We tend to think of Richmond as a middle-class, leafy and affluent borough, but the leader of the council is keen to stress that, like many places in London, it also has some real areas of deprivation.

Councillor Gareth Roberts said it is up to the council to “reach out” to the poorer communities in the borough to try and make their lives better.

“What we don’t want to have, as a council, is a community which has been left behind,” he said.

“Communities which are left behind become isolated, they become disenfranchised, and unfortunately, on the grander national scale, and I’m going to use the word, that’s how Brexit started. It was this idea that there was a wealthy, privileged few who were being looked after all the time. Those people who had nothing felt that they had to form a protest in some way.

“I don’t want that to happen in Richmond, I want everybody to want to be able to live in Richmond to be proud to live in Richmond, and to be able to afford to live in Richmond,” he said.

Cllr Roberts said he is particularly proud of reversing the council’s policy on council tax. Under the previous adminisration people who were on full benefits still had to pay 15 per cent of their council tax.

“You’re making the choice between children’s school uniform, whether they can afford to buy their children shoes, or whether they can’t afford to buy that heating or eating,” he said.

“I think that the people in Richmond recognised that, to a certain extent, they’re in the fortunate position, and that they’re more than happy to see some of that council tax go to support those people who can’t support themselves,” he said.

He also criticised the borough’s Conservative MP and called on him to resign for supporting the Heathrow expansion and no-deal Brexit.

Cllr Roberts said he was “disappointed” that Zac Goldsmith accepted a role on Boris Johnson’s cabinet in September. 

“The vast majority of the borough said they didn’t want to see any more expansion of Heathrow, We want a better Heathrow, not a bigger Heathrow, and that’s achievable. We have across party unanimity on this issue within the council chamber.

“I think it’s disappointing that Zac Goldsmith has taken a cabinet position, which means that he will now have to adopt collective cabinet responsibility on this issue, which means that he has once again gone against the views of the people of Richmond Park and of Kingston.”

“He’s done it once on Brexit, where he’s a vocal supporter of the no deal approach, and now he’s effectively part of the government that has a legislative agenda to expand Heathrow. If he had a modicum of decency, then he should resign because you can’t pick and choose when you’re a member of cabinet, a minister, or a minister attending cabinet, you can’t pick and choose what you’re going to support.”

Richmond has been highlighted as a key Liberal Democrat target in a future general election.

When asked about his own political ambitions, Cllr Roberts said he would consider becoming an MP in the future, but ruled out standing in the next election:

“I think anybody that has an interest in politics would be lying if they said that they didn’t have maybe an ambition at some point in the future. I have to be fully honest. I’ve taken the Lib Dem exams. I’m now an accredited parliamentary candidate, and I’m not looking for a seat at the next election, whenever it’s called, however, at some point in the future, yes. Why not?”

Speaking about the recent spats over the consultation for the Low Traffic Neighbourhood scheme in East Sheen, Cllr Roberts said councillors should be “setting an example” and had tried to rein in his own behaviour on Twitter:

“In the past I have been slightly more aggressive than I should have been. I’ve used intemperate phrases, and this is what happens in Parliament as well as in the council chamber. 

“By the time people get the chance to stand up in the chamber some of them will be like the little tinder boxes ready to go any second. So yes, I can understand how passions run high.”

However, he criticised some of the language used at last month’s full council meeting: “I think that it doesn’t help when we have frankly ludicrous accusations being made by people who should know better suggesting that there’s bribery and chicanery going on somehow in order to provide a few yes votes for the Low Traffic Neighbourhood. I thought that was absolutely disgraceful.”