From The Citizen’s customary front-row perch on the Town Hall press bench, John Cookson looks on wryly as Kensington and Chelsea’s civic grandees gather beneath fibre optic chandeliers to perform one of local government’s oldest rituals — the solemn appointment of a brand new mayor.

To the Town Hall in Hornton Street. A building possessing all the reassuring charm of an East German embassy crossed with a 1970s insurance headquarters. Designed by the late Sir Basil Spence in the full flush of Brutalist confidence, it rises over Kensington like a red-brick battleship that accidentally docked in one of the richest postcodes on Earth.

It was a sweltering evening in W8 but inside the cavernous council chamber there prevailed the cool hush of refrigerated privilege. 

The air-conditioning purred away like the former municipal Bentley while councillors — tails up after the local election results — milled in cheerful little knots exchanging gossip, handshakes and the sort of booming bonhomie that flourishes whenever one’s seat has just been safely retained.

Friends, relations and assorted civic hangers-on occupied rows of gilt-backed chairs that looked as though they may have been borrowed from a Kensington wedding venue midway through canapé service.

Greetings over, councillors eased well-turned-out backsides into the chamber’s leather chairs behind a vast horseshoe of leather-topped desks, each furnished with its own microphone and enough buttons to launch a NASA moon shot.

But this was no space mission. Kensington’s civic grandees had assembled for one of municipal life’s favourite rituals: the election of a new mayor.

The ideal RBKC mayor is not usually a table-thumper or ideological firebrand. Traditionally, the Royal Borough prefers its civic figureheads reassuringly upholstered, faintly clubbable and capable of unveiling a plaque without getting their fingers trapped in the ceremonial cord – the councillor least likely to get blind drunk in a Chelsea Flower Show hospitality tent.

The outgoing incumbent, youthful Cllr. Tom Bennett — still the youngest mayor in the borough’s history (playfully dubbed “Mayor Fearless” by The Citizen for his abseiling – although his wife Beatrice was first over the parapet that day) — was generally reckoned to have made a decent fist of the job.

Yet in nominating Conservative councillor Janet Evans of Courtfield ward, the ruling Tory group added a touch of Manhattan to municipal Kensington.

Cllr. Gregory Hammond introduced the Upper West Side-born Evans as “a sassy New Yorker”.

And added: “She’s been a fixture in this borough for well over 30 years. She’s nothing if not an extrovert in everything she does, puts on a good party and takes pride in her appearance.”

That prompted approving nods from the Conservative benches and more than a suggestion that the mayoral parlour might see the odd decent knees-up during the new mayor’s year in office.

Every mayor requires a spare and Somalia-born Abdullahi Nur — Labour and Co-operative member from what his leader referred to as “the republic of North Kensington” — was duly appointed deputy mayor.

After he was somewhat awkwardly manoeuvred into scarlet and black robes upon the dais, the new mayor swept into the chamber behind a mace-carrying factotum to be similarly adorned — gold chains all round.

We learned, too, that the new mayor intended to keep matters firmly in the family. Her daughter Cordelia will serve as mayoress. Whether she possesses the requisite stamina for the borough’s rubber chicken circuit remains to be seen.

Anyone expecting the “sassy New Yorker” to emerge as a right-of-centre fusion of Liza Minnelli and Judge Judy may have been left mildly disappointed. In a slightly croaky yet demure address, Evans struck a distinctly progressive note, typical of a brownstone town house on the Upper West Side.

“It is the honour of a lifetime to have been elected as mayor by my peers. I look forward to representing all our communities across the length and breadth of the borough,” she said, firmly pronouncing borough “boro”.

“My focus will be on further supporting our children and young people to thrive, as well as making sure our older residents feel respected, connected and never alone.”

Later, in the parlour, she told The Citizen that the families affected by the Grenfell Tower fire disaster would remain a priority. “They need to be heard always,” she said. “It’s important to me that their families and children are supported in education and employment.”

There was, inevitably, one slightly awkward moment as Evans concluded her opening address. A few eyebrows fluttered when she suggested deputy mayor Nur deliver his acceptance remarks “in English”. To his credit Nur allowed the moment to pass with a nervous laugh.

Electing the mayor and deputy was not the evening’s only ceremony. Conservative head girl Cllr. Elizabeth Campbell was comfortably returned for a third stint as council leader while Labour’s fiery Cllr. Monica Press became opposition leader.

At one stage during her acceptance speech Campbell grew deeply emotional, reaching for water as she paid tribute to former deputy leader Cllr. Kim Taylor-Smith, who found himself handling housing during the terrible aftermath of Grenfell.

“He did it because he cared,” she said tearfully, her voice cracking and made almost inaudible beneath the emotion. “People needed someone to show up — and he showed up.”

Then came Cllr. Press, all ginger hair, waistcoat and insurgent energy — a gust of left wing seminar room blowing through the Tory-heavy chamber. Looking directly at the new mayor, she delivered the evening’s sharpest line.

“Don’t worry Madam Mayor,” she said. “In North Kensington we speak English — with lots of accents.”