Kingston Tory leader's Cannes flight mystery

Kingston's Tory Council Leader, Kevin Davis is determined to change the face of the Royal Borough with a series of  developments of increasing scale, height and numbers of luxury home and decreasing numbers of affordable homes for local people. 

Kingston's jet setting Council leader

While cutting youth centres and old folks' homes and putting up the council tax he has set up a £4m fund to encourage even more of his developer friends into the borough.  So it was of little surprise that he swanned off to Cannes in March for the annual property and booze fest that is MIPIM spending more than £4,000 of taxpayer's cash in the process.

So what did he get up to during his three day, four night Riviera junket?

According to my FoI request Cllr Davis attended three dinners courtesy of Scape Group, Countryside and the City of London Corporation.  He had drinks with the President of the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry, a 'think tank' (whatever that may be) with the Mayor followed by lunch, drinks courtesy of Barrett and half an hour with ex England centre half Rio Ferdinand - who was apparently doing some sort of a double act with Housing Minister Brandon Lewis.  Strangely, Ferdinand appears to have no connection with property development whatsoever, so one can only imagine what the purpose of that meeting might have been.

To be fair to Cllr Davis, it wasn't all pleasure he also packed in a large number of meetings with the great and the good of the UK property scene including:

• Countryside Properties - based in Brentwood, Essex
• Berkeley Group - based in Cobham (one junction on the A3 from Kingston)
• Tellon Capital - based in London W1
• British Land - based in London W1 (and currently redeveloping a shopping centre 50 yards from Kingston's Guildhall)
• Atkins Global - based in Chelmsford, Essex
• Public Sector Plc - based in London N3
• Hadley Property Group - based in Covent Garden
• Bouygues Development - based in Canning Town
• Thinking Place - based in Hull
• St William Homes (Berkley) - based in SW8
• Barratt London - based in Tower Hill
• Transport for London - based in Victoria
• U + I - based in Victoria
• Anthology - based in London WC2
• Buro Happold - based in London W1
• Ktesius - based in London W1
• Downing - based in Liverpool
• Lend Lease - based in London NW1
• Ocean Village - appears to be a marina in Southampton
• Scape Group - based in Nottingham

One has to ask whether the same could have been achieved with a couple of zone 1-6 travel cards and a day return or two?

Which brings me neatly on to the most curious revelation - Cllr Davis appears to have forked out (from the public purse) £458.07 for a Nice to Cannes return flight. Now Cannes is a mere 17.5 miles from Nice airport and Cannes airport has no scheduled flights.  However there is a half-hourly helicopter service.

Azure Helicopter offer just such a service stating gushingly:

"Have you always wanted to make an entry in Cannes like a star? How about to land on the Croisette in a helicopter ? To mark the 2016 Film Festival and other events in Cannes ( MIPIM, CANNES LIONS FESTIVAL YACHTING, etc) AZUR HELICOPTER airline offers flights between Nice and Cannes in just 7 minutes, comfortably, and with stunning views on the Croisette!"

And at 160 Euro (+50 for a hold bag) each way the bill is spookily close to £458.07 once converted to good old British pounds.

According to the Cannes or Bust website the express bus takes less than an hour from Nice airport to Cannes and costs just 33 Euro return (or about 20 quid).

So did Cllr Davis 'make an entry in Cannes like a star'?  And did the poor old council tax payer stump up for it?  I think we should be told...

Edit - the kind people at the Kingston's Residents Alliance Facebook page have pointed out Ferdinand does indeed have a property connection through his initiative called the Legacy Foundation. 

Lib Dem Voice, Florence Nightingale and the ludicrous national curriculum

Lib Dem Voice has published an article praising Simon Hughes for lobbying to keep Florence Nightingale on the National Curriculum.

Now Florence Nightingale is no doubt worthy of study - anyone who invented the pie chart can't be that bad after all - but I fail to see anything other than a ludicrous level of bureaucratic micro management in this case.

No wonder government costs so much when you have teams of civil servants coming up with changes (on the whim of a minister), others consulting on them and others deciding to not to do anything.  It would be far more efficient to abolish the curriculum and the ministry for which it is such a successful make work scheme.

As Liberator magazine's Simon Titley eloquently says in the comments, "I am disappointed that neither Vlad the Impaler nor Harry Worth are included in the national curriculum, but I trust the judgement of history teachers on such matters."

Olympic torch nonsense

The second biggest news story of the day - after the unfortunate comments from Justice Secretary, Ken Clarke - is the announcement of the route of the Olympic torch. This entirely fictitious tradition will wind its tortuous way to that symbol of commercial agrandisement and drain on the public purse - the Olympic stadium - over what seems like an interminable number of weeks next summer.

The smug satisfaction that it will somehow bring the provinces into the Olympic dream as some sort of justification for their transfer payment to the capital is as bogus as it is insulting.

I hope the torch becomes the focus of public discontent at the waste and profligacy of governments that indulge ludicrous and corrupt organisations like the IOC. Sadly, I fear it won't and the olympian spin we appear to be swallowing mean the entire country outside of London will be glad of the scraps thrown at them by Lord Coe and Co.