Yes, folks, it’s about this time in the RBKC four yearly election cycle that residents of Lancaster West Estate can expect to receive a most unwelcome knock on their front-doors from our local Labour Councillors begging for our precious votes.
However, the backstabbers in question are likely to receive short shrift from the vast majority of Lancaster West residents who feel abandoned and betrayed by the RBKC Labour group who sold our community’s well-being down the river after our local Councillors Blakeman, Atkinson and Foreman sacrificed their souls at the alter of the Kensington Academy and Leisure Centre (KALC). Many residents who voted for Blakeman and her quislings in past Council elections will certainly not be so stupid as to do so again.
It is noteworthy that, while we in the Grenfell Action Group consistently opposed the whole KALC project as a gross overdevelopment of the Lancaster Green area, which would severely impact the Lancaster West community, Blakeman and her poodles broadly supported the project and opposed as overdevelopment only the luxury housing element at the Bomore Road end of the site. It seems to us that this objection amounted to little more than a cynical exercise in tokenism, and a fat lot of good it did, as the Council approved the whole plan regardless.
We strongly believe that, instead of fighting for the rights of Lancaster West residents, Blakeman and her crew chose instead to oppress anti-KALC activists in the Lancaster West community. They certainly denied us their support in voicing our legitimate complaints and concerns, and appear to have actively worked to obstruct and sabotage our efforts. Given their shameless collusion with the Ruling Party in Hornton Street it has been near impossible at times to work out what political side the local Labour group has been representing (ie Labour or Conservative).
Someone needs to remind Councillor Blakeman that the UK is a democracy in which the Labour Party has traditionally claimed to represent and support the working class and the underprivileged. It seems this support can no longer be counted on. Residents who campaign for better housing conditions should not be villified by Labour councillors, like terrorists and criminals, and denied their right to free speech. Cllr Blakeman, of course, does not have to worry about her own housing situation as she is safely ensconced in well maintained, privately owned, middle class accommodation that is set to become a gated community at the first sign of intrusion from any troublesome Kensington Academy students.
Anyway, the Grenfell Action Group has put together a few points that you might like to raise when that Labour knock on the door comes begging for your vote:
Councillor Blakeman might like to explain why she supported, and continues to support, the likes of Todd Foreman to become a local Notting Barns Councillor? We believe that Foreman has never had any real interest in representing the residents of this constituency and that he is just an opportunistic careerist more interested in climbing the slippery pole of political ambition than in representing the real needs of the underprivileged inner city residents on the backs of whom he has attempted to climb to power. Oh, and the idea that Foreman was ever going to use his supposed legal skills to help the ordinary residents of North Kensington is simply laughable.
To continue, RBKC are spending £1.5 million of our Council Tax on the Holland Park Opera every year, yet we are forced to live in slum like conditions on Lancaster West Estate and are now facing massive yearly rent increases. The Grenfell Action Group would question why Cllr Blakeman will be openly seen puffing up her ego along with her neo-con Tory pals (Coleridge, Ahern, etc) attending the Holland Park Opera rather than organising robust opposition and demonstrations against this immoral frippery?
We would ask also why RBKC Labour have tried to claim credit for securing the £9 million for improvement works at Grenfell Tower and the new windows in Verity Close? We believe Blakeman and her poodles have done very little to help improve living conditions at Lancaster West, both prior to and after the imposition of KALC, and they certainly had little to do with instigating the funding for both the Grenfell Tower and Verity Close projects. The Grenfell Action Group believes that these investments were made possible by community outrage at KALC and the determination to hold Cllr Coleridge to ransom after he promised that KALC would be “an opportunity” for Lancaster West.
We would ask also why Blakeman has allowed herself to become an enemy of democracy by working with the Ruling Party at Hornton Street, and their quislings at the TMO, to prevent collective representation on Lancaster West Estate? A little bird told us, in the not too distant past, that Blakeman was seen demeaning herself and the democratic process by ripping down information flyers put out by the Grenfell Action Group in the vicinity of Grenfell Tower. Shame on her for acting in such a petty-minded, undemocratic and oppressive manner.
Blakeman has had one serious challenge in her political career, the inappropriate and wrong-headed imposition of KALC at Lancaster Green, and the Grenfell Action Group believes that she has failed to meet this challenge in the most spectacular manner. Rather than putting herself up for re-election, we suggest Cllr Blakeman would be better shuffling off into retirement, but she should firstly apologise to the residents of Lancaster West for abandoning and betraying them in favour of her blinkered vision of KALC and to curry favour with the Hornton Street tories.
Grenfell Action Group 