Our values guide the way we monitor, interpret and share political developments.
We began life as Randall’s Parliamentary Service in 1976 and acquired the Newspoint Agency, based in the Parliamentary Press Gallery of the House of Commons, in 2004.
We renamed ourselves “Randall’s Monitoring” in October 2015.
Our values have underpinned our service from the very beginning and will always do so.
How it all started.
In the early 1970’s Heather Christine Randall began to work for Betty Harvie Anderson, the MP for Renfrewshire East who in 1979 became Baroness Skrimshire of Quarter OBE, of Dunipace in the District of Falkirk.
She moved on to start monitoring under the auspices of the Young and Rubicam agency, before moving to Robin Page at Newspoint, the first independent news agency in the Houses of Parliament (which Randall’s would acquire in later years).
She set up her own business, Randall’s Parliamentary Service, in 1976.
She had a strong partnership with Brussels law firm Stanbrook and Hooper, combining monitoring for London clients the activities of the newly-joined EEC with monitoring of Westminster. Stanbrook and Hooper was founded by Clive Stanbrook, the son of the Conservative MP for Orpington Ivor Stanbrook, and renowned judge and former professor of law Anthony Hooper. Heather married Anthony in the early 1980’s, and became Lady Hooper when he was knighted in 1985.
Changing of the guard.
As the business continued to grow, MoD fast track civil servant Patrick Robathan and Brussels journalist Chris Tuohy joined Heather in the mid 1980’s. Patrick and Chris took over the business when Heather retired in 1994.
Patrick stood down from the day to day running of the company in 2022 but remains a Partner in the parent company, and very much a wise counsel within the business.
Chris passed away in 2021 aged just 57 after being diagnosed with stomach cancer in 2018. It is no exaggeration to say that he is irreplaceable. He had many talents other than political punditry, including an irrational obsession with Queens Park Rangers, an uncanny ability to recommend the right wine for any occasion and a skill with a camera lens and an eye for a great shot that would make many a professional photographer jealous. Many of the pictures were of the fauna and flora of the South Downs, where he and his wife, Sarah loved to spend time together (and Chris went to forage for wild garlic).
His father, BBC and ITV journalist Denis Tuohy, used one of his Richmond Park photos on the cover of his memoir , which is dedicated to Chris’ memory and includes a poem Chris wrote shortly before his death.
Randall’s today.
Randall’s Parliamentary Service acquired the Newspoint Agency, based in the Parliamentary Press Gallery of the Commons, in 2004.
In 2007, Randall’s Parliamentary Service was formally incorporated at Companies House.
In 2017 we changed our name to Randall’s Monitoring to reflect the reality that we were spending almost as much time monitoring broader political and stakeholder content as on purely parliamentary monitoring.
Now a fully remote business in this post-Covid era, Randall’s today continues to thrive with a new generation of political and parliamentary experts working with ten times the number of clients of 50 years ago.
Why a quatrefoil?
After the fire of 1834, which destroyed most of the Palace of Westminster, a competition was held to find an architect to design the new building. The winner was Charles Barry, who teamed up with Augustus Welby Pugin, initially as a draughtsman and who later went on to design the interiors of the new Palace of Westminster.
The quatrefoil, a decorative framework consisting of a symmetrical shape which forms the overall outline of four partially overlapping circles of the same diameter, is a hallmark of the Gothic style and is used extensively throughout the palace’s interior and exterior. It is in the estimated 75,000 encaustic floor tiles originally cast by Minton’s of Stoke-on-Trent and laid between 1847 to 1852, as well as carved panelling, wallpaper designs, painted and gilded ceilings and a huge range of furniture. Historic elements, such as surviving timber ceiling shields from the medieval Painted Chamber, also feature quatrefoil designs.
Those patterns are also woven into the intricate Gothic design of Westminster Bridge. Opened in 1862 and designed by Thomas Page with Charles Barry, the bridge was intentionally styled to match the nearby Houses of Parliament.
No one can be sure of where the quatrefoil originated, but the earliest known use of the quatrefoil motif is said to be in northern Mesopotamia.
The quartrefoil has many iterations and claimed meanings.
In Christianity, the symbol was adopted to represent the four gospels of the bible: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and is also seen as a representation of the cross.
In Native America, the quatrefoil is a representation of their ‘Holy four corners of the Earth’ – North, East, South and West.
For Randall’s, we wanted our first logo to reflect the four interwoven elements that all contribute to making Randall’s unique:
- Parliament
- Politics
- Policy
- People
In our view, the quatrefoil does just that.
