RBKC and taking the pee: Is our Town Hall being turned into “Parliamentary potty training grounds for Conservatives”?

On Sunday we posted this about soon-to-be Conservative councillor for Queen’s Gate Ward, Roberto Barnet- Carpetbagger:

https://thisisnorthkensington.wordpress.com/2022/03/13/invasion-of-the-carpetbaggers/

Tories now tell us that Mr Barnet-Carpetbagger  ” has family in Chelsea” (well, our Editor has family in the US Midwest, but she’s not blogging about Minnesota and Iowa or standing for election over there is she?!) . They also tell is that Barnet-Carpetbagger “has just bought a flat here” . How convenient. They declined to comment on his association with nasty piece of work Brian Coleman.

Because Tories were initially silent on the identities of mysterious “Chelsea Riverside Two” – the two mystery candidates for Conservative marginal Chelsea Riverside Ward supposedly standing alongside present Mayor of RBKC Cllr Gerard Hargreaves in May, THINK decided to do a bit of sleuthing…….

The “Chelsea Riverside Two” revealed

Meet Australian Sonia Zvedeniuk. She is apparently a former advisor to Liz Truss, she has been an intern at  UN watch  Ms Zvedeniuk has also written tfor the Australian Spectator :

https://www.spectator.com.au/author/sonia-zvedeniuk/

Here is a video of Sonia when she was an Intern at UN Watch speaking up about violence  against women:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NeBtqrgl9_4

Perhaps she could have some words with Roberto Barnet-Carpetbagger about his association with Brian Coleman?

Sonia also happens to be one of two Chelsea Riverside candidates  that for some reason, the Tories don’t want us to know about. 

But what on earth, we wonder , has Sonia done to be so controversial with them? 

Perhaps this is why: We mentioned Conservatives sending in  RBKC candidates who don’t live here, before  but this is the first time we have ever heard of a candidate  for Chelsea  who might be based in Australia!

Clearly Sonia travels a lot. If she is still living in Australia she will have one hell of a commute. We do worry about her carbon footprint attending all those Town Hall meetings and constiuency surgeries (after all the claims from RBKC of being “carbon neutral). And of course, we worry about residents of Chelsea Riverside Ward ending up without proper repressentation .

Here she is pictured  enjoying the “slopes of the Chelsea Riverside Alps”:

Tories tell us that Ms Zvedeniuk IS living here so perhaps they’d like to tell us why we found no record of her on the RBKC Electoral Register?!! (Her LinkedIn page says she’s in London- – how long for we don’t know – but we have no information that she is living in RBKC. Maybe she’s suddenly going to buy a place here too?.)

(One of the Tories completely misunderstood us and mistakenly thought we were objecting to Australian nationals becoming councillors! Of course we aren’t – we do not mind what country of origin our councillors hail from at all- as long as they are RBKC residents! Got that?)

Next up is one Ross Allan . He lives in Chelsea but only recently moved there.   One of our sources told us that he is a right wng Tory who was a big figure on the Vote Leave campaign. In fact he is described as a “shady Dominic Cummings figure”  Tories declined to comment on Mr Allan at all. Not exactly a ringing endorsement is it?

We think Ross will get short shrift from residents about Brexit. Expecially as most people in this borough voted to Remain in the EU . There’s plenty of social housing in Chelsea Riverside and residents who are struggling to afford a basic grocery shop are suffering partly because of his Brexit activities . There are more local food banks now in our borough than ever before.

And that’s not all we found on Ross…….

Some people might remember this blog post from last years on From The Hornets Nest, “Conservative Association Knives Out”:

https://fromthehornetsnest.blogspot.com/2021/07/conservative-association-knives-out.html?m=1

Sounds very murky doesn’t it? We know Cllr Sarah Addenbrooke, and while we do not always agree with her political views, we do know her to be a very good councillor, a long-term resident of this borough and a decent human being. We do not know Mr Allan, but “decent human bring” is not a term we’d ever apply to a shady figure on the far right, coming here to further his political career, who hides in the shadows from the public gaze and gets called a “Dominic Cummings figure” One Dominic Cummings is more than enough.

So as well as likely not receiving a a warm welcome if he hits the doorsteps in World’s End , he doesn’t even appear to be too popular with colleagues on his own side!

By the way, this, Facebook profile picture is all we found of any sort of picture of Ross Allan.

We’re also going to take back our words on Sunday about asking Matthew Palmer to come back because residents have since informed us that soon-to-be be ex-Cllr Palmer moved away from North Kensington TWO YEARS AGO and only turnsd up to meetings recently so he can still get his councillors allowance!

Here is an amusing exchange between our friend Jill Manasseh, a Queen’s Gate Ward resident and Matthew Palmer (that was first featured on From The Hornets Nest) :

You may be amused by my recent encounter with Matthew Palmer one evening, recently There was a loud knock on the door and a huge man asked me how I was .
Me: “Cold”
P:” I am Your Councillor Palmer”
Me:” I am not a Conservative. I do not want an argument.:
P:”What do you think of the Council?”
Me:”Simply dreadful, quite appalling.”
P. “Why don’t you leave?”
Me:” I have lived here for 70 years.”
P:” Name a better borough.”
Me: “I don’t want to argue. Good bye”.
As I closed the door Palmer shouted “Name a better borough!”

We think that the Kensington, Chelsea and Fulham Cknservative Party are  really taking the pee out of the electorate now.

They appear to have designated  Kensington Town Hall as “potty training territory” for future careers in as MPs and political advisors with ZERO consideration for our communities and residents.

We think ALL our councillors ought to be residents of the borough and if they move away, then they ought to stand down.

(When Labour’s Robert Thompson moved away from RBKC he did the decent and honourable thing and stood down, triggering a by election in Dalgarno Ward – which Cllr Kasim Ali won for Labour. But hey – one rule for Tories, another rule for the rest of us?!)

We know that some councillors have their eye set on a future carrer in Parliament, and we don’t mind that, as long as they are residents and they put in the work (Hello Cllr Tom Bennett!) What we do mind is people who couldn’t give a pee about our communities and doing Council work coming here to be councillors with the sole motive of furthering their career and that only. We remind the Tories that outside their political circles, RBKC is regarded both nationally and internationally as “The Grenfell Council” . (By the way Matthew Palmer,our blog could be here all week naming better boroughs.)

Chelsea Riverside is nowhere near as safe as some of the other Conservative-held RBKC wards, and the voters now have a chance to have their say and vote against this.

Here is the link to register to vote. The deadline for voter registration is April the 14th and the deadline to apply for a postal vote or amend your details for postal vote registration is April the 19th;

https://www.gov.uk/register-to-vote

The ward is a “two horse  race” between Conservatives  and  Labour. The three Labour camdidates are all RBKC residents.

Maybe it’s time for both local  and non-local Tories around Chelsea Riverside to get a wake up call on May the 5th from Labour with a shock early cold bath in the Thames?