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One Kensington
On sale
22nd September 2022
Price: £21.99
From Kensington’s crusading MP, an expose of the appalling inequality at the heart of Britain’s wealthiest borough – the home of Harrods and of Grenfell Tower.
Kensington and Chelsea – one of the wealthiest spots on planet Earth – is also one of the most unequal. A short walk from Harrods, families cannot buy enough food to feed themselves. Desperate overcrowding is found in the shadow of ultraluxury property developments. A 20 minute bus ride across the borough can encompass a 30 year difference in life expectancy.
Emma Dent Coad, a councillor in Kensington and Chelsea since 2006, and has spent her life fighting for those left behind in the Royal Borough. That fight became all the more urgent when, just a few days after she was unexpectedly and triumphantly elected MP for the area, the Grenfell Tower disaster occurred, illustrating to the country and the world just how neglected the most vulnerable members of our society had become.
One Kensington lays bare the appalling degree of mismanagement and neglect that has made Kensington and Chelsea a grim symbol of an ever more divided country: a glimpse of a wider future of hollowed-out local government and cynical corruption. But through the depth of community connections and tireless political organising, it also suggests a potentially hopeful future for a new Britain.
(P) 2022 Quercus Editions Limited
Kensington and Chelsea – one of the wealthiest spots on planet Earth – is also one of the most unequal. A short walk from Harrods, families cannot buy enough food to feed themselves. Desperate overcrowding is found in the shadow of ultraluxury property developments. A 20 minute bus ride across the borough can encompass a 30 year difference in life expectancy.
Emma Dent Coad, a councillor in Kensington and Chelsea since 2006, and has spent her life fighting for those left behind in the Royal Borough. That fight became all the more urgent when, just a few days after she was unexpectedly and triumphantly elected MP for the area, the Grenfell Tower disaster occurred, illustrating to the country and the world just how neglected the most vulnerable members of our society had become.
One Kensington lays bare the appalling degree of mismanagement and neglect that has made Kensington and Chelsea a grim symbol of an ever more divided country: a glimpse of a wider future of hollowed-out local government and cynical corruption. But through the depth of community connections and tireless political organising, it also suggests a potentially hopeful future for a new Britain.
(P) 2022 Quercus Editions Limited
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Reviews
There is a lot of controlled fury in it, an absolute refusal to let go of the principles that you don't often hear
Speaks to a lost London barely recognisable in the more staid, corporate landscape today
A brutal exposé . . . written with furious personal compassion for those let down. It is a deconstruction of the culture that ultimately led to some of the failures at Grenfell Tower and is absolutely damning from start to finish
Insightful and thought provoking ... well worth reading