Tag: Independent

Grenfell Ineptitude

Matthew Steeples suggests it is time to bring down the Grenfell Tower in the wake of news that £30 million has been spent on temporary accommodation for survivors

Today The Independent revealed nearly £30 million had been spent on hotel rooms for surviors of the Grenfell Tower tragedy. Whilst this is utterly shocking – and also indicative of the fact that not nearly enough has been done to rehouse residents – it also acts as a reminder that whilst the tower remains standing, further costs rack up from bills associated with stopping it collapsing.

Whilst some might argue the case for the 24-floor structure not being demolished as it serves as a ‘memorial’ to the 72 people who lost their lives there, others are, in my view rightly, calling for it now to be brought down. The possibility of replacing it with, say, a garden of remembrance seems one of the better options on offer but what should be the priority first is that the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea council do more to help the 150 households still waiting to move into permanent homes. Shame on them for their ineptitude to date.

Facebook: @TheSteepleTimes

Instagram: @TheSteepleTimes

Twitter: @SteepleTimes and @M_Steeples

October 9, 2018
An Almighty Allsopp

Is the fuss over Kirstie Allsopp smashing up her children’s iPads justified? Or was it actually a very clever publicity stunt on her part?

On Channel 5’s Jeremy Vine show on Monday, one of the panel, The Hon. Kirstie Allsopp, shared that she’d smashed up her children’s iPads because they weren’t using them responsibly. Outrage invariably ensued.

During the programe, the “strong-minded” daughter of ex-Sotheby’s chairman Lord Hindlip and Location, Location, Location presenter stated:

“This is the first time I’ve said this publicly. In June I smashed my kids’ iPads, not in a violent way. I actually banged them on the table leg.”

“There is a game called Fortnite and another PUBG and I decided… We had made all sorts of rules and all sorts of times when we said you can’t play them and all those rules got broken and in the end I said: ‘Right that is it, I have to physically (break them).’”

In the ensuing hours, Allsopp was both lauded as a sensible parent and slated as reckless and ridiculous on social media and in reply, Tweeted:

“If you found your kids with a packet of cigarettes would you say: ‘I wouldn’t destroy these because they are worth a tenner but please don’t smoke?’ No of course you wouldn’t.”

Before subsequently deciding to delete her Twitter account due to the level of abuse she had been subjected to, she added:

“The second hand value of the iPads is about £70 each, if I feel a lesson was learned about following through then it was worth far, far, far more our family than £140. This is about the value of trust, and the value of people over things.”

Of the debacle, on ITV1’s Good Morning Britain on Wednesday, author Anna May Mangan leapt to Allsopp’s defence:

“I’ve heard her being called ‘Kirstie Allstropp’ on Twitter today. I’d have probably unplugged the router but she certainly didn’t deserve this public hanging. Is there such a thing as a perfect parent?”

Joining the thousands who’ve condemned Allsopp, another guest replied:

“It’s just a waste and sets a really bad example of how to look after possessions. Wilful smashing up an iPad is wasteful.”

Whilst the Independent’s Anthony Cuthbertson bizarrely over-analysed the story by suggesting it “shows a darker side of gaming,” on Twitter, the pugnacious Brexiteer and all-round loudmouth Nadine Dorries MP decided to weigh in also. She remarked:

“Gameboys that [sic] spoilt a family holiday for us once. Wish I’d thought of doing this. I’d have chucked them in the pool.”

Just like the reaction when the foul mouthed yet highly amusing aristocrat Francis ‘F***ing’ Fulford’s wife threw her television in a lake because her children wouldn’t “turn the f***ing thing” off” back in 2004 on the reality show The F***ing Fulfords, ‘Allstropp-gate’ is nothing but a storm in a teacup. It is one, however, that has done one thing: It has generated Ms Allsopp more column inches and thus yet more money making opportunities. To her, that’s most certainly worth smashing a couple of no doubt worn out old iPads for.

Facebook: @TheSteepleTimes

Instagram: @TheSteepleTimes

Twitter: @SteepleTimes

September 12, 2018
Beastly Boris

Boris Johnson’s timing of divorce announcement simply confirms that all he cares about is power; he is however the Michael Heseltine of our generation

In 2014, Boris Johnson claimed that “the public don’t care about his extra-marital affairs.” Well, plainly though that may or may not have been case, this devious chameleon-like politician’s wife, Marina Wheeler, felt differently and is divorcing him.

Johnson’s announcement is plainly timed to further his eventual attempt to unseat Theresa May. An individual with loyalty to no one but himself, this “selfish bastard” (as his own daughter allegedly branded him) is however likely to go down in history as yet another case of “he who wields the knife shall never wear the crown.”

Boris Johnson, we predict, will just be remembered as the Michael Heseletine of our generation – but without the principles of that Big Beast. He won’t be able to put a DSMA-Notice on that.

Facebook: @TheSteepleTimes

Instagram: @TheSteepleTimes

Twitter: @SteepleTimes

September 7, 2018
A Missing Mockery

As a further £154,000 is handed to the police, is it right that £11 million has been allocated to searching for Madeleine McCann whilst the searches for other missing people get little to nothing?

A child supposedly disappears every five minutes in the UK yet the only instance the media ever focus on is Madeleine McCann.

Having hung out with Donald Trump’s bestie Theresa May and the equally ghastly Lady Meyer in Downing Street in May 2012 plainly helped the cause of Gerry and Kate McCann. Police investigating the case have just been awarded a further £154,000 in addition to a sum of £85,000 in March this year. A total of over £11 million has been spent thus far on the unsuccessful search for the child and what has been achieved? The answer is clear: Absolutely nothing.

Whatever the merits of the suggestions of those who’ll continue to claim that any lead is worth pursuing, one needs to remember that every pound allocated to looking for one child that disappeared in 2007 is a pound that could be used to fund the search of another investigation. Undoubtedly now, given that no tangible evidence has been found that Madeleine McCann is still alive, it is time for this plainly pointless search to stop.

Missing Madeleine – Questions without Answers

Many questions about what happened on the evening of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann remain. Some that have been highlighted by the press and discussed online include:

Why did Kate McCann refuse to answer 48 questions put to her by the Portuguese police?

Why were certain records of phone calls on the evening of the disappearance “whoosh-clunked” from the memories of the phones of Mr and Mrs McCann and the ‘Tapas 9’?

Why did a British sniffer dog sense the smell of a corpse in a cupboard in the apartment from which Madeleine McCann disappeared?

Why did a sniffer dog also supposedly sense the smell of a corpse in a vehicle hired by the couple a month after the disappearance of their daughter?

Why did Mr and Mrs McCann go jogging and play tennis in the days after their daughter’s disappearance?

Was it acceptable for Mr and Mrs McCann’s mortgage to be paid by the fund established to search for their missing daughter?

September 29, 2017
Grim Grenfell

Matthew Steeples suggests the giant coffin and stain on government that is the Grenfell Tower should be demolished immediately

The giant, grim carbuncle that is Grenfell Tower is a stain on the councillors of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and it should be torn to the ground immediately.

Allowing this monstrous edifice to bad government remain standing is wrong. Ash and debris from it blow across the surrounding environs and for survivors of this tragedy, that it still stands can only bring back hideous memories of witnessing friends and neighbours burn to death.

Of the building, an unnamed resident recently told The Independent: “The block needs to be tore down. It’s haunting, there used to be faces in those windows.” They are right and that suggestions have been made to cover the structure in tarpaulin simply do not cut the mustard. A proposal to demolish at the end of 2018 will leave the Grenfell Tower insensitively dominating a damaged community far too long and any useful evidence, surely, must by now have been gathered. This giant coffin should be terminated far sooner and it should be blasted to smithereens as soon as is physically possible.

Follow Matthew Steeples on Twitter at @M_Steeples.

August 15, 2017
Trendifying Theresa

George Freeman MP denies he wants to create a Tory version of Glastonbury; imagining Theresa May boozing with Liam Gallagher definitely would be hard

Theresa May, Dizzee Rascal and Liam Gallagher would certainly make for unlikely bedfellows but now a Conservative MP, George Freeman, wishes to replicate Jeremy Corbyn’s success in such company at Glastonbury and in September will host his own festival in Norfolk.

Former biotechnology entrepreneur Mr Freeman, chairman of Mrs May’s policy board, asked: “Why is it just the left who have all the fun in politics?” and has received support for what he calls a “friends and family event” and a “cross between Hay-on-Wye and the Latitude festival” from a number of sponsors and venues.

Expected to be called the “Conservative Ideas Festival,” the event was remarked on by one unnamed fellow MP as: “Very trendy” but needing “a lot of expensive booze” for him to attend. One might argue seeing Mrs May drunk in one of her beloved wheat fields might amuse many, but in reality this idea sounds nearly as bad as when the party put William Hague in a baseball cap at a theme park in 1997. Theresa, a word of advice: Don’t do it.

August 5, 2017
Enough is Enough

Funding for the investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann must cease; £11 million spent with no result is evidence that enough is enough

Over £11 million has been spent in relation to the search for Madeleine McCann since the then 3-year old disappeared on 3^rd May 2007. The result? Absolutely no progress and a lot of unanswered questions.

Now, with the last round of public funding given to the element of the search known as Operation Grange by Theresa May in March set to run out in September, is the time to end the search. Enough is enough and in spite that some would suggest that the chances of finding the disappeared child is still there, the fact of the matter is that in ten years of following leads that have led nowhere resources that could have been allocated to other missing people have been squandered.

Last week, a Metropolitan Police spokesman told The Sun:

“A lot of potentially significant images and material were captured on previous trips to Portugal and we are still working on all leads…. The investigation continues with focus and determination. It is not winding down, it is not grinding to a halt. It is on going.”

Such sentiments will no doubt leave such people as Kerry Needham – whose 21-month year old son, Ben, disappeared in Greece on 24^th July 1991 – spitting feathers. As of 2015, a comparative sum of just £700,000 had been spent on attempts to find him and thus one is left asking why the child of two middle class medics is worth 93% more than the son of an ordinary working class woman.

In 2015, Ms Needham, after supporters of the McCanns cruelly suggested those backing her in her search for her child were “toxic”, remarked: “I have never criticised the McCann family. I have only every criticised the authorities for the way the two cases have been handled so differently.”

Kerry Needham

Missing Madeleine – Questions without Answers

Many questions about what happened on the evening of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann remain. Some that have been highlighted by the press and discussed online include:

Why did the McCanns refuse to answer 48 questions put to her by the Portuguese police?

Why were certain records of phone calls on the evening of the disappearance “whoosh-clunked” from the memories of the phones of Mr and Mrs McCann and the ‘Tapas 9’?

Why did a British sniffer dog sense the smell of a corpse in a cupboard in the apartment from which Madeleine McCann disappear?

Why did a sniffer dog also supposedly sense the smell of a corpse in a vehicle hired by the couple a month after the disappearance of their daughter?

Why did Mr and Mrs McCann go jogging and play tennis in the days after their daughter’s disappearance?

Was it acceptable for Mr and Mrs McCann’s mortgage to be paid by the fund established to search for their missing daughter?

July 23, 2017
Enough is Enough

Funding for the investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann must cease; £11 million spent with no result is evidence that enough is enough

Over £11 million has been spent in relation to the search for Madeleine McCann since the then 3-year old disappeared on 3^rd May 2007. The result? Absolutely no progress and a lot of unanswered questions.

Now, with the last round of public funding given to the element of the search known as Operation Grange by Theresa May in March set to run out in September, is the time to end the search. Enough is enough and in spite that some would suggest that the chances of finding the disappeared child is still there, the fact of the matter is that in ten years of following leads that have led nowhere resources that could have been allocated to other missing people have been squandered.

Last week, a Metropolitan Police spokesman told The Sun:

“A lot of potentially significant images and material were captured on previous trips to Portugal and we are still working on all leads…. The investigation continues with focus and determination. It is not winding down, it is not grinding to a halt. It is on going.”

Such sentiments will no doubt leave such people as Kerry Needham – whose 21-month year old son, Ben, disappeared in Greece on 24^th July 1991 – spitting feathers. As of 2015, a comparative sum of just £700,000 had been spent on attempts to find him and thus one is left asking why the child of two middle class medics is worth 93% more than the son of an ordinary working class woman.

In 2015, Ms Needham, after supporters of the McCanns cruelly suggested those backing her in her search for her child were “toxic”, remarked: “I have never criticised the McCann family. I have only every criticised the authorities for the way the two cases have been handled so differently.”

Kerry Needham

Missing Madeleine – Questions without Answers

Many questions about what happened on the evening of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann remain. Some that have been highlighted by the press and discussed online include:

Why did the McCanns refuse to answer 48 questions put to her by the Portuguese police?

Why were certain records of phone calls on the evening of the disappearance “whoosh-clunked” from the memories of the phones of Mr and Mrs McCann and the ‘Tapas 9’?

Why did a British sniffer dog sense the smell of a corpse in a cupboard in the apartment from which Madeleine McCann disappear?

Why did a sniffer dog also supposedly sense the smell of a corpse in a vehicle hired by the couple a month after the disappearance of their daughter?

Why did Mr and Mrs McCann go jogging and play tennis in the days after their daughter’s disappearance?

Was it acceptable for Mr and Mrs McCann’s mortgage to be paid by the fund established to search for their missing daughter?

July 23, 2017
Anything But Liberal

Former Liberal Democrats headquarters for sale for somewhat reduced but still anything but liberal sum of £36 million (to include a Rodin)

A building that was originally the London office of the North Eastern Railway Company and the headquarters of the Social Democratic Party and then their successors, the Liberal Democrats, between 1982 and 2011 has gone on sale for £36 million ($46.9 million, €41 million or درهم172.1 million) – with all furnishings and a bronze sculpture by Rodin said to be amongst the luxury items included in the price.

Then Liberal Democratic Party leader Nick Clegg outside 4 Cowley Street in 2010

A protest outside 4 Cowley Street during the Liberal Democrats’ tenure of occupation

Offered to rent in 2011 for £225,000 per annum ($291,000, €256,000 or درهم1.1 million per annum) and then sold for around £10.8 million ($14 million, €12.3 million or درهم51.4 million), Mansion House – as it has now been rather grandly named – is situated in Cowley Street, Westminster. Constructed in 1905 and Grade II listed, this dark red brick terraced town house was designed by Horace Field and is described as being of “lavish late 17^th century style, rather out of scale with its neighbours but with fine Arts and Crafts detailing.”

Consisting of 7,000 square foot of accommodation whilst in use as offices, developers Saigol DDC have expanded the space provided to create an 11,075 square foot residence of mammoth proportions. Aside from 5 reception rooms, 7 bedrooms and 6 bathrooms, the 5-storey mansion has an 8-person lift, a wine room, an indoor swimming pool, a gym and a roof terrace.

Mansion House, which is for sale through Knight Frank, was previously listed earlier this year for the higher price of £42.28 million ($54.77 million, €48.22 million or درهم201.21 million). The effects of Stamp Duty hikes, Brexit uncertainties plainly might cause it to fall yet further.

July 4, 2017
The Peoples’ Republic of Kensington

As Kensington turns red, ‘The Steeple Times’ reflects on the defeat of a woman nicknamed ‘#LazyBorwick’ , a win by a hard-left Labour blogger and a need for an MP who’ll now represent all constituents

Last night, in frankly the biggest shock of a shambolic and wholly unnecessary General Election, Kensington replaced one flame haired harridan with another and a Conservative majority of nearly 7,500 votes with a wafer thin Labour majority of just 20.

That a seat, where someone once commented: “Even a pig in a blue rosette would win here”, turned red shocked many but given the apparent laziness of the incumbent Member of Parliament, Lady Borwick, the result was a reflection of the constituency’s dissatisfaction with a woman whose reply rate to constituents was listed as just 18% on the website TheyWorkForYou.com.

Victor Emma Dent Coad represents something that many in the seat will not, however, want. Hard-left, and a Momentum supporter, this blogger undoubtedly can be credited as a dedicated councillor but her tangible lack of anger towards Brexit will come to disappoint the 69% of constituent supporters of ‘Remain’.

After the result was announced, Dent Coad, who was backed to the chagrin of a number of locals by Gina Miller’s ‘Best for Britain’ campaign, told those assembled:

“This constituency is a microcosm of everything that is wrong in this country after seven years of incompetent and uncaring coalition and Tory government”.

“I will do everything in my power in the next five years to make ‘One Kensington’ an example of the finest qualities of common humanity, mutual respect for all our communities and social justice to create a thoughtful, kind, co-operative and tolerant society where we can all prosper and thrive”.

Ousted Lady Borwick spoke briefly and added: “I wish Emma every success, but please be assured, as far as I am concerned, tomorrow I start the fight back for Kensington and the Conservatives”.

On Twitter, actor and local resident John Cleese responded: “Metro, The Mirror and the Evening Standard are blaming me for helping Labour’s chances in Kensington and Chelsea [sic]. Delighted my trick worked…”

Elsewhere, in response to an article published in April in The Steeple Times, a reader and associate of Lady Borwick going only by the name “Daniel M.’ remarked:

“You stupid, stupid people. You have destroyed Victoria Borwick’s majority and you should realise the impact that will have on the area. We do not suit Labour representing us and as someone who has worked with Victoria and knows her well I will tell you this: Shame on you Matthew Steeples. I am disgusted by your vendetta and demand you apologise”.

Ignoring this bitter Tory’s diatribe, Matthew Steeples concluded:

“Annabel Mullin deserves a worthy mention for having increased the Liberal Democrats’ share of votes cast from just 6.6% to 12.2% in spite of having no party structure behind her. Unlike machined up to the hilt Borwick and Dent Coad, she campaigned throughout the electoral area and now, as before, we have a constituency divided between the richer Tory south and the poorer Labour north”.

“Kensington might be perceived as the land of supercars and £120 million houses, but in fact, this is an area with a rife problem of homelessness and an area where people ‘buy-to-leave’ rather than to ‘buy-to-let’ let alone ‘buy-to-live’. Independent, locals businesses are being wiped out here and nowhere is it clearer that ‘money park London’ just cannot be allowed to continue unabated”.

“Emma Dent Coad, undoubtedly, secured an amazing win but it now remains to be seen whether she’ll represent ‘the many’ throughout Kensington or just ‘the cleverly focused few’ she so successfully targeted to secure her victory last night”.

Results (with percentage change from 2015 General Election):

Electorate – 60,594

Turnout – 38,677 (63.8%)

Majority – 20 for Labour (previously 7,361 for the Conservatives)

Emma Dent Coad, Labour Party– 16,333 (+11.1%)

Lady Borwick, Conservative Party – 16,313 (-10.1%)

Annabel Mullin, Liberal Democrats – 4,724 (+6.6%)

Jennifer Nadel, Green Party – 767 (-3.1%)

James Torrance, Independent – 393 (+1%)

Peter Marshall, Independent – 98 (+0.3%)

John Lloyd, Alliance for Green Socialism – 49 (-0.2%)

Pictured above: Ex-MP Lady Borwick with Theresa May; Emma Dent Coad after her victory on Friday

June 10, 2017