https://cabnet.richmond.gov.uk/mgElectionElectionAreaResults.aspx?EID=500000006&RPID=621662155 - outcome added.
election-richmond-park
A national social care budget, read-out in parliament like the NHS budget, ring-fenced, transparent. How to get one of the top two candidates to agree to this in an election? Stand and offer to stand-down if one agrees?
Sunday, 3 May 2026
What the council parties stand for in Richmond on Thames
Wednesday, 3 July 2024
Manifesto links
- https://www.libdems.org.uk/manifesto
- https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Labour-Party-manifesto-2024.pdf - not sure where the text version is; this is the pdf for a big screen
- https://greenparty.org.uk/about/our-manifesto/
- https://manifesto.conservatives.com/ - I was going to write three or four pithy lines here but you can write your own.
- Also ran...
Reform and SDP who sometimes have an electoral pact but compete here, as does the Mitre Pub
Explanation of the blog: draw attention to the need for a single social care budget
This constituency used to be a marginal - there were only 45 votes in it a few years ago, so the idea of a spoiler candidate who could offer to resign on conditions was an OK one. It didn't take-off on the strength of a few blogspot pages but there was no harm in trying.
This blog was meant to promote a single adult social care budget years ago, and part of it has happened but councils are still meant to top it up and can't afford to, even if it was a good idea for local voters to decide how much goes on social care, which it isn't. I mean: if you insure your car and have an accident in Richmond, you don't want to be told "we pay out a different amount in Richmond because local people don't like garages". If the system was like that you wouldn't want to pay-in.
https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/insight-and-analysis/data-and-charts/key-facts-figures-adult-social-care
Friday, 28 June 2024
The Mitre TW9 often hosts singer singwriters on Sundays
By Emma Fradgley - then cut and pasted here without permission
A south London publican who registered his pub as a political party, and is running as the sole candidate for the bar in the General Election, said he will “definitely get one vote” – from himself.
The owner of The Mitre pub in Richmond, Chris French, 47, had a brainwave 12 months ago and decided to run as an MP for Richmond Park in Greater London in order to get publicity for his establishmen. He told the PA news agency: “Our little pub that we have in Richmond is a lovely little pub and all the time we hear, ‘I’ve been living in Richmond for 20 years, and I didn’t even know this pub existed
Chris French, 47, owner of The Mitre pub in Richmond (Image: PA)
“That got me thinking, how do you get out to people, and then about 12 months ago, I stumbled across that if I actually registered to run in the election, I would actually get the free advertising on 77,000 ballot papers.”
Mr French, who has owned The Mitre for more than eight years, would be happy with a small number of votes and is not optimistic about his chances of unseating sitting MP Sarah Olney of the Liberal Democrats.
“I’ll be voting for myself so at least then I definitely get one vote,” he said.
“Now whether Gillian (Craigie) my partner votes for me, I’m not too sure. If I only get one vote, it might be quite a frosty evening.
The Mitre, Richmond (Image: PA)
"Hopefully I’ll get two votes.”
Asked about the hypothetical contents of his pub’s manifesto, Mr French laughed.
“I don’t know.
"Maybe close all the other pubs down in Richmond.
"Cut beer duty on The Mitre to maybe one pence and put everybody else up to 50 pence,” he joked.
Mr French said he would be “absolutely chuffed” if he got at least 5 per cent of the vote, as this would mean the £500 deposit candidates are required to pay would be returned to him.
“It’s a small business and £500 is a lot of money,” he said.
The Mitre, Richmond (Image: PA)
If elected, he would celebrate with an alcohol-free shandy, he added, as he stopped drinking alcohol three years ago.
The pub staff “probably rolled their eyes” at “another crazy idea” from him, he said, adding that Ms Craigie was “100 per cent behind it”.
He said: “She hears some crazy things from me all the time, so it was probably just another one of those hare-brained ideas that I’ve had.”
Local people have started asking Mr French about his plans for the General Election as word has got out that he is standing.
“People are slowly starting to find out and they love it.
"It’s only been positive.
"They love the idea.
"There’s not been a single word of negativity about it,” he said.
Ultimately, Mr French wants to grow his business, saying: “If it gets an extra two people in, I’m happy.
“It’s so hard these days to get people through the door.
"Maybe just doing something that’s completely out there like this is the one thing that might get me an extra two people in through the door.”
The publican said he is not political and does not typically vote, with his interests lying more in “music and football”.
“I’m not political and I don’t want to start treading on people’s toes because at the end of the day, I’m just a publican with a crazy idea to advertise his pub,” he said.
“I don’t think I’d be very popular with the other local politicians if the people voted in a pub landlord over a politician.”
Asked whether he was encouraging people to vote for him on July 4, he said: “I’d rather them come down and start spending some money in the pub than vote for me to be honest.”
PA has contacted Sarah Olney for comment.
Sunday, 8 December 2019
Manifesto links
They came a day or two ago, slightly different to the usual leaflets, and most were A5 gloss.
The manifestos are about 100 sides of A4, 50 sheets, 25 sheets if reduced to 2-up on a printer, and are in chapters so it's possible do do a one or two sheets at a time. The liberals ought to be ahead on this because they are capable of using a printing press which is in a garage workshop near Mortlake station - sometimes you can see them doing it - and can print at least up to A3. A lot of the volunteer activists are able to afford Epson eco-tank printers and buy cheap ink by the litre to print on paper at around a penny a sheet in supermarkets or in ebay.
Unfortunately the party activists have delivered exactly zero pages or their manifesto, dispite a taxpayer payment for one mailout. It's possible to read online or print-out, but if not many of us do it, what's the point?
I printed out the liberal manifesto on 2-up double-sided and might have read it to the end.
I googled the conservative manfesto and had a look.
I tried to find the labour "gray book" online but didn't.
Anyway, anyone who votes in Richmond on Thames is going to vote Liberal or Conservative if they want to effect the result.
-----------------------------------libdem looks good in parts
https://www.libdems.org.uk/plan with costings, plain text version, audio version, quick read version
https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/libdems/pages/57307/attachments/original/1574876236/Stop_Brexit_and_Build_a_Brighter_Future.pdf?1574876236
...liberal manifesto with all the graphics
-----------------------------------conservative says "trust is" in effect: it's a tabloid slogan page
https://vote.conservatives.com/our-plan slogans and photos with links at the bottom
https://assets-global.website-files.com/5da42e2cae7ebd3f8bde353c/5dda924905da587992a064ba_Conservative%202019%20Manifesto.pdf
...conservative manifesto with all the graphics.
-------------------------------------hustings
https://www.richmondandtwickenhamtimes.co.uk/news/18073636.everything-need-know-richmond-park-hustings/
If the people who find the conservative party insisted on getting a manifesto delivered for the money, they would be doing the electorate a favour and the liberals would have to follow.
-------------------------------------aftermath
Now the election is over, here are some others
http://web.archive.org/web/20191121170649/https://www.birkenheadsocialjusticeparty.com/key-pledges - Frank Field's site won him over 7,000 votes against 17,000 for the Labour and Momentum candidate. Like Frank Field, The Independent Group for Change had Lib Dem candidates standing against it which says something about how tribal the Lib Dem party is.
https://voteforchange.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/2020-Vision-The-Independent-for-Change.pdf
Sunday, 14 July 2019
East Sheen Ward by Election
elections_voting_and_registration/
east_sheen_ward_by_election
Whocanivotefor.co.uk/elections/local.richmond-upon-thames.2019-07-18/richmond-upon-thames-local-election/
Mainstream issues:
Social care-
57% of the council budget does not seem to be enough - default care agencies do not have stars on their Care Quality Commission reports and work for half-hour split shifts. Under another party, the council chose a care agency classed as Dangerous by the Care Quality Commission and the issue wasn't just lack of money - the regime had money for a brass band and a grant to Friends of Barnes Common. Meanwhile, Curacare who have a star now have an office in East Sheen, and Jardine Care (who have the Home Instead franchise) have moved-in on the turf as well. Helping Hands of Richmond town centre have a higher rate of pay which is encouraging and maybe that should be a factor in choosing default homecare providers too.Education near where children live -
Richmondinclusiveschools.org.uk
Lack of cash -
When there is no money, invest some. It would be good if the council found a way to borrow cheaply and lend at a higher rate. Meanwhile, some way of explaining council budgets more clearly on the Richmond.gov.uk website would be good for democracy. I'm happy go through details with anyone who is interested, although I don't have a good solution.Local issues: -
Barnes Common -
Friends of Barnes Common used public money to make the common less safe for people cruising, and increase the chances of mugging by cutting down trees and reducing shadow. If you walk from Rocks Lane car park past the sports ground into the common, you will see tree stumps feet wide with dozens or hundreds of summer rings; these won't grow back quickly. There are piles of wood chippings from cleared bushes, cut by a council contractor lent to the Friends who got a council grant to pay. Richmond LBGT forum were not aware of this at the time, but the Friends had just been on a visit to Friends of Tower Hamlets Cemetery who have a blog post about how to reduce cruising - "put up a sign saying that we know what's going on ... not welcome ... take litter home" was one quote along with the idea of cutting-down cover- "think about lines of sight", the Tower Hamlets web site said. "Most informative", said a blog post from Friends of Barnes Common.Some method needs to be found to prevent these people getting public money again in their present form, and to counter the argument that a few local people or a bit of litter are more important than a rare cruising ground much used at night. I've put the Friends of Barnes Common's current position at the bottom of this blog post.
Parking and car clubs during the Barnes Hospital development -
I suggest that anyone near a controlled parking zone is allowed a discount on parking permits for P2P car club cars that they own. I live in an area without controlled parking, yet, but I hope those inside the zone get dozens of new car club cars in their areas rather than parking just outside the zone until my own neighbours vote for parking permits.
Some cars are used privately and as hire cars. That's fine - it makes better use of parking space than a zone for each purpose. The discount could be paid one year late, based on evidence from the previous year to show how many times the car was hired-out to people not otherwise insured to drive it, or in practice how many agency trips the car took, and I am sure that the P2P car hire agencies could supply a spreadsheet by number-plate and numbers of hires or hours hired. If a car is hired-out 50 times a year, I suggest that it gets a 100% refund of last years' parking permit, but other people might have better ideas. It's common for hire cars to go-out most weekends in summer but maybe there is some subtlety about trying to clear car parking space on weekday mornings,
no list of locally active car clubs attachedsuch as P2P car hire like Hiyacar Drivy or Turo
or fleet-owned car clubs like Co-Wheels or Ubeeqo
no list of local car hire services attached
no list of local bike hire services attached
maybe a link to a council web page is the answer if someone can update it with new P2P schemes which change often - maybe a wiki page? |
I suggest that the sign posts saying "car club permit holders only" on car club bays are changed to list all car clubs and cycle hire schemes known to operate nearby, starting with the one like Zipcar that's allocated the space. That could lead to greater use of car clubs and more parking space. In fact I have started doing that already, but I am a bit biased towards the car club that rents-out my own car, so a more neutral scheme would be better.
Hammersmith Bridge closed while waiting for TFL funding over £40m -
(1) why have assembly members if they don't have a veto over the mayor's grand plans?
(2) why £40+ million?
The non-Richmond issue is democracy at the Greater London Assembly, which is a bit like democracy at the European Parliament: assembly members have no veto over the mayor's grand designs for millennium domes or demolishing factories for Olympic sports days or cycle superhighways or London Fashion Week which shows Chinese fashion or even the mayor's backing for a third runway at Heathrow.. I like cycle superhighways but the crunch comes when there is no money to mend a bridge but a similar budget can be spent on cycle lanes. We need assembly members who will protest or walk-out until the mayor allows them to veto budgets. Otherwise we will get another Millenium Dome or Olympics or London Fashion Week; we will get more plans to knock down factories to increase employment, all justified by careful reports from London Economics, and all of them unjustifiable but it won't matter because they'll go-through anyway.
The part-Richmond issue is why cracks in the far left pillar happened and why they cost over £40m to fix. A meeting was called for Richmond residents to talk to TFL face to face. It was so packed that a second meeting had to follow straight away. So face-to-face meetings aren't ideal. I suggest some kind of software that can assemble all questions on a similar theme like "can there be another bridge built next to the old one?" and the reply like "we can't find space on the river bank"; "can this bridge be stored in case someone wants it while a bigger one is built?" and a reply like "the chains go a long way under the banks so it's hard to re-create in another place".
My own question to TFL would be whether aluminium could be poured into the pillars to make them solid and fill any cracks, and whether shock absorbents could be put under the deck and on top of the pillars so that sharp jolts of stress are averaged-out before they crack more pillars. I think I saw some online consultation software that allows loads of people to put points of view, which could be better than a crowded face to face meeting.
https://www.richmondandtwickenhamtimes.co.uk/news/17749443.meet-east-sheen-by-election-hopefuls-want-represent-area/
Julia Cambridge
CAMBRIDGE Julia 53A Sheen Lane, East Sheen, SW14 8AB Liberal Democratstrlibdems.org.uk/east_sheen_ward
Margaret Edward
EDWARD Helen Margaret 17 Baronsmead Road, London, SW13 9RR The Conservative Party
richmondboroughconservatives.org.uk/east-sheen-ward
Giles Oakley
OAKLEY Giles 22 Coval Road, London, SW14 7RL Labour Partyhttps://www.richmondparklabour.org.uk/latest-news/2019/06/25/labour-selects-giles-oakley-to-contest-east-sheen-by-election/
Trixie Rawlinson
RAWLINSON Trixie (Address in Richmond upon Thames) Women`s Equality Partyhttps://www.facebook.com/WEPRichmond/
I'll send a copy of this to each candidate although I can quite see why the runner-up candidates wouldn't want to do hours of work reading it and I don't expect them to reply. I don't know if the main candidate(s) give it a read and I hope to get a chance to meet one of them - maybe after the election.
I'm happy to change the postal address for a web page or add one.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Friends of Barnes Common current position 26 May 2019
Wednesday, 22 May 2019
Notes to self: who is standing for london in europe 2019?
... gives a list of who has a chance, and the other links show also-rans who might be worth encouraging and to help them keep their deposits.
Democraticdashboard.com/location/postcode/SW148BP shows pictures of the candidates.
Whocanivotefor.co.uk/elections/SW14%208BP shows them listed by party and links to the eu results page which cannot be bothered to name candidates - the BBC had to unearth names

The BBC found election results the next day,
but no outcomes for the nearly-got-ins and also-rans
- LIBERAL DEMOCRAT
- LIBERAL DEMOCRAT
- LIBERAL DEMOCRAT
- LABOUR
- LABOUR
- THE BREXIT PARTY
- THE BREXIT PARTY
- GREEN
Votes make made the most difference to these people being elected
Loisa Porrit, https://www.linkedin.com/in/luisa-porritt-29521525/ got in unexpectedly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luisa_Porritt
Katy Clark of Labour is in with a bigger chance and will probably get-in given recent news
Dinesh Dhamija of the Liberals, e-bookers, and a large donor charity is in with a bigger chance
Lance Foreman of an smoked salmon company and Brexit is in with a bigger chance
Linkedin says that she rents-out shared office space and has this idea
Through the use of our 360° immersive films and Virtual Reality headsets, our training and recruitment model for adoption and fostering allows parents and carers to experience life from the perspective of the child. This unique approach to tackling issues around children’s social care is ground-breaking and offers a different way to understand the impact of attachment and trauma – through the eyes of the child.
There are some also-ran candidates to vote for to show that they have support and maybe save their deposits, in alphabetical order
bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-48081347
Animal Welfare Party - Vanessa Hudson says that it is a party that keeps ideas going where other party's interest is much more patchy. If by fluke she did get in she could be a good influence in Europe
youtube.com/watch?v=lCpw0UQLO4g
Theukeuparty.org - Remain, good description of the referendum, usual "heart of" phrases about full membership, not much about the cost of it of chance of reforming it. They don't believe the £350 million quote for costs nor give a link to say why they don't believe it.
Womens Equality - Catherine Mayer - womensequality.org.uk/cm4eu
-
I had a look at some independent names. Five of them share a Climate Emergency campaign.
Claudia McDowell, Daze Aghaji, Henry Muss, Zoe Lafferty, Roger Hallam climateemergencyindependents.co.uk. Some of them students.
Ian Snowden , iansowden.eu/after-we-win - irritatingly sure what to do with my taxes, but it's nice that someone so ugly and irritating can have "friends all across europe". If he can do it, maybe even a blogger like me is in with a chance.
These candidates did not even provide irritating information to Who Can I Vote For.
Kofi Klu - word soup - youtube.com/watch?v=Q1jrS8FKV4c - might possibly be a comedian doing this as a prank. youtube has the first 900 words of his interview as a transcript. There are no words like "national insurance", "national assistance", "unemployment pay", "school", "health", "tax", "law", "house", "bus", or anything like that.
Mike Shad - no information but a twitter account. Remainer. After the election I found a youtube video of Mr Shad and his drawing room furniture and was intrigued to know where he got it. It was like an interview with the Shah of Iran or someone like that. He kept the message to one thing - remain - and to 152 viewers so I left a comment recommending democraticdashboard and whocanIvotefor. Now it turns-out that there are three videos, one in another language, and Mikeshad.org leading to a flyer and list of a dozen points here
https://www.mikeshad.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/A5-LS.pdf
youtube.com/channel/UC4oS6dTy_jEp1y7zM6WJblw
After the election I saw that the flyer is backed by a persian-uk magazine:
http://deevan.co.uk/component/flippingbook/book/136-may-2019/9-4in1-col-2?Itemid=1660
After watching those youtube videos, youtube directed me to someone arguing against candidates in elections because old-fashioned and sometimes against party policy or even independent of parties, and another video interviewing John Clees. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULfqhCNHQPA
Alan Kirkby no information but a yahoo email so he may unfortunately have been locked in a cupboard or eaten by one of the rival candidates. I emailed the account to ask if there is a web site, but
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Thu, 23 May, 12:57 (4 days ago)
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Fw: Alan Kirkby Indy- Do you have a web link to say what you stand for? - Update 2
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Representative democracies: Types of democracy
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Tuesday, 26 March 2019
Which party has the most nasty incompetent ministers? (or shadow ministers)
The party that can vet prospective MPs and ministers for talent ought to get more votes in elections.
I don't think any of the big political parties quite gets this point and I don't know how voters or even party members or donors can make it true or important to the selection process.
That's all this post says, with evidence below, so I will change the subject to something topical - some online voting systems that might suit committees and societies, searched-out a decade ago and maybe no longer working
Free online vote systems come-&-go over time. Some of the sites that come-up on a Google search are government funded papers that never get to the point and list dozens of dud links. There are also free commercial sites, sometimes ugly with adverts or short-lived. Sites that offer surveys with roughly one vote per computer tend to come-up on the same google searches as these rarer voting sites that offer roughly one vote per code from the vote-holder's list, such as a reference on the electoral roll, a membership number, or a code that has been posted or emailed.
- http://www1.sztaki.hu/servlets/voting : also via voting.sztaki.hu Both temporally offline since June 2018 although still mentioned on https://dsd.sztaki.hu/products/voting so maybe they can say where to download the somewhere and whether it works on something like Windows or needs a free webserver or similar stack of programs around it to run.
- Ballotbin.com was the next link found. Free so no excuse not to use.
A web link about socks is run by the same group of companies as
- Votefair.org third (fullranking.com for committee decision votes used to be attached). Free so no excuse not to use except looks. The site posts a link to the github site where you can download votefair ranking software free, and to http://www.negotiationtool.com/ with useful points about negotiation on the same site and claims that it can help with selection of ministers by MPs or with employment disputes. I have not tested either claim
Delib.co.uk/products_and_services/opinion-suite - an open source collection of deliberative software, whatever that is. There may be free versions but they must think that full time politicians have got more money than sense because one of the packaged products - My Election - has a price guide of £5,000.
A web link about socks is run by the same group of companies as
Delib.co.uk/products_and_services/opinion-suite - an open source collection of deliberative software, whatever that is. There may be free versions. Their ready set-up version - My Election - has a price guide of £5,000.
I don't ask you to read the rest of this post unless you believe that ministers are competent. It is a story like something out of That's Life with Estha Rantzen but it's here as evidence of the state of UK ministries and ministers for anyone in doubt, who has missed recent TV documentaries and has not tried to do business with the worst tax-funded agencies.
Independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/companies-house-fraud-whistleblower-prosecuting-kevin-brewer-vince-cable-a8307246.html is a story of extraordinary nastyness and incompetence reported in an official statement by Andrew Griffeths. MP ("a strong voice for Burton and Uttoxeter"), sponsored by JCB Escavators and Business Fore. You can read how he votes for Burton Uttoxeter and JCB Escavators on Theyworkforyou.com .
Last year my bad memory - damaged by an NHS mistake - landed me in trouble when I tried to rely on Companies House reminders to file my zero-turnover accounts. The reminder email told me that if I had four days to file accounts with an authentication code, that would take at least five days to provide.
I emailed Zac Goldsmith MP to ask him if he could please ask the minister for Companies House to write a thoughtful reply - not just a brush-off by a civil servant - about whether the system could be changed. The request was certainly passed-on; Zac Goldsmith is a helpful and well organised MP., and he confirmed passing-on the request. No reply came from the ministry. Luckily my appeal against a fine was granted at some cost to me and the civil service in time and hassle. It was an odd system by which you lodge an appeal, hear nothing for ages, and then get a letter saying "OK".
Today I received the same email again, with the same 4 day deadline and 5 day response time for providing authentication codes. Last year I think it took nine days for the code to reach the registered office. There's no reason to think it will be quicker this time.
10am Tuesday 26 March to 7am Wednesday 27 March.
After a morning's search, I have found the code, which is lucky. The email says that the fine will be double if I do not submit my accounts in time, because I was late last year.
I imagine that the civil servants responsible for the story in The Independent are still in the same jobs and on the same high pay scales. The ministers for Companies House now seem to be Kelly Tollhurst working for Greg Clark, and they don't seem better than the dozens who have gone before.
On the same subject of government breaking-down, last night's Panorama was about some schools where trusts simply take the money for senior staff and bills can't be paid. The minister responsible gave a brief interview with a prepared brush-off statement.
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Your accounts are dueNONLEATHER DISTRIBUTION LTD | 10285177
Your accounts for 1 August 2017 to 31 July 2018 are due
To avoid a penalty, we must receive acceptable accounts by
30 April 2019 | |
Last year this company failed to deliver its accounts by the deadline.
If accounts are filed late this year, the late filing penalty will be doubled.
| |
You must file accounts even if your company is dormant. You only need to send us one copy of your accounts.
| |
Most companies save time and money by filing online
Choose an option that suits your business.
1. Directly on our website
https://www.gov.uk/file-your-company-annual-accounts
You'll need your company number and authentication code:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/company-authentication-codes-for-online-filing
2. If you use an agent or accountant to file your accounts
Contact your agent or accountant and encourage them to file online.
3. Use software filing
Choose a software provider that allows easy online filing: https://www.gov.uk/company-filing-software | |
8 out of 10 companies file online
| |
How to file accounts and avoid a penalty:
https://www.gov.uk/prepare-file-annual-accounts-for-limited-company
Check your company details using the Companies House service:
https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/10285177
If your company's not trading and you want to remove it from the register, close your company:
https://www.gov.uk/closing-a-limited-company
To contact us, email enquiries@companieshouse.gov.uk
Yours faithfully,
John-Mark Frost Head of Service Delivery | |
Company authentication codes for online filing
Last updated 5 September 2018 — see all updates
- From:
- Companies House

