Tom Charles

Starmer’s Officials Lied About Antisemitism in Kensington

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image from twitter / keir_starmer

Senior Labour Party officials repeatedly lied about antisemitism in the ranks of Kensington Labour Party, generating fear in Jewish communities and defaming the party’s local membership in order to neuter democracy in the constituency. Under the leadership of Sir Keir Starmer and General Secretary David Evans, unelected bureaucrats have been afforded dictatorial powers to subvert rules, supplant local candidates and silence members. In Kensington, they been ruthlessly effective.

In late 2022 we reported on senior Labour Party officials’ interventions in the democratic processes of Kensington Constituency Labour Party (CLP) to prevent local councillors from gaining the nomination to become the party’s candidate to challenge Conservative MP Felicity Buchan at the next general election. The National Executive Committee (NEC) and Greater London Region Labour Party both made decisive interventions to ensure a candidate more aligned with the leadership of Sir Keir Starmer prevailed.

General Secretary David Evans, image from twitter / labtowin

NEC blocked Cllr Emma Dent Coad

In October, Emma Dent Coad, the constituency’s only ever Labour MP, was unilaterally removed from the longlist of candidates by the NEC. Part of a purge by the Starmer regime of left-wing politicians and members, Dent Coad was called to a “due diligence” interview. The three-person interview panel was chaired by a prominent NEC member who was alone able to decide that Dent Coad should be excluded for “bad judgement.” The former MP described the accusations against her as “thoughtcrime”. Read full details and our interview with Emma Dent Coad here.   

London Region took out Cllr Kasim Ali

In November, Councillor Kasim Ali led the CLP’s longlist branch votes when London Region suddenly intervened to prevent him from securing his place on the shortlist. The previous month, Pearleen Sangha, Director of London Region Labour Party, had accused two selection committee members of openly supporting a candidate, using the accusation as a pretext to take personal control of every aspect of Kensington’s selection process.

Ali won the first of the three branch selection votes, requiring just one more branch to secure his place on the shortlist, Sangha took over the remaining two branch meetings and votes.

Circumstantial evidence suggests that London Region’s move against Ali was pre-planned. First, Sangha postponed the North West branch (Ali’s home branch) vote, which created time for a way to sabotage Kasim Ali to be concocted. On the day of the North West vote, a dubious-looking email was circulated to CLP members attacking another candidate as a supporter of Israel. The email was immediately picked up by a local blog and Jewish News, with both publications using it to attack Ali and his supporters as antisemites, offering no evidence of a connection.

This was the pretext Sangha needed. With no checks and balances against her power, the Regional Director blocked whomever she did not want to admit to the Zoom meetings, including up to 20 British Somali members at the North West Kensington Branch meeting. Sangha kept the nomination results secret and declared the winners without reference to the members’ votes, keeping Kasim Ali off the shortlist.

image from linkedin / pearleensangha

Sangha’s Lies

On the day of the North West vote, following the antisemitism smear against Ali and the local membership, Sangha emailed CLP members to explain her “serious concerns” over apparent antisemitism in Kensington Labour Party. She stated that members had been suspended and that there would be a “serious investigation” into the antisemitism that had forced her to take over of the process.

In December we contacted Sangha to ask about the events that had led to Cllr Ali being denied a place on the shortlist. A press officer replied to confirm Labour “had to” commence a “serious investigation” into antisemitism in Kensington CLP and that local members had been suspended “due to antisemitism”.

Multiple sources have confirmed to us that, to date, there have been no suspensions of party members in Kensington for suspected antisemitism. These sources include people with access to the members’ database.

Our sources also confirm that there has been no investigation of any type, let alone a “serious investigation” into antisemitism locally. Many Kensington Labour members have also separately reported to us that they have heard nothing about any suspensions or investigations.

Nothing to add

We contacted London Region again asking them how many Kensington members had been suspended and if there had been an investigation into antisemitism. A press officer replied that he had “nothing further to add” to the claims made against the CLP membership.

We understand that members have not yet raised any concerns at Kensington CLP meetings regarding the conduct of the NEC; the lies of London Region officials; the treatment of local Jewish communities; the disenfranchisement of a score of British Somalis in a local branch; the subversion of local democratic procedures and the character assassinations of elected local politicians by unelected officials.

By Tom Charles

@tomhcharles   

Complicity Felicity’s Simplicity

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On Friday, Kensington MP Felicity Buchan attended a series of events locally to commemorate the anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Dressed in the colours of the Ukrainian flag, Buchan smiled like a friend to refugee children and their parents, but the words she spoke revealed a simplistic view of the conflict and no appetite for doing anything to stop the death and destruction.

Virtually all 650 MPs in parliament have been in lockstep to prolong the Ukrainians’ agony as they lose both territory and population in the war against their far stronger neighbour. As Ukraine is crushed, our politicians virtue signal from a safe distance. Diplomacy is a dirty word, and we’re repeatedly told that peace is impossible. Sir Keir Starmer has banned Labour MPs from questioning NATO’s provocation of the war and Boris Johnson intervened to prevent Presidents Zelensky and Putin from holding peace talks last April, as reported in Ukrainian media (the British press ignored it).

From 2014 to February 2022, over 14,000 were killed in Ukraine’s civil war following the US-backed coup that overthrew a president who favoured close ties to Russia. In the coup, the ensuing civil war and now the war with Russia, Ukrainian neo-Nazi groups and army battalions have played a prominent role.

The situation is intensely complex and dangerous, yet Buchan pledged Kensington’s and the UK’s unwavering support for the people of Ukraine. Her platitudes and clichés masked the ugly reality: Britain will support the Ukrainians on the condition that they keep fighting the Russians in an unwinnable war.

Slava

Buchan wrote about her experience of the anniversary: “I was honoured to attend the very moving remembrance service at the Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral. Tragically, more than 450 children have died in the conflict. Paper angels were suspended from the ceiling in their honour. Ukraine will prevail. Slava Ukraini.”

Slava Ukraini – Glory to Ukraine. But where is the glory? And what right does a British politician have to declare glory to a country they are, knowingly or unknowingly, sacrificing?

Outside the Ukrainian embassy, Buchan declared “We will not tire, we will be there to the end.”

These words are almost unfathomably vacuous. But soundbites are all we hear from our leaders as they mindlessly provoke Russia and China, two countries that needn’t be enemies of Britain. 

“We will be there to the end” of what? Ukraine as a functioning state? Or are our rulers really set on decades of existential wars to impoverish and terrify us as they play brinkmanship over nuclear annihilation?

Outside the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain on Holland Park Avenue, Buchan told the assembled refugee children that the war against Russia “isn’t just about Ukraine. It’s about western values, good values.”

We emailed Felicity Buchan asking her to clarify what she meant, given that Ukraine is an eastern country, but at the time of writing, she had not replied.

Complicity

Dubbed “Complicity Felicity” in North Kensington due to her part in voting down the fire safety recommendations of the Grenfell Inquiry, Buchan enjoyed her moment posing as a liberal humanitarian. But her words were loaded with the complacency, fanaticism and racism of the British political establishment. Ukrainian lives mean so little that Britain sends enough weapons to keep them hanging on in the war, guaranteeing humanitarian catastrophe. This is justified through profound Russophobia and the puerile demonisation of Putin as the epitome of evil. It’s a familiar tactic, most recently used against Bashar al-Assad in Syria, a country illegally occupied by both the United States and Israel – western values? Before Assad, it was Gaddafi, sodomised to death by our allies in Libya. “We came, we conquered, he died!” squealed Hillary Clinton in delight – western values.  

All this recent history, including Russia’s intervention in Syria to prevent its fall to ISIS and al Qaeda; the Ukrainian government’s role in persecuting ethnic Russians in the Donbas; the Ukrainians’ own values, traditions and their intrinsic value as humans, is all swept away with simplistic concepts like “Western values…good values.”

Like most MPs, Kensington’s “Complicity Felicity” frames the war in babyish terms, Good West v Bad East. By shunning diplomacy but acting as a friend of the Ukrainian people, Buchan is adding duplicity to her complicity and simplicity.

By Tom Charles

@tomhcharles

RBKC’s Secret Deal to Sell Canalside House

~ Urban Dandy London ~ 1 Comment

Kensington & Chelsea Council (RBKC) has struck a secret deal with an international property developer to sell the North Kensington community hub, Canalside House. There has been no democratic oversight of the deal, no consultation with the affected communities and the tenant organisations have not been informed. Information on the sale was provided by an unimpeachable source who told us that by this time next year “Canalside House will be gone”.  

Deal

RBKC’s deal follows years of uncertainty in which the council has swung between two polarities: imposing a sale against the wishes of the community and vowing to work with tenant organisations to upgrade Canalside House.  

The buyer, Ballymore, will demolish the building, which sits next to, but not on, the Kensal Canalside Opportunity Area site. Our source explained that ahead of making the deal public, the council is actively seeking to reduce the number of organisations utilising Canalside House. The terms of the sale will obligate RBKC to provide temporary space for the evicted organisations, so the fewer groups using the building, the less work there will be for the council.

This aspect of the deal is borne out in RBKC’s refusal to rent out the biggest and best offices in the building. Those enquiring about using the large first-floor office, rented until last year by Portobello Business Centre, have been informed they can use that space free of charge on an ad-hoc basis, but no long-term tenancy will be possible.  

The large ground floor office, vacated by the Volunteer Centre in 2016 during a previous move by the council to sell, was converted into a cheap hot-desking space but is barely advertised or used. Our source told us that RBKC has categorically ruled out any groups using that space for ongoing service provision to ensure the number of tenant organisations is kept to a minimum.

Following a period in temporary office space provided by RBKC, the deal sees the council hand responsibility for housing the Canalside organisations to Ballymore, a private company with no expertise in providing vital services such as the ones available at Canalside House.

Ballymore’s wish to own everything next to their Gas Works site is further evidenced by their offer for the converted water tower next to Canalside House. The tower’s owner turned down the offer.

image from ballymoregroup.com

History

Built in 1929, Canalside House sits at the top end of Ladbroke Grove. Less than a mile from Grenfell Tower, the centre was a hub of community support during and after the 2017 fire and is one of North Kensington’s last remaining spaces for charities, the voluntary sector, small businesses, and other local enterprises. Tenants include representatives of local African communities, housing cooperatives, care organisations and mental health charities. Continue reading →

Starmer’s Labour Disenfranchised British Somalis in Kensington

~ Urban Dandy London ~ 2 Comments

In an unashamed assault on party democracy last month, Keir Starmer’s Labour targeted and excluded significant numbers of British Somalis from the shortlisting process for candidates hoping to become Kensington’s next member of parliament. Urban Dandy has been given details of how the party’s bureaucracy was mobilised to guarantee a result favourable to the party’s right wing.

The Kensington Constituency Labour Party (CLP) is made up of three branches: South, North East and North West. Labour members in each branch were to vote to narrow down their choice of candidates from a longlist to a shortlist of three, then to vote for one candidate to take on Conservative incumbent Felicity Buchan at the next general election. Former Kensington MP Emma Dent Coad had already been barred from standing by the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) in a factional right-wing intervention.

South Branch

Next in the NEC’s sights was Councillor Kasim Ali, a prominent local politician and a British Somali with a history of community activism in North Kensington. From several Kensington Labour insiders we have heard that, with Dent Coad removed, the NEC hoped that one of their preferred candidates would secure the candidacy. But at the South Branch’s 27th October selection vote, Cllr Ali eased to a comfortable victory, winning every round.

image from Twitter / Kasim Ali

With Cllr Ali needing a nomination from just one of the two North Kensington branches to secure a place on the shortlist, the NEC took over, overriding the CLP’s democratic procedures and fixing the result. Here’s how they did it…

North East Branch

The North East vote scheduled for 1st November was postponed on the pretext of the branch not having the correct Zoom license to accommodate the number of members wishing to attend. Local Labour sources told us that a new license was hastily purchased but Labour’s London Region Executive postponed the vote until 9th November, giving the NEC time to create the chaotic circumstances in which they could guarantee victory for one of their preferred candidates.

By the day of the North West selection on 3rd November, a familiar tactic from the Corbyn era had been put in play to prevent Cllr Ali from securing a nomination at his home branch vote. A vitriolic message about one of the candidates, Mete Coban, was sent to all CLP members from an email address named ‘Danger in Kensington.’ Access to the membership mailing list is strictly limited so the email is likely to have been circulated by somebody holding a senior position within Labour at local, regional or NEC level. Two local Labour sources told Urban Dandy that the NEC’s two preferred candidates had also been provided with the membership’s contact data “months before”.

The highly dubious message was unquestioningly amplified in a vicious attack piece on Kasim Ali in a local blog, while Jewish News blamed “a group of activists” in North Kensington. There was no evidence that the councillor or any of his associates had a connection to the message and no explanation was offered as to how they could have circulated it or what their motivation to sabotage the process might have been. Labour bureaucrats seized upon the story to torpedo the CLP’s democracy, taking control of the selection process and barring Cllr Ali from standing.

Senior Kensington Labour members issued a statement that included the line “there is evidence that the racist message was written by a local known not be (sic) a Labour Party member and was initially posted on a Kensington Community Facebook page.”

There will be more on what Cllr Ali describes as a “fake antisemitism” smear in a later article.

North West Branch

On the day of the ‘Danger in Kensington’ email, Labour members in the North West branch were set to vote on who to shortlist. However, a significant number were prevented from doing so. A Labour councillor told Urban Dandy that “14 to 16 members” were blocked. Another councillor informed us that the number was closer to 20. Both told us that all the excluded members had one thing in common, they were British Somali.

By this point, the selection meetings, held on Zoom, were being chaired by Labour’s London Region Director, Parleen Sangha. According to a local councillor, Sangha told some of the British Somali members “we can’t hear you” before removing them from the meeting and not readmitting them as they attempted to re-join the meeting for an hour and a half. Others simply saw the image below when they clicked on the meeting link.

(Screengrabbed and sent to Urban Dandy by a British Somali Labour member in the North West branch)

We have been informed that an elected Labour councillor for Golborne ward (part of the North West branch and one of the most impoverished wards in Britain) received a text message from a London Region representative as voting commenced telling them ‘I don’t have the correct email for you’ as a justification for cancelling their access to the ballot. The councillor is also British Somali and was using the same email address used when registering as a party member and used to log in to all subsequent meetings and votes.

No results from the North East or North West selection votes were published, and Joe Powell will stand for Labour at the general election having easily defeated the other shortlisted candidates, Mete Coban and Apsana Lachaux on 9th November.

Racial Profiling?

Labour councillors who spoke to Urban Dandy stopped just short of accusing Keir Starmer’s NEC and London Region of racism against British Somalis. They informed us that Labour members in the North East branch, mostly from ethnic minority communities, were also prevented from participating, while former party members with favourable views of Starmer were enabled by London Region to fast-track their re-joining on the day of the vote.

We asked London Region for clarity on why Cllr Ali’s bid for candidacy was undemocratically denied. They responded that they “had to” commence a “serious investigation” into antisemitism in Kensington CLP and that local members had been suspended “due to antisemitism”.

Their reply to Urban Dandy did not mention Kasim Ali or explain the prima facie racial profiling of British Somalis.

On 4th November Kasim Ali was interviewed by the NEC over the ‘Danger in Kensington’ email. They accepted that there was no connection between the councillor or his supporters and the message. However, his right to stand was not reinstated. It is not clear if this meeting was the “serious investigation” referred to by London Region.

A Labour source told Urban Dandy that they had searched the membership database and found that none had been suspended for suspected antisemitism.

Cllr Ali told us that he asked the Labour Party to investigate the circulation of the ‘Danger in Kensington’ email but, to date, the party has not done this.

We also understand that Cllr Ali was blocked from speaking at the CLP’s Black History Month event in October following a concern raised by a rival candidate that this would give Ali an unfair advantage in the constituency selection. London Region issued a ban on longlisted Kensington candidates attending the event. Cllr Ali complained to London Region about his exclusion but has not received a reply.

Starmer’s Labour

Under the leadership of Keir Starmer, Labour has purged its left-wing, often expelling or suspending members on spurious grounds, while many others who identify as left-wing have resigned their memberships in protest at Labour’s dramatic shift to the right.

When people rose up to protest racism in Summer 2020, Starmer dismissed the Black Lives Matter movement as “Black Lives Matter moment” while the party has at times positioned itself to the right of Suella Braverman on migration.

The signs are that Labour in government would be pro-war, unreservedly pro-NATO and cement the UK’s role as junior partner and enabler of the United States’ constant war-making. US foreign policy currently includes bombing Somalia, humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen and occupation of a significant proportion of Syria.

To fulfil this agenda, Starmer and his bureaucracy must minimise the number of potentially anti-war politicians in parliament. In Kensington, once the party members had indicated a preference for Kasim Ali, the NEC abandoned any pretence of a commitment to democracy.

It can be claimed that the removal of Cllr Ali and the disenfranchisement of British Somali members was about ensuring a preferred candidate would stand, rather than a case of racism. But would Labour have done this if Ali was not a Black, Muslim, African, working-class British Somali in North Kensington?

Would an antisemitic trope have been weaponised if the targeted candidate and party members came from a different demographic? And if so, would its use have passed without comment or investigation by the party and media?

Generating fear in our Jewish community and disenfranchising our British Somali community appear to be acceptable collateral damage to the fanatical clique that has control of Labour. Starmer’s party is liberal-fascist, uninterested in the cause of labour and intent on using power to advance the class interests of the British establishment and the economic elite.

By Tom Charles @tomhcharles

RBKC set to become “the best Council”?

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“A challenge given to us by the bereaved and survivors from Grenfell Tower. Simply…to be the best Council.” – Councillor Elizabeth Campbell, leader of Kensington & Chelsea Council, Keynote Speech, May 2022

Kensington & Chelsea Council (RBKC) is consulting with North Kensington residents again. We ask what will be different this time around.

RBKC’s amoral bearings…. ‘What a good thing it is to dwell in unity’

RBKC’s current Grenfell Recovery Programme runs until March 2024. Their planning work for the post-2024 period has commenced with a “wide-reaching conversation” about the future with bereaved, survivors and the local community. In theory, the consultation will provide an outline of what “best council” will mean in practice.

Click link below to read in full

KDR – Planning for the next phase of the Council’s work on Grenfell

Problems

A problem with the current consultation process is that in other initiatives with similar wording and ostensibly aiming at the same outcome – change – RBKC has comprehensively failed to create any identifiable change.

“This Council – its policies, its leadership, its senior people and its culture – has changed.” This was the audacious claim of Cllr Campbell and Barry Quirk, RBKC’s then Chief Executive in March 2020.

Yet, it was not clear what specific things they were referring to. No evidence was offered. RBKC internalised their story and believed it to be self-evidently true.

After June 2017, RBKC enthusiastically adopted noble-sounding policies but didn’t implement them in the community. After the fire, the council’s leadership changed. The chief executive quit and the disgraced councillors Paget-Brown and Feilding-Mellen were made to resign by the Communities Secretary Sajid Javid. But the new leaders carry out approximately the same policies for the same political party and Conservative campaign literature in the borough goes out of its way to avoid mentioning Grenfell and North Kensington.

For an area in which many residents disproportionately suffer the impacts of poverty and inequality, the upshot has been no meaningful culture change at the local authority during the years when implementing change and offering real political concessions to North Kensington seemed possible. During those years, backing up their declarations of “change” with real action should have been a moral imperative to RBKC, impossible to resist despite their ideological discomfort with socialist policies. This failure was acknowledged by Callum Wilson, RBKC’s Director of Grenfell Partnerships, in an email to residents about the Beyond 2024 consultation: “I do recognise that many people in the community will ask why this work has not already been done, and we need to acknowledge this openly – but nonetheless I think it is important that is done now, however delayed it may feel.”

It is difficult to draw much confidence from this admission given the record. Five and a half years since Grenfell and RBKC have not offered a major vision, nor have they significantly improved their attention to detail in delivering services.

Expectations

There is a natural expectation that does not fade over time that the scale of change should be commensurate with the scale of the crime and the losses suffered. There should at least be a sincere attempt at commensurate change.

If power continues to be distributed unevenly in Kensington, profound change does not look possible. Consultations have taken hundreds of volunteer hours from the local population but have not addressed worsening social and economic injustices. Increased democracy would do more to arrest the prevailing impotence and apathy than another 50 years of consultations, conversations, and co-designs.

RBKC and the media have talked about the local authority ‘regaining trust’ as a prerequisite to North Kensington’s recovery. They need to drop the ‘re’ and focus on establishing trust for the first time since the borough’s creation in the 60s.

“Devastatingly Frank”

In a conversation with Urban Dandy, Callum Wilson acknowledged that there is a long way to go regarding trust: “We know we are dealing with a degree of apathy heightened by Grenfell, with some people not taking part because they believe change is not going to happen. But we have to keep trying and we have to evidence change.”

On ways for the public to participate without having to sign up to the RBKC format, Wilson said: “Spin-off consultations, run by residents with or without council representatives, are possible. They are more organic. There’s an end-of-year deadline for all consultations. We’re happy to receive input, we’re happy for people to make demands.

“I just want as many people to share their views as possible so we can try and build a Council that works better for all our residents.”

RBKC says that over 600 people have spoken to them so far about what they want to see from their council in the next five years. Some have been “devastatingly frank” Wilson told us.

We will pick up our dialogue with RBKC’s Director of Grenfell Partnerships in the new year when the latest consultation has concluded, and the council can explain how they will “simply…be the best Council.”

 

By Tom Charles @tomhcharles

Exclusive Interview: Emma Dent Coad on Labour’s Grassroots Purge

~ Urban Dandy London ~ 3 Comments

Emma Dent Coad, the only Labour politician to win Kensington in its true blue history, spoke to Urban Dandy about the Labour party’s decision to bar her from standing at the next general election.

Context

Architectural historian, author, activist, and local resident Emma Dent Coad was elected to Kensington and Chelsea council in 2006. She campaigned on the full range of issues impacting residents in the most inequitable local authority in Britain including housing rights, poverty, and air quality. Dent Coad’s background in housing made her an ideal choice to be Labour’s 2017 parliamentary candidate in a constituency home to oligarchs and royals yet has seen a dramatic life expectancy decline in the borough’s poorest wards once austerity economics was imposed in 2010.

The councillor’s 2014 report, updated after the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017, The Most Unequal Borough in Britain, used incontestable data to lay bare the shocking inequity of the borough where at one end 51% of children live in poverty vs at the other only 6% suffer this indignity. Dent Coad’s 2022 book, One Kensington, cemented her reputation as an expert on the impact of neoliberal economics in the borough.

PosterBaraka
Emma Dent Coad at a poster design competition for children affected by Grenfell, 2017.

2017

On Friday, June 11th the final seat in the 2017 general election was declared and Dent Coad was elected MP for Kensington: a first-time Labour gain. Winning by 20 votes, Dent Coad joined the activist Labour MPs’ Socialist Campaign Group in parliament. The role of socialists diminished under New Labour, but backbenchers like Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell, and Diane Abbott kept community-based democratic, internationalist socialist politics alive in parliament. Labour’s left-right, democrat-technocrat schism had widened under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, yet New Labour was confident enough in its political project to co-exist with anti-war backbenchers and their frequent rebellions.

Three days after the Kensington constituency victory, the fire at Grenfell Tower brought the local issues that Emma Dent Coad had campaigned on to national prominence, crystalizing her parliamentary priority: justice for Grenfell.

Party leader Corbyn and other Campaign Group members were supportive of North Kensington; but Labour’s bureaucracy was dominated by factional enemies, intent on sabotaging the leadership, and as came to be revealed, actively worked to deny Labour an election victory. The harassment of Diane Abbott, the diversion of funds from left-wing candidates in marginal seats to right-wingers in safe seats and smear campaigns were among the methods deployed by this group, which included Iain McNicol, Labour’s then General Secretary. In 2017, Labour finished just 2227 votes short of being able to form a government.

Internal Labour documents leaked in 2020 showed senior party bureaucrats favouring cronyism over Corbynism. They preferred Tory rule with all the misery that brings to their own party’s kinder, more equitable, leadership. As the leaks became public (albeit not reported in the mainstream news) Dent Coad revealed her campaign had received little support from Labour HQ even when it became clear that an historic win in Kensington was on the cards.

Dent Coad explained: “When the atrocity of the Grenfell Tower fire ripped through my neighbourhood, I was finally sent help from McNicol’s office. However, it quickly became clear that this was not the help requested; I needed assistance with my casework team, who were struggling to help those impacted by the fire, but instead the general secretary sent someone to police me. Continue reading →

Retrograde Borough of Kensington & Chelsea

~ Urban Dandy London ~ 1 Comment
RBKC’s coat of arms. The motto means ‘What a good thing it is to dwell in unity’ – picture from rbkc.gov.uk

An outsider assessing Kensington and Chelsea Council (RBKC) from a distance can be forgiven for believing that the council has become a more progressive, liberal, and democratic institution since the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017. This illusion is sustained by the local authority’s exhaustive public relations policy and an absence of political or media scrutiny. In this induced amnesia, RBKC keeps a firm grip on North Kensington. But the council’s approach to the north is arguably more regressive and undemocratic than at any time in its history. A study conducted in the early years of the borough sheds light on the dynamics at play.

Sixties London

In 1963, the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea was formed by a merger of the separate K and C boroughs through the London Government Act. In 1967, Professor John Dearlove of the University of Sussex began researching the relationship between RBKC’s decision-makers and those seeking to influence policy, referred to as interest groups. For years, Professor Dearlove attended council meetings and learned about community issues, publishing his findings first in an academic journal[i] and later in a book[ii].

In the 1968 local elections, London turned blue, the Conservatives winning control of 28 councils to Labour’s three. The 2022 results reflect a changed city with just six councils controlled by the Tories and 21 by Labour. But RBKC stands apart from the wider city, remaining a Conservative safe seat throughout, and the only remaining Tory council in inner London. But it has been a divided borough, with North Kensington council wards tending to vote Labour, and two now-abolished parliamentary constituencies, Kensington North, and Regent’s Park & Kensington North, returning only Labour MPs to the Commons between 1945 and 2010.

The stark contrasts of the borough were present from its inception. The London Housing Survey in 1968 stated: “one of the most distinctive features about the Royal Borough […] the sharp contrast between North Kensington and the rest of the Borough”[iii]

Professor Dearlove noted the north’s higher number of manual labourers, its overcrowded homes, lack of open spaces, and higher proportion of children. Relating these disparities to his research, Dearlove saw the social, economic, cultural, and political divide between the north and the rest of the borough reflected in the contrasting interest groups interacting with council decision-makers, with northern residents inclined to seek innovation, change, and sometimes the reversal of the council’s policies. Continue reading →

Both Barrels

~ Urban Dandy London ~ Leave a comment

Sitting alone upon the hill inside my head

Overlooking the City

Watching soldier ants devour, destroy each other

For no reason, no reason at all

Slowly returning to their homes

Questioning their beliefs their actions

Cognitive dissonance quickly vanishing – Vanquished

For the perpetual lie must continue…

Picking up a placard like a sword

Needing a cause to feel validated

I am here, they cry

We are the virtuous ones 

My life is relevant

My identity counts

Truth is it doesn’t…

You’re full of self-delusion

Just used by idealogues for a lost cause

Of their immature revolution

Always a follower

Never a leader

Or even worse an individual free thinker!

Feeling safe in a crowd

A peaky blinder

No one’s listening or cares

Even you don’t really

In the quiet of your bedroom…

But hey! The next march beckons

I sit upon my hill in peace

For I am a gang of one

I left the battle long ago

Slowly walking away

Leaving the foolish to fight the deluded

While the band plays on………………….

M C Bolton, May 2022

drawing by TC

Why Write

~ Urban Dandy London ~ 1 Comment

Now & again, we are invited to deliver writing workshops for young people. Here’s what I like to tell them…

I tell them that the aim of the workshop is for them to write skilfully, to express their ideas creatively and with confidence. We encourage them to take ownership of their English language; it belongs to them, not their teachers, schools, or exam board.

Why does writing matter?

Because people think with words, vocabulary is very important; it allows us to understand ourselves, each other, and our world. And all jobs require communication, from applications to emails, to writing reports, and blogging – a way with words boosts your chances of success in any career.

We always emphasise that we are not there to judge them. We aren’t following the national curriculum. We are genuinely curious about what they have to offer. Usually, blank faces look back but some grasp this concept of creativity for self-expression and liberation. Writing is largely a self-taught discipline; anybody can develop a style that works for them, with enough practice.

Impact

Words can be used for various reasons – to hurt, inspire, inform, lighten, uplift, and connect. People without words are frustrated and angry, they feel impotent. Continue reading →

RBKC’s North Ken News: Real Eyes Realise Real Lies

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North Ken News is a Kensington & Chelsea Council magazine, delivered to thousands of residents in the borough’s less affluent wards. Ill-conceived and half-heartedly produced, it typifies a local authority lacking the ambition to truly change following the Grenfell Tower fire.

Background

In January 2019 Kensington & Chelsea Council (RBKC), after holding ‘Creating Stronger Communities Conversations,’ produced its Grenfell Recovery Strategy, saying the document “demonstrated a strong desire” on the part of local residents “to shape recovery directly, building on the existing strengths and talents of communities.”

The aspirations RBKC identified in its consultations with locals included:

  • RBKC enabling “stronger community leadership”
  • RBKC tapping into “existing skills and networks” and
  • “The need to improve Council communications to all North Kensington residents”

North Ken News, along with other mass distribution puff pieces, are RBKC’s responses to the frustrations raised about the council’s communications. These publications amount to little more than public relations for a disgraced local authority. A true provider of grassroots news and analysis, the blog THis Is North Kensington summarised North Ken News as “PR self-analysis of the supposed Grenfell Strategy.”  

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