Best wishes

A loyal follower

GET A GRIP, FELICITY

 

It is difficult to recall a government so terminally wounded.

Yet for Felicity Buchan everything in the governmental garden is rosy.

She thinks the content in The Update BANALITY will appeal to Kensington constituents: she is very wrong...it is banal.

Kensington voters are cosmopolitan and sophisticated and find this 'talking down' quite irritating.

She needs to get a grip and understand that bombarding us with this pap does her no good.

She should be using her Update to explain how the Conservatives intend to retain power because she offers little of anything tangible in that regard.

Whoever is putting The Update together should be 'let go'

Incidentally, gay people the Dame knows get along very well without the Government poking its nose into their lives.

MOYLAN AND LEBEDEV FURIOUS AND UPSET

Lordly

Two of our local aristocrats...Milords Moylan and Lebedev are fuming.... and rightly so...

Both were looking forward to attending the Coronation of King Charles but it seems it is not to be.

Successive governments have created so many of these windbags and crooks that there is no space for them all.

When the Dame spoke to His Lordship his bitterness was palpable.....

"there are so many lords and ladies that genuine articles like myself and my friend, Lord Lebedev of The Gulag have been pushed to one side: I am very hurt. Years of self-service count for naught these days".

MAKER & SON...THE CONRAN'S HAVE DESIGNS ON YOUR MONEY

 

This smug-looking couple should never be allowed to run a business again. 

In just three years they have cost customers, suppliers and investors tens of millions of pounds.

The Dame rarely does this sort of article but three of her readers have lost many thousands of pounds ordering their sofas from Maker & Son set up by Felix Conran, grandson of the late and very unpleasant, Terence Conran. Trust Pilot Reviews are just appalling.

Dressed in their aprons the duo gives the impression they were actually making the sofas: instead, orders were just passed on to manufacturers. Vast amounts were spent on marketing...not making.

Customers each paid several thousand pounds in deposits. Six months later no sofa and the bad news was that the company had gone under owing millions and customers would see neither their money nor their sofa.

The questions being asked are serious ones....

1. Why were deposits not ring-fenced to protect deposits

2. Were Conran and his father trading whilst Maker & Son was insolvent. 

Ironically, in 2018 when Wilcox and his son started the Conran restaurant chain went into administration.

RBKC CHOOSES BRUTALISM FOR CHELSEA GREEN

 

Wood blocks stuck on an old girder is some RBKC officer's idea of good taste! 

No doubt the expenses paid trip to Holland determined the decision! 

The Royal Borough boasts residents with more than a modicum of good taste. Why were their opinions not sought! 

This benching is hideous, affected, and entirely out of keeping with the villagey feel of the Green.

Then we turn to the idiotic fountain....it looks like the sort of junk a LA film producer would erect in his Malibu beachfront home. 

The Council has wasted tens of thousands of pounds on the vulgarisation of Chelsea Green.

COUNCILLOR ALI'S VOTE WINNER!

Dear Dame,

40% of the population is funded by the 60% who pay taxes. That means they are in the humiliating position of taking scraps from 'the rich man's table'. 

The government should never allow such inequality.
The Kensington Labour Group sees this as a slap in the face by the rich bloodsuckers who pay tax.

The next Labour Government should set a target for that 40% to rise to a minimum of 85%......

Cllr Ali

Leader in waiting

DETACHED FROM REALITY

nothing awful happens here

The Dame's friends know she is on intimate and name-dropping terms with European royalty.

A few years back she was seated in 'La Place d'honneur' next to a Nordic reigning queen.

This queen was telling the Dame how she enjoyed pottering around the haberdashery department at Peter Jones. 

The Dame, with swift repartee, quoted John Betjeman who famously said when the end of the world arrived he wanted to be in the haberdashery department as 'nothing awful could ever happen there'.

The Queen was most amused.

The Dame feels rather the same way about Felicity Buchan's weekly updates. Felicity must write them in Peter Jones as the contents show a reluctance to address the terrifying weakness of this 'fin de siecle' government.

Everything seems to revolve around 'what Felicity did next'....nothing to explain this gaffe-prone government. No wonder the ultra-left civil service and unions have decided to govern!