Thanet Life

Thanet GCSE School Results 2011

2012-02-03T17:46:00.003Z

The Thanet Gazette carried a report on our local schools GCSE results today but my feeling was that it was delivered slightly out of context and so for clarity and future reference, I'm reproducing the BBC results table here.

It is, I feel, important to include two extra columns, the value added score: "A statistical measure of how well pupils are helped to progress from their starting point."

A score above 1,000 is better than the national average" and the percentage of pupils getting three A-levels or equivalent qualifications. Otherwise the significant performance differences between say the Charles Dickens which is NA and the Ursuline College which is 44, is rather lost in translation. Click on the table to expand it.

Thanet Watch

2012-02-03T10:05:00.015Z

I reluctantly parted with 20p at the newsagent in Westgate this morning for an A3 double-sided broadsheet called 'Thanet Watch.' Having had a quick read and identified the origin at Red Hall in Broadstairs, I quickly identified the 'usual suspects' behind the print and asked the lady behind the shop counter if they plan to stock Socialist Worker or the Morning Star as well. Apparently it's selling quite well, so perhaps I should run and print-off my weblog and charge 20p a copy for that too?

Last night's Cabinet at Thanet District Council had two items that I wanted to comment on here. The first was of course the football club coming again from full council for some kind of decision on a way forward for Hartsdown park and the Travelodge hotel application. Strangely though, the extra football pitch seems to be back on the agenda, "We realise that an additional football pitch is something that’s important to the club", (Cllr Poole) even after Clive Hart, dismissed the notion at the last council meeting with a fine speech about protecting green space.

I did ask if the council or its officers had received the information they had requested from Mr Piper and Margate Football Club in regards to negotiating a new lease and Cllr Poole avoided a direct answer. However, after the meeting I was told that we hadn't moved any further on the discussion since before Christmas, when I was still the Cabinet Member for planing, so the story continues. It's really time the fans started asking some searching questions of the club's owners, as more deadlines have passed and still nothing concrete appears to be happening in regard to both the detail and the constructive dialogue requested by the council in order to move forward.

I see that our new equality and diversity champion, Cllr John Worrow, who is busy attempting to reinvent himself politically, having taken down his weblog, takes heavy criticism from Mike Pearce in today's Thanet Gazette (only 65p). This takes me to the second item from last evening.

Readers will recall that Labour, with a political minority, is only in power, here in Thanet, because independents, John Worrow and Jack Cohen are keeping them there and so deals need to be done if we are to remain a beacon of socialism in a sea of Conservative councils

Outside of 'Special' responsibilities and titles, much of the hard bargaining surrounds the proposal for free parking in Birchington or more importantly that Birchington be treated differently - as a special case - to other parts of Thanet.

Over the past weeks there has been a series of meetings between the councillors, parish councillor and council officers across Thanet to discuss this issue and I attended one in Birchington this week. While Jack Cohen arrived late, John Worrow didn't turn-up for what you would think would be an important debate.

To cut a long story short, councillors across Thanet have agreed that what I describe as 'The Balkanisation' of parking is not a good idea and what we need is a consistent charging policy, applied fairly for all the towns. I say 'councillors' but with two notable exceptions.

Last night Clive Hart offered to meet with the "Two Birchington councillors" to start the process of pushing through a policy that apparently favours one part of the island over the others. He quite ignored the fact that there are more than two councillors in Birchington but if he is to remain the Leader of the Council, he needs the votes of Cllrs Cohen and Worrow. So 'sensible' and 'consistent' are two words in our local political lexicon that fly straight out of the Leader's window where those two gentlemen are concerned.

That's the nature of local politics under a minority Labour administration I'm sorry to say and I'm sure that influenced by the ambitions of Cohen and Worrow, there will be yet more strange decisions to come.

Shutter Speed

2012-02-02T14:14:00.000Z

Bitterly cold out there today and very few aircraft over the South-east as it's so windy.

I've been out doing my monthly photo survey of Essex scrap metal hoards and I thought I would share some photos for you, taken on the way home.

There's the chimney at Stoke, a million cars waiting to be loaded at Sheerness docks and of course Eastchurch prison on the isle of Sheppey, a long vacation spot that will be quite familiar to a number of Thanet's less community-spirited residents but rarely from above.

A Sainsbury Store for Westgate?

2012-02-01T14:20:00.004Z

Not Tesco this time around and as the information is now in the public domain on another local weblog, I can now report that Sainsbury have applied to build a new store at the 'Hundreds farm' site on the Canterbury Road, next-door to the Ursuline College. (area right of picture with green buildings)

This was embargoed until Friday and Sainsbury's agent called me and other local councillors yesterday to advise us of their intentions. I have already discussed the application with Cllr Brian Goodwin and Cllr Tom King of the WWRA as well as Cllr Alasdair Bruce from Birchington. Tom and I plan to meet with local traders very soon to hear their views on the matter which readers are also welcome to post here for discussion, knowing that councillors of all parties will read what they have to say.

The planned store will be approximately 12,000 sq ft (1,114 sq m). The proposals would also provide up to 90 car parking spaces.

The company writes: "Through our plans we are seeking to increase supermarket choice locally and make main food shopping more convenient for residents of Westgate-on-Sea. Our store would also create up to 150 full and part time jobs for the local community. All new jobs would be supported by Sainsbury’s 'You Can' training and development programme which enables colleagues to gain nationally recognised qualifications."

They will be holding public exhibitions at the Ursuline College, Canterbury Road at the following dates and times:

Friday 10 February, 5pm – 8pm

Saturday 11 February, 10am – 4pm

Sainsbury has an email address for local residents or traders who wish to express their views or seek further information.

Manston Night Flights

2012-01-31T07:59:00.002Z

A picture tells a thousand words and on the subject of the future of Manston airport and the night flights debate, this one tells it all.

Quite how our Labour Council Leader, Clive Hart, is going to deal with the demand on the airport to manage a constant flow of arriving and departing small jet aircraft for the summer Olympics, is anyone's guess. His letter on the subject is here, but he remains content to avoid the broader argument over the number of night movements, Labour's posturing and its wider message on the future of our airport remains as uncertain and as perilous as ever.

You can find Bob Bayford, the Conservative Group leader's response to Clive Hart's letter, here.

A Touch of Spice

2012-01-29T11:35:00.003Z

I've had very little opportunity to blog over the last week as I'm sure readers will have noticed. I did find time to have dinner with two pilot friends at the new Cinnamon and Spice Indian restaurant on Margate seafront on Friday night. Sitting watching the celebrities leaving the launch of Turner & The Elements at the Turner Contemporary on a perfect seaside evening, I found both the food and the service to be good; so worth a visit to enjoy a regenerated Margate.

I'm thinking of wandering-up to see the new exhibition at the Turner this afternoon, after all, we've waited along time to see the a series of works devoted to the great artist and I'm sure it will prove to be a great draw for the town.

Yesterday, I joined some friends from our local dojo for an away day seminar in Sussex with Kyoshi Karl Long, who had come over from the States to teach. Karl is a delightful person who exemplifies the principles of courtesy and modesty one might expect of a great martial artist and it was a privilege to have the opportunity to learn from him once again.

A group of Karate and Aikido enthusiasts will be off to Japan in April to study with Hamada Sensei and they were due for a second day, which was scheduled to start at 7am on a south-coast beach to toughen them up for what is to come. Quite frankly, I'm much too old for that kind of thing now but I admire both the, spirit, determination and the self-discipline of those that do.

I suppose everyone deserves a rest from political commentary for at least a week and anyway, we have Cabinet coming-up again very soon where the Hartsdown Park and Margate Football Club application will be back once again for determination. I think I've commented more than enough on this subject and so now we wait to see what length of lease will be awarded to the club, so good luck!

I may not be blogging as regularly as usual over the next week as I have to prepare a presentation for an upcoming NATO intelligence conference. I'm privileged to be invited to give a briefing but as the only civilian speaker present, as far as I know, I'm somewhat daunted by the challenge.

Lost and Found

2012-01-25T14:18:00.002Z

I happen to be a non-exec of a local technology company and from time to time we have some interesting visitors to the office in Minster. 'Nasty Nick' is a friend of Vic' the MD, the voice in the background and a regular guest. You can almost guarantee, I'm told, that between them they will get up to something unusual. Some good-humoured banter caught with an iPhone.

Meanwhile, I'm in London blogging on my iPad so more later perhaps!

Going Down

2012-01-22T10:28:00.010Z

I'm seeing a great many searches reaching this site for information surrounding a report of a young women being stabbed in Broadstairs and all I know about the incident is that the Police were called after an altercation between two Thanet College students, both women, at Granville Road on Friday lunchtime.

The Kent Air Ambulance flew the victim, who reportedly had serious chest wounds to the Royal London Hospital where she is in a stable condition.

I find it interesting that the newspaper story has finally broken surrounding the organised nature of Eastern European gangs and families selling The Big Issue. I came across this extended 'family business' control of the pitches in a triangle between here, Whitstable and Dover in Thanet when I was the Cabinet Member for Customer Services & Benefits and challenged an underage girl selling the magazines in Westgate. I had a very revealing chat with her and her broken English was good enough to paint a picture of how it all worked. When I contacted the Big Issue's Head Office they agreed the magazine was facing a problem but it wasn't one they couldn't do anything about because the group involved have a legal right to be in this country and a legal right to sell The Big Issue.

Last night I had dinner with an old friend, a prominent figure from the diving industry who is visiting from the States. Catching-up with what happened to many of our mutual friends over the years, I asked him if 'Captain B' was still in business, the man who first taught me deep, mixed gas wreck diving twenty years ago.

Apparently 'B', with his world-class reputation as a wreck diver, was asked to investigate a side scan sonar anomaly, which showed a non-ferrous metal mass, 400 feet down on the seabed, a very challenging Trimix dive indeed. He dropped down the shot line onto the spot, which turned-out to be a large concreted mass of gold coins. He surfaced a very rich man, promptly sold his dive business and hasn't been seen since. I had to laugh and wish him well; a real pirate made good!

So much of the ground-breaking kit we used to wear and use in the old days - pictured - is now obsolete and sitting in my attic, pink hood included. Twenty years ago, rebreathers were an exercise in dicing with death because the software to control the gas mixture was very much in its infancy, now they are safe and state of the art and Suunto even do a Trimix dive computer that doubles as a wristwatch.

Looking at the half submerged hull of the Italian cruise liner on the news, the difficult job of the search divers can't be underestimated.

Lots of recreational divers have dropped on to wrecks lying on the seabed but not that many go on penetration dives. Some twenty years ago, I dived on the Zenobia, a 'Roll-on Roll-off' ferry that sank at the entrance to Larnaca harbour, lying on her side in 138 feet of water. I was invited by the company that controlled the wreck to go down with them through a hatch on the bow into the inner car-deck and access the ship from there and I confess that it was one of the stranger experiences of my life, much like a scene from the Richard Cameron movie, 'The Abyss' as wearing bright dive lights, we lit-up the interior and passed rows of Volvo trucks parked-up and tied down where they were abandoned.

How on earth one searches through a ship the size of Concordia, a small floating city, is hard to grasp. The difficulties and potential dangers are enormous.

The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

2012-01-20T20:47:00.005Z

I stumbled across a photograph of a Norton motorcycle 'John Player Special' on the web tonight and it sent me on a nostalgic trip down memory lane.

There was a time, over twenty years ago when these wankel-engined beasts dominated motorcycle F1 racing. This was a period in my life, before I developed a passion for flying, that I had a very pleasant sideline road-testing 'Superbikes,' for a number of the country's most popular motorcycle publications, such as Performance Bike and Motorcycle International.

I remember being loaned the only available road-bike in the country and being instructed by a worried editor on no-account to bend or crash it before taking it out along the A3 accompanied by a photographer. With Pirelli racing tyres fitted we went down to Wimbledon as the tennis was on, for some shots outside the All England Lawn Tennis Club, where we got some very pretty girls to pose on it and then a little further on to Tippets Corner roundabout to catch the bike tucked right over as it attacked the bend.

As developments in engine and composite technology made remarkable strides at the beginning of the nineties, another racing great bike that appeared around the same time was the 750cc Honda RC30, which was unbeatable for a while on the track. I actually bought one of the few available when the road-going model appeared. It had a very radical seating position which felt as if one was perched on a bar stool.

As I lived in London at the time, I did the original road test down to Thanet as an excuse to visit my mother and can recall a couple of lads knocking at the front door that afternoon in Westgate, asking if they could look at the bike in the drive as they had never seen one off the track.

Other memorable machines were Yamaha's oval piston 'OW01' , Yamaha's VMAX, Suzuki's 750RR, which was stolen from right outside my front door, of street, one night and of course the Kawasaki beast of a ZZR1100 which had me up to 155 mph on a straight-run test.

Later of course motorbikes became lighter, stronger and much much faster and I finally bowed-out with the first Honda Hayabusa before settling down to more sedate and very capable off-enduro tourers such as my BMW RS1150S

Today, the roads are so much busier and far more dangerous than ever before and if any young man told me he planned to buy a motorcycle, as much as I love them, I would do my very best to put the idea out of his mind.

Of all the people I've known over the years, who shared the same passion for motorcycling, possibly more than half are dead, paralysed or gravely injured, normally as a consequence of of either careless accidents or encounters with careless motorists.

Looking back however, those 'Top Gear' days before the arrival of speed cameras and endless traffic jams on the M25 were great fun and while today, it costs me an extortionate £27.00 to fill-up my BMW bike, then it would only have been a 'tenner', tops!

Kicking Around

2012-01-20T09:09:00.022Z

Last night's council meeting went-on a bit, starting with a report on the proposed and controversial QEQM A&E service move to the William Harvey at Ashford. It moved on to a fierce political argument over the budget for flowers and whether this should be cut or not and James Maskell offers a good summary on his blog. What we did witness was Ian Driver voting with the Conservatives, which does rather put an end to any thoughts he might have had for a prodigal return one day to warm bosom of the Labour Group.

It was interesting, that twice in one evening Ian voted for the common-sense position of the Conservative group, to derisive howls of outrage from his former Labour colleagues, who must by now be somewhat nostalgic for the return of Mark Nottingham.

The broader principle of last evening, which is why Ian Driver left the Labour Group, is that Labour plan to spend the modest pot of money in the Council budget that the Conservative's had put aside as a contingency against the economic situation worsening or further Government grants being cut. I suppose this is what makes the two political groups different from each other.

Labour are now a minority in Thanet but hold the council on the whim of two independents, each with his own unique personal agenda, Jack Cohen and John Worrow, which I'm sure many readers would agree is an unsatisfactory position for democracy on the island.

As I predicted in an earlier post, the Council voted on recommendations for the future of Margate Football Club and firmly kicked the back to our dithering Cabinet to decide the issue and the final length of any leases. The 3G artificial pitch was recommended for refusal but my argument surrounding the length of any long lease for the hotel, once again shot right over the heads of heckling Labour members.

Without going into detail, the club and the council will now 'negotiate' a long lease but the club has to produce financial documents proving why they need it. I wish the Council luck as I've been trying for many months to get the owners of the club to explain why their 'nonnegotiable' 125 years requirement was necessary while my own information suggests that a rolling thirty-five year lease might be more common practice in such circumstances.

According to my last email exchange with the club a week ago, their new deadline for a decision on the award of a lease for the hotel development, runs out on Monday but I've seen so many similar 'deadlines' over the last year that I'm sure another rabbit will be pulled-out of the hat.

I'm sure every councillor is behind the club's aspirations but as I said last night, one can't throw the proper process out of the window where the award of public land is involved. Planning consent exists for the hotel but the insistence on a 125 year lease gives an impression that there is a hidden agenda where the land is involved.

Last night Council moved that if the club wants the hotel and the lease, then Mr Piper and Mr Lever are going to have to finally produce the financial evidence that supports their position to give the Council the confidence it requires to grant a long lease. I'm sure readers would agree that this is not unreasonable and I would urge the Labour Cabinet that makes any final decision on the lease, to make quite certain that firm conditions are in place, in regard to the future use of the land and the completion date of the hotel.

I wish the fans and supporters luck after such a long game.

Between the Lines

2012-01-18T08:29:00.022Z

Several of our Thanet blogs have some bizarre postings this week.

Labour's Mike Harrison appears to be sending some kind of coded message to my colleague, Chris Wells, expressing, unless I'm mistaken reading between the lines, a nostalgia for the old naval tradition of rum, sodomy and the lash. As Mike reportedly used to work for the railways, this is indeed worrying and perhaps he can reminisce for us a little more on his experiences of working in the early days of steam?

You will see that I had a waffle about insurance and Meerkats, James Maskell has dome some rather incisive work on planning, Tony Flaig looks forward to 'Tony Blair - the Movie' and this week, our diversity champion, John Worrow with his finger held tightly on the pulse of local opinion, worries about Abu Qatada and whether we are Islamaphobic and treating the preacher and anti-Semitic terrorist suspect unkindly.

You can't say that it doesn't make for interesting if not entertaining reading.

Postscript: I arrived home to read the following 'Notice' on John Worrow's weblog which came as a bit of a surprise. What a 'diversity blog warden' is I find hard to fathom. Is it a joke and would he or she have powers of arrest here in Thanet? Where can one apply? Is it the Council offices perhaps and is some kind of official CRB or political vetting required by Labour Group leader, Clive Hart and Cllr Mrs Fenner, (pictured further below) who was 'Pleased' to create the diversity post for John in the first place?

In contrast the Council's modest blogging code of conduct pales to insignificance. Tomorrow's meeting is going to be even more lively than I thought!

Notice

1, A new official Diversity Blog will be launched on Febuary 10th

2, A Public Meeting is to be held to talk about the responsibility of Bloggers regarding the Racial and Religious Hatred Act, with the aim of recruiting voluntary Diversity Blog Wardens, known as DBWs.

3. DBWs will become the blog and social network equivalent of Neighbourhood Watch Coordinators and will focus on Thanet users.

Compare the Meerkat

2012-01-17T14:16:00.010Z

I have been accosted by a marauding band of Meerkats, seeking to gain control of my house insurance! After relieving me of my credit card details, they did remind me, that as a hard-working minority group in our society, they believe they are badly in need of a diversity champion to represent them, because they occasionally feel exploited by the media and misunderstood by the general public.

Anyway, I got a cuddly toy out of the deal and it was £200 cheaper than renewing with the equally appealing Churchill the British bulldog. If you don't shop around at renewal time then you can expect to be paying rather more than you expected.

In Search of A Loaf

2012-01-14T22:35:00.014Z

I was in Northdown Road earlier today and could not help but notice the prominently-placed estate agent's sign, advertising local properties in Polish, which came as a bit of a surprise. Passing through, I popped-in to a convenience store to buy bread and milk and was equally bemused to discover that the bread was from Poland too, with the exception of a lonely-looking Kings Mill sliced white loaf, which was cheaper than its European cousins and which I adopted and brought home with me to Westgate.

I think it was the estate agent's sign rather than the bread which surprised me most because it made a powerful statement about the changing nature of the community in Cliftonville, The last council report I saw, told me that only 17% of the local population (Margate Central and Cliftonville West) are originally from Thanet and over 30% of the population come and go over any twelve month period.

We have been hearing a great deal about 'diversity' over the last week but in Thanet, it's the changing population demographic that I first think of when I see the word. Of late, we've been seeing some confusion between 'Minority' and 'Diversity' coming from one source on the island, a topic I believe, which needs to be more inclusive and rather less narrow and excitable than the argument.

In particular, we need to reflect on how we adapt locally, to both managing and interpreting the needs and interests of so many diverse, Eastern-European and Middle-eastern cultures, crammed tightly into a handful of wards across the island. These are resource and cost intensive for all the local and central Government agencies involved in trying to achieve positive outcomes for the communities involved.

But if you think about it, Thanet is fast becoming as much of a multi-cultural society as anywhere else in the country, it's just taken a little longer for it to happen because the road and rail connection from London stops when you reach the seafront. I've written many times before that the challenge for the future still lies in stimulating a local economy, in a way that attracts big businesses like the offshore energy industry and offers real jobs, careers and opportunity for everyone. Instead and more often than not, we are frequently seen by cynical newspaper reports, as the end of the line for benefits claimants, exported from overcrowded, struggling London authorities.

Perhaps I'll write more later but for now I intend to sleep on it.

Seriously Speaking

2012-01-13T18:19:00.002Z

It may come as a surprise but I for one, am a firm believer that one should never take oneself or one's politics too seriously. There's always room for a little irreverent satire or a sense of humour in any subject, even, dare I say it, diversity or free parking, as I'm sure readers will agree!

The last government, helped along by Gordon Brown and Harriet Harman, tried very hard to abolish the national sense of humour altogether but I've heard it rumoured that even young Ed Miliband has been seen in the company of a well-known comedian; possibly working-up some new and original material for Prime Minister's Question Time in the weeks ahead. Lord knows he needs it!

Driver Runs Off the Road

2012-01-13T09:06:00.014Z

I've just read on young Will Scobie's weblog the surprise news that Ian Driver has resigned from the Thanet Labour Group and gone into the wilderness to join the growing 'Popular Front.' This now leaves the Conservatives as the majority political party on the island but Labour in control.

Whether Cllr Driver has actually resigned, in the true sense of registering it with the council is a moot point, as readers may recall this happened once before when he fell out with 'Reg' and the Judean People's Party - see clip - over plans for world supremacy, whether they really hated the Romans and were radical enough for Thanet. However, politics makes for strange bedfellows and this begs the question of whether he and our new council diversity champion, John Worrow, will be establishing their own populist splinter faction and what this might be called is anyone's guess.

This now puts Clive or was that 'Reg' in an awkward position because there's the constant risk of Ian Driver simply abstaining over critical votes and I for one think he's more likely fallen out with the Labour group over their budget plans, rather than being disappointed that John Worrow, instead of he was, given a Mr Men badge with 'Diversity Champion' written on it.

Local politics is now really and truly hung and that's not good for Thanet. All political parties enjoy their own eccentric if not lunatic fringe and the LibDems more than most. However, we now we have two well-known 'Loose canon' careering around with their own unique ideas of what it means to be a district councillor and this is somewhat at odds with the majority view of what the role is supposed to involve.

So now, in Thanet, we have Conservative, Labour, three Independents under Tom King and now Driver and Worrow, two members of a rather bizarre 'Popular Front,' one which is temperamentally aligned towards Labour but may vote tactically to achieve their own animal diversity parking agenda objectives.

All rather worrying and I suspect readers may feel the same.

Deal or No Deal?

2012-01-11T19:29:00.016Z

So while I've been in London today having a very pleasant lunch with the Assistant Chief of Defence Staff, I see the political elves have been busy and I discover over on the magical 'Worrows World,' the following announcement, which will, no doubt, quite overshadow the council budget and any decision over Margate Football Club at the 19th January council meeting:

"Today, I was delighted to receive a telephone call from Clive Hart, the Leader of Thanet District Council, asking me to take on the role of TDC's Diversity Champion. In this new role I will be working together with the cabinet to help ensure that equality issues are integral to the Council’s performance. I talk about this in more detail, in The Isle of Thanet Gazette on Friday."

Just in case it hadn't escaped your attention, almost fifteen years of a Labour government gave the United Kingdom enough diversity legislation, both European and domestic, to sink the Titanic, if it were unfortunate enough to have run into the weight of the European Human Rights Act instead of a small iceberg.

I for one, thought Thanet District Council was pretty good at diversity, with a capital 'D' but clearly not sufficiently enough for Clive or is that 'Reg' and the 'People's Front of Thanet.'

What worries me most now, is not the question of minority awareness or diversity consciousness, because all political parties are fully-signed-up to the principles involved. I don't believe our council, on its excellent record, has anything to worry about but I am concerned by what looks very much like a kind of McCarthyist agenda, driven by a single individual, with a casting vote, seemingly desperate for a degree of personal recognition, a clipboard and a laminated badge. All this at a time when Clive Hart and his crack team from the Judean People's Front, really should have more important matters to worry about after a rather indecisive first month, fiddling with the levers of power. Furthermore and after years of Labour's Harriet Harman's influence and interference as a Minister, our council officers could do without anymore potentially expensive 'box-ticking' exercises on diversity and equality.

And if for one moment you had any doubts about the deal to keep Labour in control by one vote, I think you now have the answer. I suppose we now need a 'Shadow' diversity champion to distract and complicate the business of local government even further?

Back then to 'The Life of Brian' once again, for a suitable comic analogy and I can feel a stoning for blasphemy coming on.

All Change for Musical Chairs

2012-01-09T17:52:00.006Z

My goodness, the press releases are flying about this afternoon!

In the blue corner, Leader of the Conservative Group, Bob Bayford, talks of "Shameless Labour hypocrisy," and in the red corner, the new Labour Leader of the council, Clive Hart exclaims: "We inherited a Cabinet system from the previous Conservative administration at TDC that appeared clearly designed to fudge and confuse staff, councillors, the press and the public. Cabinet members with ridiculously patronizing titles.. "

At this point, I have to come clean as a former Cabinet member, who had a title before Christmas, err.. 'His Luminescence, the Cabinet Member for Planning, the Environment & Regulatory Issues'. A bit of a mouthful I'm sure but what was written on the tin. If someone could explain where the patronizing titles were I would love to know, as the budget for business cards ran-out almost a year ago and my own just says 'Councillor for Westgate on Sea.'

What we appear to have now is Clive doing a little light work in between the daily swim and the afternoon nap. Alan is in charge of parks trees and bins, Rick is the money man, Michelle finds herself in charge of business and IT- sorry I have to pause briefly for a giggle - and that hard-working socialist pocket battleship, the voluble Iris, is pretty much in charge of everything. She's got regeneration, tourism, planning, homelessness, cream teas and she's Mayor of Margate to boot, which is, I'm told quite unprecedented. Add to all this two sets of remuneration, a gold chain and a big smile to match.

How the Conservatives will meet this innovative shuffling of responsibilities has me baffled, particularly as behind the scenes, lies the long and duplicitous shadow of Worrow, - 'the reformer' - ready at a moment's notice, to emerge from his mystery lair and answer the call from the Mayor and keep Labour in power.

We live in interesting and occasionally funny times, I'm sure you agree.

Nothing Comes Free

2012-01-09T08:27:00.011Z

An interesting statement on Thanet Online over the weekend which begs the question in regard to people's understanding of how their council tax might be spent.

Michael Child writes: " I pay the council to do various things on my behalf, one of which is to promote and supply information about Thanet events online."

This is an interesting argument, because if I use an analogy, it implies that I might be a season ticket holder at Margate FC but might expect the same benefits and value as a season ticket holder at Manchester United!

Any council is obliged to provide a raft of statutory services, of which there is a list and councils invariably spend what they have left on 'Nice to have' rather than 'Need to have' services. Over the last fifteen years or so, thanks to the generosity and extravagance of successive Labour governments, the list of services has expanded almost as quickly as the army of well-pensioned public servants employed to oversee them.

Today, we find ourselves in somewhat harsher economic conditions with £3 million cut from the budget. Councils up and down the land are exploring what they have to provide and what they can no longer afford to provide on a shoestring, to meet reduced grants, income from business rates and what little they actually have to keep from the council tax.

I dare say that in Thanet, if a handful of well-known enthusiasts, did not keep throwing expensive and time-consuming Freedom of Information requests at the council, then we wouldn't be worried about the revenue loss from offering thirty minutes free parking in Birchington.

Now I would like the council to provide lots of things and achieve world peace at the same time but I know that the financial and resource gap between obligation and aspiration is a huge one and becoming larger all the time.

Local government does what it can within its budget. A relatively poor area such as Thanet cannot afford the ambitions of a wealthier district such as Henley, the income simply doesn't exist. There's a constant pressure on services to be more efficient and cost effective in the public sector but frequently, as I see in the IT business giants, too few people end-up spinning too many plates and the result is predictable.

Money talks but here in Thanet, there's always been an emphasis, as I've written before, on delivering resource to the most hard-pressed and deprived members of our community. For many of them, the internet and blogging is invariably something that only other people can afford to indulge in but also explains, given the challenges we face, why "Nice to have" always seems to be out of reach.

Blessing of the Sea - Margate 2012

2012-01-08T14:28:00.002Z

Not as cold as last January for the annual orthodox Blessing of the Sea ceremony on Margate sands by the local Cypriot community. A well attended town tradition, with our Mayor, both our MPs, Charter Trustees, representatives of different faiths and neighbouring districts, the Cinque Ports and the police and emergency services, as well as a large crowd watching from the promenade.

As always, once the religious ceremony was complete, a very brave small boy, dives into the cold sea to retrieve a wooden cross and then is retrieved and wrapped-up warmly to applause from the crowd.

People's News

2012-01-07T09:09:00.016Z

I'm out assisting 'Sir Roger' on his constituency clinic today and so before I go, here's another 'Thought for the day' in picture form based on a somewhat cynical view of progress among the People's Front of Thanet to date.

Pity about the aqueduct plan for Pierremont Park and the fate of the new Margate coliseum at Hartsdown has yet to be decided, by 'Reg' and the Mayor, who were recently seen inspecting the colour of the grass.

Worse still for Reg, that chief scrutineer and essayist of the political left, Newington's answer to Oscar Wilde, Cllr Mike Harrison has returned to blogging after a prolonged literary absence!

I make no apologies for the parody of Thursday's Cabinet meeting or the recurring 'Life of Brian' theme and no ex-lepers were injured in the writing of this entry.

In Extra Time

2012-01-05T21:25:00.010Z

I can’t really describe tonight’s Cabinet meeting of Thanet District Council as a ‘Game of two halves’ but in many senses it was. The one person everyone was looking forward to seeing in the chamber was however conspicuously absent or perhaps observing unseen!

The new Labour administration kicked the Pierremont Park community centre firmly into touch and Margate Football Club’s pitches and Travelodge hotel application were the victim of an unfavourable referee’s decision and sent back to the changing rooms or at least a full council meeting later this year.

We had some political waffle about ‘the disgraceful state of repair’ of our legacy buildings but without any recognition of the last report I was given in 2010, that estimated a sum of £11 million was required by the council, simply to keep them all going; we have so many fine buildings from the Victorian era to maintain.

As the former Cabinet member for Planning I had told Margate Football club that the decision was on the council agenda and would be determined before Christmas. However the incoming Labour administration, removed it from the business and tonight turned this into a non-decision. This now confuses me for these reasons:

1) Mr Piper and Mr Lever met with me and insisted on several occasions that there was an absolute deadline required for a council decision on their lease application to be met by the middle of December or the development partner, Travelodge, would pull-out and the club would be unable to move on and up.

2) Labour members and in particular, Cllr Hart, didn’t appear to grasp, that the entire development picture for the future of the club and the artificial pitch, has, for the last year, been predicated on the council treating the a slice of the park as an asset disposal under its rules and granting a 125 year lease for the hotel and nothing less, as I have written before.

Now it’s quite possible that Mr Piper has a different agenda or indeed a different development timeline designed to convince Labour members that he hasn't shared with me. However, any final decision will be made by the entire council on whether to grant the long lease the club insists it requires to deliver on its plans. I now wonder if it has become irrelevant, unless the Travelodge deadline has now slipped well into 2012. I’m sure supporters and local residents would really like to know but Labour missed the opportunity to be decisive and the game continues on, well into extra time and may in time be settled by a penalty shootout in the council chamber.

The 2012 council budget… what can I say? It’s really the Conservative budget with some tinkering around the edges which even Cllr Ian Driver regarded as completely daft and said so. I never thought I would find myself in agreement with him!

In a nutshell, Labour has released money for events, bread and circuses the Romans might say but they have taken it from the council’s contingency fund at a time when Government warns that we may be even harder-up next year.

So Labour locally have done what their government did nationally. Spent a huge part of the safety net on populist and token gestures, that will have an almost insignificant affect on anybody in Thanet, but which could put the Council in a very difficult position in the future.

The Conservatives, being as fiscally cautious as you might expect, kept council tax unchanged but worried that in the present perilous economic climate, we might need the money for something really important in the future. Labour, playing Russian Roulette with the events budget think otherwise and on this we must disagree, politically, financially and philosophically. I suspect that even Karl Marx might throw a wobbly but then I’ve a great idea for a new tourist event for Labour to fund with all that extra cash from the 'New Homes Bonus Fund' and I even have a Trade Union boss ready to support it!

On the Other Foot

2012-01-04T20:58:00.006Z

Fearing that 'Retired' might somehow discover a loose connection between my last entry and the IRA bombing of the Deal Barracks, it's time to move swiftly on.

Tomorrow evening, being Cabinet, I already have a selection of cartoon subjects prepared in lieu of any press release that may appear on ThanetLab, a news site that frequently displays more political ingenuity than Winnie the Poo.

Up until now, Clive and company have been heavily and predictably scripted, which did rather lead me to wonder whether it would be more efficient for them to simply forward the speeches to the Democratic Services officer and spend the evening at home. Whether this will now change remains to be seen or perhaps both sides could simply exchange their scripts and go to the pub instead?

In fact, the shoe is firmly on the other foot, because the new Labour Cabinet now has to answer questions and on our side of the room, we don't heckle well and neither do we trot-out the familiar prepared speeches about 'Greedy bankers' and the recession being a 'Conservative myth.' In fact, I really urge members of the public to come along and watch local democracy in action, particularly as there are several important items of business and I'm pretty sure the independent councillor, formerly known as 'Worrow', will put in an appearance to liven-up the evening's business even further.

I did start this entry with the aim of ignoring politics and writing about something totally different but failed miserably, as attentive readers will have noticed. I see over on Guido Fawkes that there is now a campaign to save Ed Miliband and I urge all my readers to contribute generously and give any small change they may have over from the inevitable 'Hart Failure' campaign which is about to begin.

Losing Steam

2012-01-03T10:57:00.003Z

Yesterday's blog post turned out a pretty lively discussion on petitions and officer time, which finally meandered-off in the rather bizarre direction of tight trousers before losing steam late in the evening.

Today, being the first day back after the New Year holiday, I find I'm locked-out of my council email, as I assume all the passwords changed and now have to wait my turn to be reinstated and make the urgent request for more dog mess bins between St Mildred's Bay and Barnes Avenue car park in Westbrook. A ward councillor's life is filled with a rich variety of unusual tasks when not doubling as a political superhero.

Remaining with the subject of the miraculous, I'm inviting a caption competition for today's cartoon from one of my favourite films, brought up-to-date for the modern politically-correct audience. Can you think of anyone who might fill the part?

I may add more later...

In the Shadows

2012-01-02T12:46:00.016Z

We had the first 'Shadow' cabinet meeting of the new year today at Bob's Broadstairs office, while most people were still warmly tucked-up in bed. Being in opposition felt much more relaxed as we waded through the council items for Thursday evening.

I'm expecting the public gallery in the chamber to be crammed with Margate Football Club supporters waiting to hear what Labour will finally decide on the club's future, following the pre-Christmas pitch inspection. I think we are all looking forward to seeing if Cllr Iris Johnston, who turned the matter into a political football a year ago, will finally get off the fence and actually take a position on this one.

Chris Wells will be dealing with both Fort Hotel and the Pierremont Park community centre issue, as he's very familiar with both projects. As one might expect, Martin Wise will be asking acerbic and searching questions about the draft budget and where exactly Labour plans to raid the piggy bank, which, I'm sure, may come as no great surprise.

Over the Christmas period, James Maskell has leapt to the public's attention as both a serious and sensible political blogger with 81 comments on a single story, while the ebullient young Will Scobie has demonstrated, on occasions this month, that he's barely out of short trousers. The artist formerly known as 'Worrow' has changed his blog strap-line yet again.

I awoke this morning to discover that Eastender's indomitable Pat Butcher had joined, Steve Jobs and Kim Jong Il in the choir invisible. This sad story of national importance dominated the BBC's breakfast coverage and serious domestic news coverage will be resumed later today. I'm waiting for the Prime Minister to announce a message of condolence to the cast and a week of mourning.

If that's all we have to worry about in 2012 then things can't be half as bad as we're told they are!

The End of 11 - Beginning of 12

2011-12-31T20:46:00.009Z

With everyone else ready to write predictions for 2012, I thought I would tear myself away from the X-Box and a very good glass of red wine to write down my own thoughts, as well as wishing both my readers a very Happy New Year.

I can't start this New Year's Eve blog without congratulating our Thanet North MP, Roger Gale, on being made a knight in the honours list. It's richly deserved, given his years of service to North Thanet as an excellent constituency MP and we will now have to become used to knowing him as 'Sir Roger.'

Thanet finished the old year with another beached whale, this time in Birchington and on this occasion, no blogger's hurt feelings were involved with any typing errors, although I did notice from the front page of the Thanet Gazette that Cllr Alan Poole now owns an iPad, which already appears to be playing its part as a weapon of mass destruction. It's an encouraging sign to see the technology used. I still find the iPad does things I don't expect and big fingers can deliver the unexpected.

There's never any shortage of imaginative predictions across Thanet's blogs on New Year's Eve and this time, there appears to be some speculation on the blogs about a change of leadership in the Conservative Group but we can dismiss that straight-away as Bob Bayford remains the best man for the unenviable job of what is now 'Shadow Leader.' It's quite possible that the Council may change hands again this year but then, with no overall majority on either side, that's hardly a prediction worthy of Nostradamus!

While there's gossip, that one councillor may yet be seen around town, wearing a cape and his underpants over his trousers, which may make the ward work appear a little more interesting, there's no doubt that the Labour Group are going to find running an administration a great deal harder than being in opposition and I very much look forward to the lively debates to come.

The future of Dreamland remains an important issue to be resolved and the Conservative administration started the CPO process earlier in 2011 and this, with luck, will roll to a successful conclusion in 2012. Its been a long struggle but I remain optimistic that the rides and the crowds will back on the Dreamland site soon enough to give a further and much-needed nudge to Margate's regeneration, already being pushed-along nicely by the 'Turner Effect.'

I think there are too few bloggers left to drop out now although we may see a few more starting-up in 2012 but likely falling by the wayside, as most do.

In 2011, a tidal wave caused death and devastation in Japan and we waved farewell to Steve Jobs, Christopher Hitchins and Kim Il Sung among others. in 2012 Iran's nuclear ambition remains a problem that won't go away and lest we forget, we are fighting a war, many thousands of miles away that we cannot possibly win, only exit with honour.

With that final thought, I would like to end 2011 and start 2012 by paying tribute to all the servicemen and women in Afghanistan who couldn't be home to celebrate the New Year

Happy New Year!

Running Short of Wonga?

2011-12-29T16:28:00.001Z

Only a week to go before the first cabinet meeting of 2012 and I'm reading through the council papers, as thick as my thumb, to help fill the seeming eternity between now and New Year.

Don't mistake me, I enjoy the Christmas holiday like anyone else but it feels longer with each passing year and already, I have had several unsolicited text messages offering to get me out of debt. On television, the cash advance adverts from 'Wonga.Com' and others like it, are starting to stack-up on Sky TV like a line of landing aircraft arriving at Heathrow; only 273% APR you know!

Reportedly, British shoppers are set for new year debt crisis in 2012 after a record £4.3billion was spent over the last two days and up to to 12 million shoppers – one in four of the population aged over ten, were thought to have crammed into high streets and shopping malls yesterday.

Back to the council papers and the new cabinet's decision on the controversial Hartsdown and Pierremont park developments, postponed from before the holiday, seems likely to fill the public gallery. The draft budget is really going to prove most interesting, as we finally get to see where the Labour Group, which failed to clearly articulate any financial policy - other than a saving on coffee and biscuits - before last month, tries to fiddle with the 2012 council budget, which has been work in progress since May, to deliver an impression of its socialist credentials, without having to raise Council Tax.

I recommend arriving early for a front row seat on the evening of 5th January and I'm sure the Mayor will have the bat signal glowing in the night sky over Cecil Square!

It's Xmas Wednesday

2011-12-28T11:17:00.013Z

In between arm-wrestling my daughter for a turn on her X-Box, I have now discovered it's actually Wednesday and not Thursday, which is a result and says rather too much about my confused state of mind and the length of the Christmas holiday in general.

As the former Cabinet member for the environment, I have noticed on the TDC website it says my own bin should be emptied 'Today' but for new visitors, was that written in the past before Xmas or did they expect you to wake-up after the collection and find this out? Not my problem anymore but I have fired-off an email. I have observed quite a steady stream of family cars descending on the St Mildred's Bay car park and off-loading all their Xmas rubbish into the skip which says 'No Cardboard - Paper Only.'

Now Thanet lies under the control of the forces of fraternal socialism, i.e Clive & Iris, perhaps the new Cabinet Member for the Environment might wish to explore an equally creative solution for one of our more persistent problems, which appears to have run somewhat amok over the holiday as people walk their dogs.

The blogs have been unusually quiet over the holidays, with a couple of notable and rather bizarre exceptions, as most of us switch our attention away from the self-indulgence of hammering away on a keyboard to another and quite different kind of indulgence, which invariably involves a knife and fork.

The BBC, as ever, has delivered a televisual feast not to be missed and in a single day I counted three hours of 'East Enders' and an hour of 'Holby City' as well. I have seen two repeats of 'Shrek the Third', two of 'Spartacus' but as yet, no 'Great Escape' which must be just around the corner as Christmas would not be quite the same without it.

I've noticed the sudden appearance of a mysterious, 'W' shaped light hanging over the centre of Birchington town square in the evening but what it is is anyone's guess? Something political I suspect!

Watching Kim Jong Il's funeral on the news today, I'm reminded that it's ten years since I went to Korea, arriving one very icy day in Seoul, when the temperature was a bitter -26 celsius. Looking at the weeping thousands in Pyongyang standing for hours in the bone-chilling cold as the funeral cortege passed. I suspect that grief for the Dear Leader, was really the last thing on their collective minds.

It's also worth noticing that 'Cheetah', the Chimpanzee star of the Tarzan movies also died over Christmas at the grand old age of 80 and one might successfully argue that he achieved rather more for humanity and will be missed more greatly than North Korea's Kim Jong Il.

Two Christmas Tails

2011-12-25T17:51:00.010Z

Merry Christmas one and all. I've decided that rather than type, which involves putting a glass of Irish coffee down for far too long, I will put-up a few illustrations, a dog's eye view of the day, to add to the Christmas cheer!

Observant readers may note my small mistake from very late on Christmas Eve! I have a very unusual and highly intelligent small dog which has an extensive vocabulary. Its quite bizarre that in quiet conversation with her, I can suggest that I would rather like to play with one of her toys, by name. You can then see her think about it for a while and then disappear, quickly followed by the sound of busy rummaging somewhere in the house. She then re-appears with the object she was asked for if she can reach it.

Dogs have their own wrapped gifts hidden around the tree and look forward to being allowed to find them and open them each year. Pulling the crackers over Christmas lunch to much excited barking is the high-point of the holiday for them. Strange but true I'm afraid!

Meanwhile, my daughter bought me Modern Warfare 3 for the X-Box. A quick lesson on the device has proved quite conclusively that I am absolutely hopeless with the controller and keep getting shot. So the best solution is let her play while I watch from the sidelines, suitably impressed with her effortless dexterity.

Somehow, I don't quite think I'm ready for the X-Box generation and may have to stick to blogging badly instead!

A Parking Newsflash - Updated

2011-12-23T14:56:00.027Z

If you thought you were confused about the prevailing argument over free parking, then I see my colleague, Chris Wells, has stepped into a 'guest' blogger column, over on BigNewsMargate to try and walk readers through the maze of Iris Johnston's rather odd press release, faithfully reproduced with other unusual material over on John Worrow's Weblog.

From what I can make out from the story is still evolving and as Chris Wells writes: ‘Just 13 days, 12 hours, into the new “transparent” Labour era, Cllr Iris Johnston, in her rush to claim all the work on the parking review, has breached all protocols of responsible behaviour by leaking budget information on the ‘official’ Labour website. In doing so she revealed budget papers which are being considered by Labour to hike parking fees by around 9% and worse, realising what she had done, removed the offending paragraph after a few hours.'

Over on Worrow's World, I see that John's byline is now changed to "Campaigning For Social Justice and Defeating Bigotry In The Isle Of Thanet!", which is nice and I'm sure the good Conservative voters of Birchington will be most impressed. More commonly, ward councillors are preoccupied with more mundane tasks, such as making sure your bins are collected on time, crusading against dog mess, trying to solve the seaweed problem on the beaches or helping with pension and benefit queries.

Invariably, social justice is a topic associated closely with Members of Parliament, who can deploy much larger legislative weapons. The intrinsic meaning of the cartoon of a naked man in a bowler hat on John's weblog escapes me for now but here's one of my own pictures, which I hope sums-up where we are at with parking in general.

Glancing at Michael Child's Thanet Online, you'll see he's developed a rather bizarre interest in fruit, which I would comment is in his usual provocative and mischievous style. It's somewhat reminiscent of what one might have read in a magazine like Private Eye, in the seventies, although I'm pretty sure I've read it or a version of the same, somewhere before.

This morning, I have been loitering over a dismal, grey, wet and gusty Essex, taking photographs. I was the only pilot up for sixty miles, so Farnborough radar wasn't exactly overworked. I suspect the controllers are starting to recognise my callsign, 'Sierra Mike' by now. With this regular job to do, I'm learning more about the scrap metal business as the months pass.

What I heard today, is that not only do large numbers of Mercedes cars go missing and end-up being shipped-out in containers to a very healthy South African market but that containers full of 'scrap' metal often go the same way. What's unusual though is that these are absolutely filled to capacity and that at their destination, the containers aren't unpacked but simply put through the furnace in situ, with the molten metals being separated through some process. One comment I also heard, is that anything can go in these containers and so if organised crime chooses to 'bump someone off' then he goes in there too and is melted down with everything else. It puts a whole new twist on cremation.

For camera enthusiasts, the photo is of a Nikon D-700, with a modified night vision lens attached for US Military work, like for example, the raid on Osama Bin Laden. It's my favourite toy this month and sadly, you won't find one of these at the Comet Christmas sale.

Finally, for gadget lovers, I accidentally came across a watch that commemorates a world-record diving event I attended in Marseilles almost twenty years ago but sadly a timepiece souvenir I can't afford.

Still Waiting for the Revolution

2011-12-22T10:24:00.022Z

'History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce' - Karl Marx

I've been exchanging political‘banter’ with Thanet’s most respected ‘revolutionary’, Cllr Mike Harrison, over on his weblog. Following one of his remarks about the proletariat and I’m sure, the ultimate victory of communism on our small island is yet to come, I thought I would write a few words of my own.

Many of us can still recall those happy days when Margate was twinned with Yalta and our Labour councillors enjoyed the opportunity for fraternal visits to the Black Sea resort, to sample the delights of true socialism by the seaside, helped along with ample quantities of sunshine, vodka and blinys.

It’s not quite the same now of course, because the great socialist experiment failed miserably everywhere it was tried, from Russia to Cambodia to North Korea and even Liverpool, possibly because Karl Marx's strict view of economic determinism contradicted simple human nature.

Just to remind ourselves, In his analysis of the movement of history, ‘Historical Materialism,’ Marx predicted the breakdown of capitalism (as a result of class struggle and the falling rate of profit), and the establishment in time of a communist society, in which class-based human conflict would be overcome. The means of production would be held in the common ownership and used for the common good.

Karl Marx, an occasional Margate resident, was, in places, pretty close to the mark in describing the problems that have left us where we are today, However, he never imagined a stagnating and bloated welfare state in the form that it presently takes around us. His idealistic view of Communism, was one where everyone contributed equally with their labour and not one where people choose not to work and prefer to live-off the generosity of the State. He also failed, quite understandably, to predict the dramatic impact of globalism and rapid automation on the proletariat.

Mike Harrison reminds me that the proletariat don’t like to be lectured on what’s good for them by intellectual academics, a view which could be lifted from the pages of the dissident Russian novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s book ‘One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich’ if I can remember back some thirty years to reading it in the rather depressing Thanet of the 1970s. I would reply however that this backward notion of class-struggle, that still pervades politics in Thanet and has done since I was a boy, simply creates an environment where progress is frustrated because many Labour members still visibly haven’t moved-on from the Thatcher era and the miner’s strike.

Now I happen to believe that challenging the abilities and the record of our politicians, me included, is an important tool in democracy and it constantly on our Thanet blogscene. After all, would you approach a man (or woman) in the street and say here’s £50 million or so for you to spend locally on 600 or so services next year, without asking a few astute questions to see if he was really up to the task?

Local democracy does this all the time but doesn’t ask the important question. So, while it’s the best system we have available, it often totters wildly between administrations and infrequently lives up to the people’s hopes and expectations, simply because some people are given the jobs because it's their turn, party record, a form of pension entitlement or because people rarely ask the simple but really important questionsof the candidates, like "Can you read a balance sheet?"

Happy Feet

2011-12-21T10:13:00.012Z

Before we get completely carried away, in the earlier comment thread, dancing around the head of a pin, over who may or may not have implied, suggested, requested or even offered what to whom in the often convoluted world of local politics, I need to remind people of the planned visit to Hartsdown Park by the Labour Cabinet tomorrow.

I'm sure that everyone agrees with me that the football club represents an important part of the town's history. The fact however remains that the club is a commercial entity, which operates on public land / public open space and has enjoyed a short and renewable lease on the ground for a great many years.

The lease, has been an issue under discussion for over twelve months now with the club, which insists that if it is to continue, then it requires a 125 year lease on the hotel area, so it can, in principle, release the value of the land as a viable hotel development, in order to build a Travelodge, for which revised plans were approved by the council in the spring.

Council policy on Hartsdown Park is that no new leases of or beyond 25 years can be granted without public consultation, because it is public land.

In simple terms, if the club simply owned the park then I could see no issue but essentially what the club is proposing, is that the council make an exceptional condition and treat the hotel footprint like an asset disposal, under a 125 year lease, much like a freehold investment, so that the development value can be leveraged. The council is also obliged to consider the long-term future of the club; what happens if ten years down the line, for some reason and with a 125 year lease granted, the game of football falls out of popularity locally and it closes its doors? Unlikely, I'm sure but then what? So all possibilities and potential outcomes need to be considered.

Local opinion is highly polarised and while the council might be prepared to explore a lease of just under 25 years as a solution, the club have stated on several occasions that this is firmly out of the question, it's 125 years or nothing.

So that's the dilemma now facing a new cabinet when they go walkabout at Hartsdown Park on Thursday to meet the people. Whether to support the new leases application for the hotel and surrounding areas such as the 3G pitch or risk the potential local economic loss of the hotel development, through not granting a long lease, outside of the restrictive policy already established by the Conservative administration for the park.

I have taken 'considerable stick' over the last year by insisting on a fair, proper and absolutely transparent process and with a change of administration the decision-making now falls elsewhere. I plan to be there tomorrow, should anyone wish to ask questions.

The Perils of Parking

2011-12-19T16:45:00.009Z

I've written about financial common sense before and today’s Conservative Group press release on the review of free parking in Thanet may make for salutary reading for Cllr Worrow in Birchington. To attempt to decide the future of the island against a demand for special treatment for one town, smacks of political gerrymandering. It may well be that Clive Hart views this as fair exchange for his support of a Labour administration. However, this has yet to be decided and it will be interesting to see where the decision goes in Cabinet when the Labour Group finally grasp the real budget impact.

To recap however, we need to remind ourselves the nature of the parking review which was underway when the Conservative administration left office on 8th December.

Parking had been withdrawn from the annual fees and charges review, and a changed parking regime was to be consulted with members and others across the island in January 2012; for public consultation after presentation to Cabinet in March, for implementation in June.

The highlights of this review were:

Parking was to be more demand led.

Free parking to be available to help traders every Saturday of the year in one car park in each of the towns: Alpha Road, Birchington; Harold Road, for Northdown Road; Mill Lane, Margate; Cannon Road Ramsgate; Vere Road Broadstairs.

This solution was seen as representing an affordable model at a time of restricted budgets, costing approximately £12,000 to the overall parking budget.

My colleague, Chris Wells, Shadow Cabinet Member for Communities has added:

‘We left in place a simple, affordable model for parking, ready to be consulted upon for implementation next year. In addition the parking review was set to investigate what could be additionally done to assist lives of residents near and around the QEQM Hospital, many of whose lives have been reduced to misery by the hospital’s poor management of their own parking facilities. I hope the incoming administration has the common sense to adopt these simple proposals, and not skew them in favour of particular areas of the island for political reasons.’

Residents are bound to ask about the costs and when this proposal from Cllr Worrow first appeared, it was determined that the cost of implementing thirty minutes free parking in Birchington car parks would be a little under £10,000. However, the cost of implementing thirty minutes free parking for Birchington High Street, what he appeared to be seeking, would be more than £40,000.

It would be very difficult to give a special exemption to one town in Thanet, particularly where a pivotal vote was involved, so extended to the island as a whole, the cost of implementing thirty minutes initial free car parking would be £233,000. This is more than 43% of car parking income and to achieve such a thing in the very challenging financial conditions facing Thanet, these sums would have to be made up from council tax increases or reduced budgets elsewhere.

Does offering special exemption for Birchington present financial common sense I wonder and with six weeks left before the budget, where I wonder will the money come from to replace the lost income across the island?

Now I wonder if the Thanet Gazette will run the figures?

A Little Taiko Time

2011-12-18T10:27:00.013Z

Off to Chatham this morning with my friends, students and colleagues from the Kaigan Dojo. We've been invited to put on a demonstration at the Shinto Martial Arts School at the university and Bill Parr will be bringing his Taiko drums and drummers along as well to add a little extra Japanese ambiance and excitement to the occasion.

It's one of those strange things about Thanet, that the island figures prominently in unusual aspects of martial arts, Tae Kwan Do, being a fine example, as well as the Quarterdeck at Cliftonville where I studied Judo as a boy. I can recall many many years ago when Karate and even Kung Fu, with a strange chap named 'Baron Omidi' made an appearance hard on the heels of Bruce Lee's classic film, 'Enter the Dragon.'

Taiko drumming is an unusual thing to find in our part of the world but Bill, who lives in Westgate, has been busy trailblazing the art, with performances all over the country and it's very impressive too! He's been running local courses for anyone who might be interested and you can find his contact details at Kensei Taiko, here.

If I were to hazard a guess, I might suspect that Thanet, quite possibly, has more martial artists competing in national teams than equivalent parts of the country. For a time, the famous Kendo master, O.Fuji, Sensei (pictured) lived in Ramsgate.

The challenge we find these days, lies in finding students from a new generation, able to find the time from their work or studies, accept the tougher training discipline and swap the instant gratification of the X-Box, for something a little more demanding than the couch and stay the course.

Thirty years ago and more, I remember believing that with a couple of grades completed and capable of 'doing the splits', that I knew it all. Today, in contrast, I realise that long experience only shows how much more there is to learn.

PS.. Having returned home, here are a couple of photos of the afternoon. Great to see so many kids turn-up in the cold to take part.

The First Casualty of Circulation

2011-12-17T18:47:00.004Z

"A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on."
Winston Churchill

I attracted yet another mention in the Gazette’s ‘Smudger’ yesterday, a literary accolade which is fast becoming a habit. Mind you, if she can only get me for a ‘missed apostrophe’ in a comment reply on this blog, as a recommendation for urgent remedial English tuition, then as a local politician, I’m getting off lightly.

I did notice a few gems that missed her satirical wit. The first of these was my remark at the Westgate & Westbrook Residents' Association, in front of a reporter, that I had absolutely no confidence in the local paper to report anything I have said truthfully and that I wouldn’t be surprised to read that I had recommended that the ‘Arlington house be painted pink’. (My earlier remarks removed by request)

Anyway, Smudger now has her political ‘Dream team’ in place and I’m sure she’s very pleased about it too!

Satire is a difficult subject to do well and even with Christmas fast approaching, I don’t find my inspiration hiding at the bottom of a large gin and tonic. Eastcliff Richard had a real talent for the medium before his prose became dark and ugly and finally dropped him in serious trouble with members of our local community – allegedly – that no sensible blogger would attempt to annoy.

So satire arguably is one of the most useful tools in keeping modern democracy honest and Guy Fawkes and Private Eye magazine lead the pack. However, there’s a distinct line between satire and bullying when one is thinly disguised as another and a newspaper or its editor, local or national uses it as a medium to express personal animosity, to discredit, belittle or to put it bluntly, tell lies.

On a blog, for example one has an opportunity to respond robustly but no such chance exists beyond the letters page of a newspaper which few people read unless they happen to be looking for the latest installment of the regular anti-Roger Gale campaign from Mr Muir of Westgate or what I might politely describe as ‘Fantasy island’ politics from John Worrow.

If satire is a tool to keep politicians honest then I must ask who keeps newspapers honest, because the Leveson inquiry is showing us only too well that honesty and journalism make uncomfortable bedfellows and that truth is invariably the first casualty of tabloid circulation.

PS.. if you spot a missing apostrophe let me know!

Change Ends

2011-12-15T11:34:00.009Z

On Monday night, the new Labour Cabinet at Thanet District Council, decided to remove from the agenda and defer any decision, on the application for new leases and a Travelodge hotel at Hartsdown Park by Margate Football Club to a future meeting early next year.

Readers may recall that there has been an intense period of scrutiny and public consultation on the subject since September. The consultation results were to be heard and any subsequent decision or recommendation, was scheduled to be taken by Cabinet on December 12th, in an effort to meet the club's own December deadline; formal application for the revised leases only being received in August from the club.

Instead, the new Leader of the Council, Clive Hart, has called for a Cabinet/ Shadow Cabinet and public 'walk-about' at Hartsdown on December 22nd at 2pm, so that local people can have an opportunity to see the site and ask further questions.

The Conservative Group, in the spirit of cooperation, are quite happy to support this exercise and suggest, that anyone who has a particular view or opinion on the preservation or potential development of our public open spaces, to represent to Clive and his new Labour team, should come along and join us, next Thursday afternoon.

PS.. Looking at the evolving weather picture from the Met Office, Thanet appears to be right in the path of a monster low pressure trough which is due to hit this evening. So if you have any loose items in the garden, best tie them down and don't park your car under any big trees!

Let the Train Take the Strain

2011-12-14T13:55:00.009Z

You will see from my 'Tweets' that the type of incident now attracting considerable news attention today and shown in the video below, isn't unusual on SouthEastern services into Kent.

Yesterday, I had an unpleasant journey on the high-speed from St Pancras to Faversham and I should add that from experience, this isn't unusual, as you may find from earlier 'Blogs.'

What was different on Monday was that I was compelled to intervene, as a teenage girl, keeping very bad company, was pinned to the seat opposite and was being held down and prevented from leaving the train at Sittingbourne, by one foul mouthed youth with the help of another.

What's doubly bad about the train, is that this kind of incident is very personal and invades your private space. I recall writing in a previous blog entry, how all the passengers once got-up and left one carriage to a group of drunken youths but this time there was nowhere to go.

On this occasion, the reluctant threat of direct action was enough for them to let the girl go and the ringleader, spent the rest of his journey breaking wind, swearing and making an unusual hi-pitched screaming sounds to the amusement of his mates.

I had a word with the female guard when the group had gone and she re-appeared a little later and she told me it wasn't unusual and implied that her job is very stressful; I'm not surprised. However, for a number of moments, I sat there balancing the consequences of becoming physically involved, against the very real risks of prosecution if I did. Where I wonder does one draw the line these days in taking a stand to defend property or community or even fellow passengers?

Christmas Post

2011-12-13T17:28:00.017Z

Now I had thought that the rather grubby folded scrap of paper I received in the council mailbag tonight was from a local 'eccentric' having a joke at my expense but having cross-checked, apparently not.

In particular, I liked the ruled exercise-paper touch and the subtle reminder of who the new 'Leader' is in the signature; as an afterthought perhaps, in case it had escaped my attention.

I suppose a Christmas card is out of the question. Anyway I plan to frame this piece of local history and give it a place of honour in my shed.

It's all part of the cost-cutting exercise I guess. We axed councillor business cards earlier in the year to save money but this new economy drive at TDC clearly involves the loss of Basildon Bond personal headed stationery.

PS. While the note of thanks is appreciated, I'm still waiting for someone to come and remove me from my office and I've stayed in waiting!

Score Draw

2011-12-11T14:37:00.007Z

Of course, with a change of local administration and Cabinet, one has to wonder what will now happen with Margate Football Club's hotel and 125 year lease application decision, originally scheduled for Monday. What, I wonder will Labour decide to do with it now the ball, so to speak, has landed in their court. Will they follow the officer recommendations made to the Conservative Cabinet or decide on a separate course of action? I'm sure everyone, me included, will be watching the final result with some interest.

Back in the world of 'Real politik,' I wonder if anyone other than the LibDems and Labour leadership disagree with David Cameron exercising the principle of the veto on Europe, to prevent them, under a new EU constitution, from dismantling our position as the centre of global finance and allowing Brussels to set our taxes and not Westminster.

The alternative would be to find Britain in a position where we took on a much larger burden of the European debt at a time when we are already feeling the pain of austerity measures, that may be unpopular but have kept our interest rates low and prevented us following Spain, Italy, Ireland and Greece towards financial meltdown.

Just to remind Westgate residents that it's the Residents Association monthly meeting tomorrow and that will be held at the Westbrook Bowls Club at 7pm. I'm sure there will be lots to talk about in regards to the implications of the change in administration for Westgate.

Politics in Pictures

2011-12-09T22:58:00.014Z

I've decided to tell the story of this extraordinary week and what led up to it, in a few pictures rather than words, drawing on iconic popular comedy with a rather large dose of political satire. Here's the first installment and if I think of any more, I will add them in. The characters portrayed of course bear no resemblance to anybody living here in Thanet!

Finally, would anyone wish to comment on what I have just been told by an informed individual, that Cllr Worrow approached Cllr Hart for the deputy leader's position in return for his vote? He may also have approached Nick Clegg and President Assad of Syria for all I know?

A Hard Left Turn for Thanet

2011-12-09T07:55:00.003Z

More later I suspect when I catch-up with everything. For a narrowly balanced council to fall, on what some might describe as thinly concealed coercion over parking charges in one part of the district and the personal animosity of one Councillor towards another, seems bizarre.

Still, this leaves our island now looking very isolated in a sea of Conservative councils and a lurch to the left risks - on local Labour's almost schoolboy grasp of finances to date - a serious and consequential loss of basic common-sense in an economic crisis. Should you have any doubts then simply look back on the record from the Labour Cabinet over the last year which has contented itself on shouting down any attempts to debate the bigger and more serious numbers, while remaining quite conspicuous in being unable to suggest anything much more remarkable than removing the tea and coffee allowance for councillors.

Poor Thanet!

Room With a View

2011-12-06T09:51:00.010Z

If you watched the second Channel 4 documentary last night, on 'Rogue Landlords' and the awful suffering they can cause the most vulnerable people in our society, you may understand why I, for one, am very keen on the recent introduction of a limited, selective licensing scheme for landlords here in Thanet.

As a local councillor, I come across some pretty unpleasant stories from time to time and in I'm only too well aware that in the most deprived and hard-pressed areas here and elsewhere in the country there are those who are prepared to profit from the misery of others.

It surprises me at times how some social housing landlords, will deny the evidence of damp, unheated, crumbling, bug-ridden accommodation, when, like last night, they are confronted with incontrovertible evidence by the likes of John Snow and both Bournemouth and Croydon councils came out looking very poor as a consequence.

There are, of course, growing pressures on local authorities at present, in attempting to find suitable housing for the homeless and the vulnerable. At the same time, there are those who build a successful business in delivering slum accommodation for the desperate or unlicensed and illegal garden sheds for untold thousands of desperate migrants between Southall and Slough.

It's an enormous problem for Government of any party to tackle, facing a tide of demand with limited and over-stretched resources, against businessmen who may deploy the best lawyers to defend their often indefensible positions. All this in an environment where successful prosecution can be an expensive challenge.

This gives me one more reason to think that proper licensing and an enforceable contract between local government and landlords providing social housing in targetted deprived areas is a sensible if not necessary step and you can read the Shelter report here.

What do readers think I wonder? A good idea and used more widely or simply allow market forces to protest and prevail at the expense of those with most to lose in society?

Westgate Xmas Fun Day 2011

2011-12-04T12:49:00.006Z

Out and about taking photos this morning and I have put the better ones up online on Flickr here for readers to share if they want them.

Lots to do and see, so come on down or listen to the action on Academy FM!

The Christmas lights will be turned-on at 4pm with our home-town X-Factor star, Luke Lucas.

A huge vote of thanks to the Kelly Stacey, Joe Fairbarn,the committee, traders, sponsors and volunteers, and everyone else who worked so hard behind the scenes to make it all possible!

A Home for Socks?

2011-12-04T12:34:00.002Z

At the Westgate Xmas Fun Day today we have 'Socks' the homeless Chihuahua , who is in urgent need of a new owner. He's a lovely dog, two year's old with all his papers, neutered, micro-chipped and vaccinated and he's available from Pet Rescue on 01843 822931.

To be honest, if I didn't have two dogs of my own already, I would have taken him then and there.

Game On

2011-12-03T19:00:00.008Z

I wandered off in rather windy conditions, on an excursion to Stapleford this afternoon, for a CAA briefing on the proposed Olympic airspace restrictions; all rather depressing if one happens to be a pilot or indeed, has an aviation business of any size.

As you might imagine, flying anywhere, unless it's from the big airports, is going to be made extremely awkward and should an innocent pilot step-out of line, or cross any of the imaginary restricted lines in the London or Olympic events airspace, dotted around the country, then it's more than likely he or she will have an Apache gunship arriving as company, rather quickly. That's all very reassuring from a security perspective but does rather beg the question of what happens in a highly populated and urbanised environment, should some unwelcome guest plan a flying visit? To be honest, I'm not convinced that the reaction time, measured in a few minutes, is enough but the authorities are going to equal lengths to reassure the public and ensure they know where everyone is and who they are at all times.

It appears that all the country's smaller airports are going to be full to capacity and those, like Manston and Lydd, lying just outside the restricted zone, will be crammed with visiting executive jets, which must be good for us in Thanet, given the potential tourist traffic coming our way during the games. It should be a plane-spotters paradise.

Quite how the people from the smaller jets get to the Games, I don't quite know, as the Government have precluded any heliport around Stratford to keep the area 'Green.' I'm assuming there will be regular helicopter traffic to Southend, just inside the restricted zone and use of the high-speed rail link from Ramsgate. I can't imagine anyone taking the car because of the anticipated traffic chaos. I read yesterday that train drivers will be given a £600 bonus just for turning-up for work, which has pleased the RMT union leader, Bob Crow no end.

Mind you, if you can afford to visit the games in a business jet, then you won't be short of a bob or two for the rail or helicopter fare to take you to Stratford, I'm sure!

From my point of view, there is some small consolation that the Farnborough Airshow is just before the Games and they have inquired about opening the show every day with a big banner display. As I did at an earlier airshow for Dubai Aerospace, I may yet get lucky. Anyway, one Farnborough is finished and the airspace locks down, I may well have an enforced month off with my feet up for a change!

Christmas Comes

2011-12-02T11:15:00.034Z

With so many people to send Christmas cards, there's always a danger I will overlook someone, Family, friends, colleagues or readers of this weblog. So I'm putting-up my virtual Christmas wishes early, wishing everyone a happy holiday to come, while I get down to writing all the real world cards and sending them off in different directions.

There's a great deal happening this week on the political front, most of which would not be appropriate for me to comment on in advance of next Thursday's council meeting.

I would comment on the quite remarkable level of misinformation being peddled freely across the internet by those with their own ambitions and perhaps unorthodox political agenda and the old expression that 'A week is a long time in politics' rings true.

I'll give you one example of a headline being peddled on the local Labour-leaning blog scene today: "Thanet District Council and Freshwater had planned to evict residents of Arlington House."

This statement is completely untrue like so many others I see on a regular basis and yet it's presented as outraged fact without any regard to the evidence. Much like Cllr Alan Poole's letter in the Thanet Gazette this morning, which attacks Thanet's 'Low recycling rate', following on from the somewhat skewed report by the paper's Thomas Brown, the previous week, which rather importantly, failed to take account of the tens of thousands of blue wheelie bins in households across the island and counts the remaining black bag collections instead.

The earlier Gazette article and Cllr Poole's letter pointed out how low Thanet’s recycling rate was, with Alan Poole being outraged that Thanet - with it's Tory-led council - "is 9th out of 12 Kent Districts" but in fact if you add in the inconvenient bigger picture - Sorry Alan - Thanet’s actually the best in Kent for this. Equally, our dry recycling rate, which excludes food and garden waste, is the third best in the county, so credit to our residents where credit is due for doing their bit and using the blue-bin recycling service provided

These are just two examples of how local news is being regularly biased, manipulated and exaggerated and my advice then, is to take everything you might read with a large pinch of salt and perhaps ask what's best for the future of Thanet as we move quickly towards 2012.

A few thoughts on this week's strike before I go.

When I joined the Cabinet Office in 2000 there was an objective of taking 80,000 jobs out of the public sector through the introduction of online Government efficiences. Instead, what happened as Brown replaced Blair is that over 300,000 more jobs were added, with all the pension commitments and more besides across a rapidly ageing population demographic.

Most people will understand a Ponzi or Pyramid wealth scheme; they appear on a regular basis. It's the trap that socialist governments all over the world have fallen into, borrowing huge amounts to build-up a public sector, while allowing the private sector, which actually creates the national wealth, to waste away or in the case of western economies, being outsourced and automated away to the Far-east.

If a country isn't going to drown under its weight of public debt like Greece, then you need enough private sector jobs to balance the cost of providing a generous, public sector welfare state, with the pensions that go with it. However, as a nation, we fell behind years ago are almost completely reliant on our North Sea oil and city finance revenues to prop up the loss in manufacturing and have been using the credit card game to pay the bills ever since.

It may not be fair for any government of any party to introduce austerity measures but it's inevitable. I watched a very clever economist on Sky News deconstruct the argument of a Unison spokesperson the other evening and with the Euro, now close to collapse, the Trades Unions really need to wake-up to the reality rather than the rhetoric of the financial crisis. Sadly, here in Thanet, I see the same rhetoric on a regular basis across our own political divide, which lies at total odds with our share of the economic crisis and the common-sense decisions required to take us through it over the coming four years.

Photo, Karl Marx with his daughter in Margate 1866

A Soldiers Story

2011-11-27T12:01:00.011Z

Friday was a day of surprises and among these was the unexpected resignation of Cllr John Worrow from the Conservative Group at TDC after only six short months as a councillor. You will find Bob Bayford's reaction to the news here but knowing John well, I'm equally surprised by his reasons, which to me appear quite bizarre and particularly in regard to his concerns over animal exports from the port of Ramsgate. John is well-aware that the ultimate responsibility lies with central government and DEFRA to resolve, as the matter has been discussed at some length within the Conservative Group.

The local council, members of all parties and our MPs have worked extremely hard to bring our shared concerns over this unpleasant trade to the attention of the Minister, Jim Paice and believe, like everyone else that the primitive laws governing it should be reformed. But beyond active lobbying at Westminster, the council has no power to prevent a legal trade taking place in an open port. Even the animal rights activists and Cllr Driver, will concede that this is the case and the matter was debated vigorously in council only recently.

Let's not forget the extraordinary financial pressures that face Thanet in the future and in regard to "Talk of a 21% increase in parking charges" for Birchington, then if he inquired a little further into the detail, then he might have discovered that this is I think, equivalent to 4p in two years time and so I remain somewhat baffled but I'm sure we'll hear more on his decision as time passes and I wish him well.

I should add here that there are many things I would like for my own ward of Westgate but resources have to be shared across the island and I can't always have what I ask for but that doesn't mean I'm going to leave the Conservative group. The maze of local government is a slow and often frustrating process for new ward councillors to negotiate and I would guess that it takes at least two years, before one discovers what levers to pull in order to help achieve one's local objectives.

Colonel Bob Stewart, was the guest of honour at the North Foreland golf club a Conservative association dinner on Friday evening and it was a pleasure to hear an inspiring account of his time serving in Bosnia.

I haven't seen Colonel Bob since I moved back down to Thanet and so I think he was a little surprised to see me here; our children attended the same school in Wimbledon.

Many readers will recall seeing those dark days in the Balkans on television, the siege of Sarajevo, the massacre at Srebenica and more and Bob, often with his hands tied with by the United Nations rules of engagement, saved countless lives through being creative in his interpretation of those same rules that frequently led to atrocity elsewhere.

In particular, I was struck by his account of saving the life of a woman and small child, who were about to be ethnically cleansed, on the roadside, by a soldier with an AK47 holding a rifle to the back of the helpless woman's skull. He told the small audience how he happened to be passing in his Landrover at that exact moment before the trigger was pulled and saved her life through the simple expedient of shooting the man dead. There were other similar stories of outstanding gallantry too and he lost a number of good friends in a very dirty conflict, being wounded in the leg himself.

In many respects, Bosnia was more visible and immediate to a domestic audience than Afghanistan. We had a real moral sense of what was right and what was wrong and what our soldiers were fighting and often dying for. In Afghanistan, this remains both expensive and muddy and I was struck by the comments of young Marines in a Ross Kemp documentary, who remain convinced that once we've left the country, the Taleban will be back. The lessons of history for Afghanistan have remained unchanged since the time of Alexander the Great and with Pakistan, now a failing if not failed State as it's neighbour on one side and Iran with its own ambitions on the other, a successful nation building exercise appears as far away as ever before.

Recycling Past the Office

2011-11-25T11:40:00.028Z

You may have guessed I've been away this week; over in Abu Dhabi on business.

With some irony, I see that despite being officially listed as 'away, this minor travel detail was lost on the editor of Thanet Gazette, who gives me an acerbic mention in 'Smudger', for not being prepared to take journalists calls abroad. Instead, I did tell the paper by email, where I was and directed the enquiry on local recycling statistics to the press office at TDC. This apparently isn't good enough for the Gazette as I'm supposed to carry the complete detail in my head and snap to attention from the other side of the earth. I see that even when given the detailed information, the story on recycling in this morning's paper, is as wildly unbalanced as I might expect.

Let me explain that journalists seeking forensic detail on services should contact the council press office as a first port of call, because that's what a 'press office' exists for. For political and policy related issues related to my own portfolio, by all means send me an email or try a call but you might find that going through the press office first is much more effective in seeking and directing answers to questions as people forget that being a councillor is a part-time and not a full-time role.

Thanks to email, I did manage to deal with all my other urgent council business, as well as two press releases and the unfortunate news that the wave of public toilet vandalism which curses our small island, carries on unabated.

With time to kill on two seven hour flights, I had plenty of opportunity to read through Karl Marx' 'Communist Manifesto' and arrive at the same conclusion as a number of economists have recently.

Marxism is frequently used a pejorative term but it appears as if Marx, quite successfully predicted the circumstances that have led us to question the success and future of unrestricted Capitalism in the face of the current global ;financial crisis. Marx (pictured in Margate below) offers a theory of history itself, or more precisely a theory of the dynamics of major historical change. He asks why social classes should live in a state of permanent warfare? His conclusion, is that the causes surrounds the history of material production and the nature of human labour as an entirely abstract phenomenon, one which establishes relationship with other commodities, independent of the concrete life of its producers.

It's a theme I may expand on later if time allows but with protesters camped-out in the financial centres of major cities, it's uncomfortably thought provoking and I wonder if there is some small political space for the Marxist argument and Conservative policy in the same room?

On a completely separate note, I did see that the BBC, in the new Nick Robinson Documentary, 'Your Money & How They Spend It' visited the Turner Contemporary for an interview with Victoria Pomeroy and a 'Vox Pop' in Margate. (Minute 22:54) Quite by magic, it seems, the only local councillor they could find to comment on the story, suited and booted outside the gallery, was, well, Cllr Ian Driver, from Ramsgate of course, not a member of the Cabinet or even our Mayor of Margate, Iris Johnston. It does rather lead me to wonder what the corporation's political agenda really is these days. However, watch the programme anyway because it illustrates how the Government spends an average of £6,000 for every family in the land (pensions, benefits, education etc) but closer to £8,000, here in Thanet and much more in Scotland which benefits from Westminster genorosity.

I would ask the Labour Group, who consistently deny the public deficit argument to watch minute 31:00 of the programme to better understand the reality of the financial crisis and the size of the deficit, a loss of control over the nation's fiscal policy, explained by Mandleson and Darling rather than the revisionist political myth, presently peddled by Ed Balls.

Meanwhile, back in the air and the luxury airline of Abu Dhabi, Etihad, must also be making 'cuts' of sorts. The last snack before landing was a 'Pot Noodle' and warm water. Next time, I think I'll bring my own curry flavour choice with me!

Foggy Interlude

2011-11-16T12:30:00.011Z

The high pressure and prevailing fog is becoming a frustrating nuisance. I've been trying since Monday to get over to Wycombe Air Park to pick up a repaired fuel tank and ferry it off towards Shoreham and the weather is having none of it.

With two aircraft out of action for maintenance, I've been lent a third, which is fuel-injected, faster, tidier and more modern than my own but lacks the extra 'Toys', I have installed in my aircraft, namely moving map GPS units. These are indispensable in conditions like this particularly while working around the tightly regulated London Control Zone. So while I could quite easily fly from A to B in the fog, getting back down again safely with a 500 foot cloudbase presents a challenge unless I happen to be following the precision approach ILS needles into a big airport like Manston.

This is where the GPS units come in handy because much like the kit you see on much bigger aircraft, they will give me a precise visual landing approach to smaller airfields which have no navigation beacons on a moving map, as opposed to seeing nothing at all with the traditional instruments, until one pops-out of cloud a couple of hundred feet above a big runway like Manston's.

In the first video, by way of example, this is an instrument approach test in a Diamond DA42 (lots of 'Toys' with a Garmin 1000 glass cockpit) with one engine failed, into Southend with the blind flying screens up. In the second there's a good example of how disconcerting fog can be even with a big jet.

Normally what one does is to spend as little time in the murk and try and climb above the fog, into the bright sunshine above the cloud - It's a glorious day a 1,000 feet up - and then follow the standard instruments or the GPS approach path on the colour display, down at the other end. We all like to see where we are going, where possible whether it's travelling on a motorway or an airway.

Hopefully, the wind direction will change tomorrow and I'll be able to get all my jobs in before the council cabinet meeting in the evening.

Remembrance Sunday 2011

2011-11-13T15:24:00.003Z

The Sun was out for Remembrance Sunday in Thanet today and Westgate-on-Sea welcomed the United States Military Attache, Colonel Sonny Blinkinsop, photographed with the WWRA stalwart, Stephanie Sutton, joining the parade to the war memorial and the plaque dedicated to the Liberator bomber crews of WWII, where he also laid a poppy wreath.

Cllr Tom King and I both took part and I was delighted, once again, to see how many people and representative groups, of all generations, gathered for the multi-denominational parade and small ceremony in Sea Road. This year, for a change, we didn't get wet.

I had an opportunity to take the Colonel to the Turner Contemporary and then to the Spitfire Museum at Manston, where he was warmly welcomed by its trustees and given a an official tour of the exhibits.

For Westgate to be recognised by the United States Airforce in this way is a very special privilege for the town and with weather like today, helps spread the message of Thanet being a place of interest to visit for a broad variety of cultural, historical and tourism reasons.

A Royal Remembrance Day at Turner Contemporary

2011-11-11T09:03:00.018Z

I'm walking-off towards Margate and the Turner Contemporary Gallery very soon, as I suspect that with the road closures, driving is out of the question and I'm sure the morning exercise will do me good.

There's a small change of plan on my part now, as John Kampfner has very kindly invited me to the royal reception at the gallery and so I'll be going there rather than the old town hall.

As you might expect, I'm carrying my smallest Samsung compact camera, attached to my belt and so if I have any memorable photos of this very special event for Margate, I'll share them here. The challenge will be in not being too obtrusive and the light on the ground floor of the Turner makes good photography quite difficult with the glare coming through the huge window behind Rodin's 'Kiss'.

There's been a great deal of hard work going on behind the scenes to show the town of Margate at its best for the visit and I'll be planning some spot checks on my walk along the seafront. Unfortunately, it looks set to be a misty Remembrance Day but at least it's not raining.

More later I hope. It's a day to remember the fallen, to celebrate local regeneration and a special visit to look forward to. One that even the editor of our often cynical local paper will be hard-pressed to be negative about.

Please don't forget the Remembrance Sunday procession in Westgate at 10:45 to the Sea Road war memorial. The United States embassy is sending their military attaché to join us, which is a considerable privilege for our small town.

A Time to Reflect

2011-11-09T19:25:00.007Z

"Every man's life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another. ." - Ernest Hemingway

With just over a day before 11-11-2011 and the honour shown to the town of Margate by the visit of Her Majesty the Queen, my thoughts turn to two of my own relatives, each of whom played very different parts in the Great War of 1914 - 1918.

The first of these, Arthur Osburn an army doctor, wrote a book, 'Unwilling Passenger', which I recently shared with Ian Hislop and which I have blogged about before. He took part in the very first engagement, which happened to be a cavalry charge and most recently, Andy Robertshaw, who like Hislop, makes documentaries on the First World War, borrowed my copy for research into a unique eyewitness account of those first battles and the great retreat of the British Expeditionary Force from Mons.

He describes the first action of the Great War; the 23rd August 1914, a cavalry engagement at Soignies in Belgium, between the 4th Royal Dragoon Guards and German lancers. In a new chapter 'Mons the Overture', he describes the action in some depth as he was present.

The German cavalry he refers to as 'Bavarian ploughboys' who were routed by the professional British cavalry and adds: "Some of our men pursuing them had refrained at first from running them through because their backs were turned. This gallantry was not to last very long!"

He adds: "I asked one of the prisoners for a button, which he cut off, my first souvenir! Rather tearfully he insisted that his brother had been shot at Munich for refusing to join-up and that he himself was very pleased he had been taken prisoner and would not have to take any further part in the war."

My maternal great grand-father, Andrew, who lived both here in Westgate and in London, volunteered, much like the great novellist Ernest Hemingway, to be an ambulance driver for the Belgian army at the very start of The Great War in 1914. From there, his life took an unusual turn and he became one of the first official war photographers, working for the Illustrated London News surviving the war unscathed and finally retiring back to a quiet life in Westgate on Sea at the Old Boat House. I recall seeing his Mons Medal as a boy.

I still have his issue Kodak camera, in excellent working condition, in its original leather case sitting on the shelf opposite, marked with the magazine's name on the inside and I may take it along with me to the ceremony on Friday as a mark of respect. By all means ask me if I have it if you wish to have a look at it. If you provide the film, it could still take photos, although what was seen through that small viewfinder, one can only guess.

A Walpole Bay Water Mystery

2011-11-08T21:38:00.011Z

Perhaps I should have change the title to 'Seaweed Matters' but for anyone interested in understanding more about the Environment Agency (EA) report on Walpole Bay, which figured in today's local news, here's a link to the interview I gave BBC Radio Kent this morning. (2:40 into the programme at 08:40)

Today's report appears to be a mystery of sorts and I'm waiting, with keen interest to see what the EA report identifies, scientifically, as the source of seawater contamination they refer to, beyond a speculative association with a seaweed build-up this summer. At any one time, we had as much as 2,000, tons of seaweed spreading across our beaches, more than anywhere else, I'm told in the country.

What we didn't hear on the news today, which only focused on the unusual reading from one beach, is that results show that water quality has significantly improved across the whole of Thanet. According to the Environment Agency the sea water quality around our beaches is excellent and has vastly improved. Not only have we exceeded their requirements by the minimum standards but have passed by European standards and that's something to be proud of.

With this in mind and on the basis of our improved water quality results we will be in a position to apply for a significantly higher number of blue flags in future, which is good news.

So back to Walpole Bay, where I once worked stacking deck chairs as a teenager and I have yet to see the evidence on which the EA report is based and I look forward to receiving as soon as possible.

As I say in the interview, it seems unlikely in my mind to be caused solely by the seaweed in the bay. As readers will know, seaweed in large quantities each summer, is prevalent in our waters across the whole of the district, and even more so in other areas outside of Walpole Bay, where beaches with more seaweed have water quality results are not just ‘standard’ but ‘excellent’.

So, I suspect the results are related to something else that the council is not aware of, as if it was purely down to seaweed then surely other areas, such as my own bay at St Mildreds would have been affected.

In answer to Tweets and questions I've had since this morning, although seaweed is removed from other bays, the council is unable to remove all of it due to the extremely high levels we receive on our coast line and one way of dealing with this is to push the seaweed back out into the sea as this is a natural and sustainable way of removing it from the bays. This also happens in other areas where our water quality results are excellent.

It is not unusual for seaweed to be left in an area like Walpole Bay, as the council focuses its resources on the the most popular and priority main bathing/tourist beaches to ensure this is removed as a priority.

As a councillor I have to make often difficult choices and ensure our priority areas are targeted,especially as Thanet receives such an abnormally high level of seaweed across its coast line, which is why, under my instruction, a new strategy document for dealing with this annual challenge is now being completed in advance of the summer of 2012.

The Olympic Flame Comes to Thanet on 19th July

2011-11-07T07:38:00.008Z

Announced this morning, the Olympic Flame will be making its way to Thanet on Thursday 19th July 2012 stopping at the Turner Contemporary and will pass through: Cliffsend, St Lawrence, Ramsgate, Broadstairs, St Peters, Cliftonville, Margate, Westgate-on-Sea and Birchington.

On my part, there's a certain irony, as it's forty years, since I became inspired by athletics as a teenager and by the Russian sprinter,Valeri Borzov at Munich in 1972. I could never have imagined then, that the Olympic flame would pass so close.

I have a personal debt of gratitude to sport, rugby,Thanet Wanderers, tennis (Margate & Broadstairs LTC) and athletics, Thanet Athletics Club, as these kept occupied and out of trouble in my teenage years in a Thanet, where there was very little to do but run, read and watch TV. Sport gave me a great deal, my first job and an opportunity to travel and I hope that today's generation will benefit from the Games and the rewards that sport can bring everyone, regardless of age and gender.

Leader of the Council, Cllr. Bob Bayford, said: “I am thrilled that Thanet will be playing host to the Olympic Flame and that so many of our communities have been included on the Torch Relay. This truly is a once in a lifetime opportunity for all of Thanet to join together to welcome the Olympic Flame and witness the spectacle of the Olympic Torch Relay. This will shine a global light on the Thanet communities hosting the Relay and I hope that this will encourage celebrations where people can share in the Olympic Spirit on the countdown to the Games and support members of the community who have been chosen to run with the Olympic Flame.”

Watch the Birdie

2011-11-06T12:55:00.006Z

I see the media made quite a meal of yesterday's banner over the Blackburn Rovers vs Chelsea Game. The weather was considerably better for the crew in the north of the country than here in Thanet but that didn't prevent a kamikaze seagull attempting to bring down the aircraft, 'Fowl Play' and causing the flight to be almost twenty minutes late over Ewood Park. You can see it just as the bird impacted in the photo at the delicate moment prior to picking-up the banner at Blackpool.

Actually getting airborne with a message in November is really a matter of luck, as the weather steadily deteriorates and managing the enormous expectations of football fans is one of the hardest jobs around. I've another big match to fly on the 19th of this month and this time, there's been a major fund-raising exercise to have a giant banner printed in the States, so I do hope the weather works out for the club involved.

Mind you, if you believe the adverts aviation doesn't involve lots of time waiting for the weather to clear, delays, ageing and temperamental aircraft but for a lucky few, as in the advert below, the Sun is always shining!

Away Days

2011-11-04T11:39:00.013Z

I've been preoccupied this week, at the London Conference on Cyberspace, which attracted the great and the good, from all four corners of the earth into the QE II conference centre, for an event hosted by William Hague, with David Cameron dropping in on Tuesday for a speech to support the initiative.

Hilary Clinton cancelled at the last moment, because of the sudden death of her mother, which left Vice President, Joe Biden to make a speech on her behalf.

With so many big name politicians in town, security was pretty intense, as the media have complained, surrounding the conference centre and at the Science Museum in Kensington, for the reception the evening before. I was surprised to bump into John Kampfner getting his security pass and I think he was more surprised to bump into me, because he hadn't made a connection between my council role, here in Thanet and the 'day job.' Why should he? John was speaking in his role of Chief Executive at the Index on Censorship but we managed to have time for a chat about the Turner Contemporary and of course, The Queen's visit to Margate next week. If you haven't heard already the gallery will be closed all day Friday and of course there will be strict security crowd control in the town for the visit. Some of the more mundane elements of the arrangements for this Royal visit, fall within my portfolio responsibility and I'm sure, that in general, the population of Margate and indeed, Thanet are looking forward to it, with some predictable exceptions perhaps!

I'm not sure I will blogging as much as usual over the next month, as I'm in and out of the country several times on business; as far as Abu Dhabi with my usual visit at this time of year, while of course remaining close to my council portfolio. Modern, 'always connected' technology and tele-presence is a wonderful thing. So you may find that I'm blogging a little more more intermittently than usual and may rely more on Twitter instead.

Before I forget, don't forget the new police non-emergency number is now 101. Late the other evening I had a telephone report from a passing resident of four teenage hoodies at the top of Westbrook avenue armed with aerosol paint cans. So I called the police and I'm pleased to say that while I was still on the line, they were apprehended; a good result I thought!

Misty Business

2011-10-29T08:28:00.013Z

Gallant efforts to have a quarter-scale, radio-controlled Spitfire, fly from Calais to Manston yesterday, were frustrated by the Channel weather. A bank of mist sat stubbornly over the warm sea water gap between us and France, throughout the day, which has me sitting at Manston, with a support crew, hoping that the weather would break.

The other part of the team were already in Calais with the radio-controlled model and the plan had one aircraft, called a 'Eurostar', not the train, arrive from the South-west with the model operator and me, with a chase plane, make the short hop from Manston into Calais. Of course, it didn't happen and they will have to try again another time which is very disappointing for everyone involved in the project.

What would have happened, if all had gone to plan, is that the model would have landed outside the Spitfire museum at Manston, where there would have been a reception. It has a top speed of 90 knots I'm told and so throttled back, I would have been able to keep it in sight.

I suspect that by now, everyone has heard that Her Majesty, the Queen, will be visiting Margate on 11th November, which is of course a great privilege for the town and the island in general. I suspect that the frantic polishing of shoes and pressing of suits and dresses is already well underway and I would hope that the Queen visits the Turner Contemporary, to place the royal seal of approval on this very successful statement of the town's regeneration strategy.

For those who are unsure of the protocol, here's a link to the webpage, with information on greeting the Queen.

I'm also pleased to have an email from the United States Airforce Military Attache, Colonel Sonny Blinkinsop, will be attending the Remembrance Sunday parade at Westgate to lay a wreath at the memorial to the US airmen of World War II erected two years ago. This is now becoming a regular US presence in our small town.

At the council's Scrutiny Committee, last week, I presented the details on Thanet's street cleaning work and I was somewhat surprised to read in the Thanet Gazette today that not only am I reportedly 'Miffed' but that the report was 'Rubbished' as well; the first I've heard of it from any source. My Conservative colleague, Cllr Gideon, did quip that it was 'fluffy' and I retorted that if she wanted more statistics, then next time I'm invited, I'll be happy to give the committee all the statistics on rubbish they might want and more!

In fact, this was a summary for a short presentation on what's been achieved and what's planned ahead and illustrated the steady rise in street-scene standards to last year. So when you hear the chant that streets were cleaner under Labour, don't believe a word of it because quite the opposite was true. One of the most successful of schemes involves the continuing roll-out of wheeled bins and more lately seagull proof bags to households. Added together these now cover 53,000 out of Thanet’s 65,000 households.

As for 'Smudger', I recommend she takes up voluntary work as it may make her much happier and less angry than her job in local journalism!

Few Words

2011-10-23T09:54:00.021Z

An old friend of mine was given the news by his doctor on Friday that he has a matter of months to live. This followed the discovery of an aggressive and inoperable brain tumour, after a CT scan last week.

I spoke to him while he was still at the hospital but finding the right words or indeed, any words but might seem more than inadequate platitudes, was a struggle. After all, what can you say once that kind of sentence of the inevitable and inescapable, has been delivered by a doctor, as factually as a judge donning his black cap in court?

So in the coming weeks, all his friends are planning a big party for him, as he's a tough and irascible b***d and would rather have us celebrate his wake standing-up with a glass in his hand than lying down surrounded by people in black ties and long faces. I think that's an attitude that many, if not most of us, would understand and share as well.

Yesterday morning I was up early to do a couple of jobs and was surprised to find my aircraft coated in ice. Kent and Essex were bathed in brilliant early morning sunlight, as I landed at an empty Damyns Hall to find the Good Year airship sitting on the disused runway, where I planned to set-up a banner. A little later, a small army of ground crewman arrived and wrestled it into the air forty-five minutes later. Watching it all, I concluded its driven by a chainsaw motor and is one complicated exercise. Lord knows how they ever managed to get the giant airships of the 1930's airborne?

I'm not very good at recognising celebrities and so for yesterday morning's job, I must have appeared a little naive when I asked the client how I might recognise the house on a very long road in the countryside. "It's like David Beckham's house" she said and so at that point I assumed I was looking for something quite large and ostentatious and I wasn't wrong! I've had a few occasions when well-know celebrities, both sporting and entertainment, have called-up for a flight and it wasn't until after the event, that I realised who they were. Some of course are obvious and I know where Jordan and Paul McCartney and Andy Murray have their homes, tucked well away from public gaze and with a space between them and the paparazzi.

Back to airships then, and a couple of years ago, one old chap in Westgate showed me a photograph of the Hindenburg flying over Westgate that he had taken while it was spying on our airfields. When you think that the German airship was larger by orders of magnitude, it's a wonder that until the disaster that destroyed it, it commuted between Berlin and New York on a regular basis. My father once told me he saw it flying over Madrid as a boy living in Spain before the Spanish Civil War.

Bird's Eye View

2011-10-19T13:38:00.018Z

I made two sorties to Dale Farm this morning and one to the Olympic Stadium. One of these locations had fires burning at various strategic points and the other didn't. If time allows, I will try and put up a photo to help readers guess where the blaze was!

The Essex Police helicopter unit were very helpful and allowed me inside their one mile exclusion zone around Dale Farm, with them hovering at low-level and me at 1,500 feet, watching the action taking place below around the scaffolding at the entrance to the caravan park. I joined them for a cup of coffee later so they could have a better look a some of the long-lens photos. (Photo Jim Bennett)

Of course, this evening, it's a big planning evening at Thanet District Council, involving the Tesco/Arlington application and many of us, I know, share strong feelings about the planning legislation. However, while I have sympathy for the plight of the Travellers at Dale Farm, I also feel strongly, that proper respect for the law that binds us as a free society, applies to everyone, regardless of politics, ethnicity, colour or religion. It's very difficult to justify the council enforcing the taking down of a conservatory extension which may be one metre too wide, when in the minds of many people, a blind-eye is turned to the sudden and unexpected arrival of a travelling community, that occupies and swiftly tarmacs 'Green Belt' land, not uncommonly, over a Bank Holiday weekend.

On a totally different subject, I attended an event at the Turner Contemporary last night, which gave me an opportunity to explore their 'Nothing in the World but Youth' exhibition. While I'm not normally one who appreciates the qualities of modern art, I did find this display very interesting and quite thought-provoking at times. So if you have the opportunity, I recommend that you go along and take a look for yourself!

Stop Press: In the interests of transparency, the Planning Committee have voted to send the application to full council for debate.

Kicking-Off

2011-10-16T16:02:00.006Z

Friday night and I was driving my daughter home along the Cliftonville seafront past a line of brightly lit and flashing police cards and ambulances. "What's happening", she asked. "Someone has probably been stabbed." I said, little knowing how close to the truth I was. Being behind the wheel, I resisted the urge to 'Tweet' or take a photograph of the scene. It's all very depressing.

This afternoon, I've had a Westgate resident arrive at my house, at the edge of despair over a well-known care home for troubled youngsters in the town. From all accounts the agencies involved in the challenge of managing these young people are failing very badly indeed and there's the threat, he tells me of more trouble, involving drunk and abusive teenagers, 'kicking-off' this evening.

When I finish writing this entry I will be writing to my fellow ward councillors, MP, KCC and the Police, to express my concerns that such reports of anti-social behaviour are becoming increasingly common. What this will achieve, I don't know because I have the unhappy feeling that rather than being proactive in dealing with the causes, swiftly and effectively, those agencies involved in managing so many thousands of such troubled young people on a wider national basis, are forced to be reactive or helpless or both and can only wring their hands when any community suffers as a consequence.

It's Friday

2011-10-14T11:31:00.004Z

I noticed that David Tennant was filming this morning on the beach at Margate, opposite the Nayland Rock hotel. However, by the time, I had finished my meeting at the council offices and wandered back with my camera, it was all over, so as a consolation prize, here's a photo of the Turner Contemporary instead, which reportedly has now had over 250,000 visitors through it's door. A very good news story for Margate and it's steady journey of urban and seaside regeneration.

Yesterday, I spent a productive morning at Westminster with Roger Gale and Laura Sandys and among the subjects we discussed, was the matter of protecting the sea life our sixteen miles of reef from being hoovered-up by migrant gangs, who may be selling it to the restaurant trade in London. With Roger Gale acting as the point of contact, we've agreed to call a meeting involving a number of different agencies, hosted by the council and I will plan keep everyone informed. and in particular those who are working so hard locally to protect our shoreline.

For those readers living in Westgate, there was a meeting held in the council chamber this week which involved Network Rail and concerned residents of The Grove; all to do with the heavy plant access to the railway line during unsocial hours. People made their feeling known and it was abundantly clear that Network Rail has been well performing beneath its published standards of efficiency, courtesy and service.

We have made some progress and have a commitment from Network Rail to repair the footbridge early next year. On a personal note, I think it is quite inappropriate for the railway company to seek access to the line through The Grove and I have informed them that as the Cabinet Member for the Environment, I will be watching their future performance very closely. This represents quite a thorny problem because of the statutory right of access the railway company claims to the line in order to make repairs.

Meanwhile on matters less local and political and more mundane, back in the wider world of aviation, there's another convoluted Premier League football stunt to pull this weekend, so watch the skies on Saturday on Sky Sports; weather permitting of course.

A Seaside Opportunity

2011-10-12T10:13:00.003Z

If anyone out there is in a hurry to 'Pop the question' with a plane banner, Channel 4 Television have asked me to find a volunteer for a new documentary and I would much rather do it closer to home and perhaps somewhere like Botany bay or The Turner Contemporary to promote Thanet. So let me know if your plans include a proposal before Christmas?

Tomorrow, I've a meeting with both our local MPs at Westminster to discuss concerns over the harvesting of marine life from Thanet's reef by small organised gangs of migrants. I've already had a chat with the environment agency about the problem and a representative of the Gangmasters' Association will be present as well.

This is not up to the levels that they experience elsewhere in the country, the shoreline around Liverpool being the worst, I'm told with their large cockle beds. Anecdotal reports I receive suggest that the frequency along our own coastline is not sustainable and may indeed be having a negative impact; the legislation having never anticipated the pressures of 21st century life on the coastal marine environment.

What can be done beyond putting pressure on the Environment Agency and Natural England, I'm not entirely sure but from an environmental perspective, I think it's time that Government realised that fragile coastlines, like our own, here in Thanet, deserve a proper level of protection and both Roger Gale and Laura Sandys have been very supportive since Alasdair Bruce and I last met with them to discuss the issue.

I will of course keep readers informed of any progress but if you spot gangs working the reef, please drop me an email, letting me know where, when and where as it helps me scale the nature of the problem.

Pedal Power

2011-10-09T10:50:00.002Z

There's a long line of British Heart Foundation, sponsored cyclists, heading west along the sea wall towards Reculver Towers. Now the rain's stopped, I think I will jump on my racing bike and join them; hopefully without any incidents, such as sudden wildfires, along the way.

A dramatic change in weather between this Sunday and last. Yesterday, I had to abandon a marriage proposal flight because of the wind speeds and that's always a hard thing to do because of the level of expectation on the client side. Most people re-book to a better day but when, like yesterday, the client has come-up with a complicated schedule, this can throw a large spanner in the romantic works. I hope she said 'Yes.'

I've been busily adding more of my favourite photos to my new Tumblr account and readers may find some of them familiar but with a different perspective.

The Lancaster in the photo, I was also lucky enough to catch one afternoon doing a remembrance run for the 'Dambusters' around Reculver towers.

I appear to have run through 20,000 discrete page views here in the last month. What prompted the sudden increase in readership is hard to say and I'm sure equally undeserving, although the David Tennant news drove an extra 1,750 in my direction. I do notice though that the 'troll' now appears to have given-up, for now at least. Either that or his medication is taking effect. I don't doubt he will be back in the future.

Time to change into cycling lycra then!

Footnote: I see that some of the beach huts in Minnis Bay have been vandalised again. Will it never stop!

A Subject of Convenience

2011-10-07T12:50:00.005Z

With 'Plain Jane' remarking on the toilet provision at Botany Bay in her Thanet Gazette column today, I've written a letter for next week's paper, explaining, why the council deployed 'portaloos' while some of the main beach-side toilets around the coast were closed.

For readers who can't justify the extravagance of 60p to read it next week, this is what I wrote:

"The beginning of October set a new record for an Indian summer heat wave and in her column; ‘Plain Jane’ complains that the toilets at Botany Bay weren’t opened to meet the sudden rush of tourists to our beaches.

A number of our toilets around Thanet are open seasonally and in particular those surrounding our main beaches. Every year, the council opens these toilets for a specific period, usually closing them around the third week of September as the finances do not exist to keep them open all year round. The weather we had at the start of October was unique and hardly something that could have been easily planned for. Closing a public toilet involves shutting off the water supply, turning off the power, draining the system and boarding up the property against the ever present threat of vandalism. Therefore, it isn't as simple as Jane suggests, to quickly re-open a toilet again, once it's already been closed for the season.

To meet the sudden demand for the beaches out-of-season, the council quickly put ‘Portaloos’ in place at some strategic points. This clearly wasn’t ideal but it solved an immediate problem and I apologise if some people were inconvenienced.

I spent some time cycling around some of our beaches at the height of the good weather. I would hope that readers would agree that Thanet’s coastline was shown-off to its best, with a Mediterranean-like view and with a clean and attractive destination for both local and tourist visitors to enjoy."

Meanwhile, I've started putting a selection of my photos on Tumblr as well as having the larger library of aerial shots available from the Flickr link you can find on the blog sidebar. There's no particular order, just some of my favourites over the years.

Steve Checks Out

2011-10-06T08:25:00.023Z

A day to remember. The legendary Steve Jobs checks out, the first of my generation of world-dominating technology icons to remind us that all the success and money in the world is no substitute for the gift of good health, a fact reinforced by the on-going Michael Jackson trial in Los Angeles. For millions upon millions of consumers, Steve Jobs will be sorely missed for his innovation and the enormous influence he has had on the technologies that we now take for granted.

The first technology industry job I had after leaving Thanet, was at a large Apple dealer in the City of London, where I taught the financial community how to use Apple's biggest 'White Elephant' the Apple Lisa. Back in the mid-nineties I found myself at the top of Mount Sinai in Egypt, as a purple-hued dawn was breaking over the desert and mountains to the east. I was carrying a handheld Apple 'Newton', the precursor of the iPad, for a photo opportunity, having climbed throughout the night to be there just in time for a 'Mosaic Moment.' The photos are buried somewhere in an album in the attic. I wonder if anyone remembers that John Sculley once led Apple when he pushed Jobs out as CEO in the 80s?

Vladimir Putin is attempting, at almost the same age, to prove he's a both a superman and a very poor underwater archaeologist and quite capable of taking over the Presidency of Russia for another term. Meanwhile, Microsoft's Bill Gates quietly gets on with giving millions upon millions of his personal fortune to different charities, with the stated ambition of leaving this earth with as much money as he came into into it with.

I'm off to a Local Development Framework meeting so I may write more later if I have an opportunity.

Back from the council offices and I see that I'm getting very close to breaking the magic 20,000 page views in a month barrier and that I also have an email from a hijacked Hotmail account playing a familiar scam. Why would any European write 'Madrid, Spain,' for starters?

I think I will play the bad guys along for a while to drive them crazy thinking I'm sending them money but keep getting the instructions wrong. I'm expecting a quick response to my offer of help to the email below very soon! That's the risk you take when you keep your address book in the 'The Cloud'.

"Dear Simon

I'm writing this with tears in my eyes,my family and I came down here to Madrid Spain for a short vacation unfortunately we were mugged at the park of the hotel where we stayed,all cash,credit card and cell were stolen off us but luckily for us we still have our passports with us.

We've been to the embassy and the Police here but they're not helping issues at all and our flight leaves in less than few hours from now but we're having problems settling the hotel bills and the hotel manager won't let us leave until we settle the bills,I'm freaked out at the moment."

Here you go.. it took all of nine minutes for the criminal gang to get back to me as you can see from the reply below... fun time! - I have removed the name! Western Union is an irrevocable transfer so that's always a giant clue to any potential internet fraud.

"Glad you replied back. This is a terrible experience,All i need right now is €1,750.00 you can have it wired to my name via Western Union outlet i will be so glad to have what you can help with. I'll have to show my passport as ID to pick it up here and thank God i still have my life and the Passport.i promise to pay you back as soon as i get back home.Here's my info below

Name:Sarah C****
State:Víctor Andrés Belaúnde 22, 29036 Madrid,
Country:Spain

As soon as it has been done, kindly get back to me with the confirmation number.let me know when you are heading to the Western Union now.???"

And the next reply after my offering to call the hotel direct is....

"l think its a good idea to wire the cash to me via western union as the hotel is having some difficulties with their credit card machine, western union outlet is 3 blocks away from me here,l can pick the cash at the outlet once you're done with the transfer, how about that ?wondering if you could spare all? you can as well wire the money online by visiting western union website online www.westernunion.com and you get back to me with the transfer details and the MTCN numbers once you are done."

13:40 and the fraudster is firmly hooked waiting for the money. The next step is for me to transfer the responsibility for the transfer to a friend called 'Daniel', who by complete coincidence also happens to be in Spain and through another stroke of luck, happens to be a senior member of the Spanish National Police hi-tech crime unit. We'll see!

A little later and the Spanish National Police have come back to me...How's that for service!!

"Dear Simon, can you forward the original e-mail, in order to analyze tech header, and see the IP address. My colleagues in financial frauds on the internet will arrive in forty minutes."

A little later still. Apparently the fraudster is operating from an address in Plymouth. The Madrid postcode is incorrect by a digit and his IP address ties him to an ISP and an address over here rather than Spain. So the Spanish police will pass the intelligence our new friend back to our own people. The Western Union transfer he was looking for can of course go anywhere in the world!

Crashes and Crimes in Thanet?

2011-10-03T14:21:00.000Z

Today's release of Google 'Crashmaps' reveals where the most dangerous roads are in Thanet. You simply type in a postcode on CrashMap - then scroll looking for exclamation marks.

So now not only can you see which roads to avoid or treat with greater caution than others but with Google's similar interactive crime maps on the www.police.uk website, you can also see who your neighbourhood police officers are with their contact details, the latest police twitter information from Thanet and where the risk of crime and or personal assault are highest too!

In Westgate, you'll notice there's a distinct geographical pattern to burglary around Beach Road and Sussex Gardens and anti-social behaviour incidents in the same area, all of which I find very depressing. I'm sure this is true elsewhere too!

I recommend that all readers check their postcodes against the crime map to see what local risks they should be aware of.

Party Time

2011-10-03T12:27:00.004Z

It's the Conservative Party conference and aside from the collapsing Euro, fears over the Greek deficit, the overall shambles that is Europe and of course, our struggling and debt-burdened economy, one topic appears to be stirring the strongest feelings among voters. This is of course the European Human Rights Act, which has its successes or failures, depending on your political viewpoint, catalogued on a daily basis by the tabloid media.

Before the last General Election, the Conservatives pledged to replace it with something more appropriate to our national interest but that was of course before we had a coalition government and the Liberal Democrats and in particular, the Euro-centric Messrs Clegg and Huhne, have more or less said that it's here to stay and any moves to replace it will end in the collapse of the coalition.

Next year of course, accession states Bulgaria and Romania will have full access rights to our welfare system and the other evening I found myself in strange agreement with Nigel Farage and Bob Crow, sharing a spot on Sky News, an unusual partnership from opposite ends of the political spectrum but in common agreement over the manifest disadvantages of European policy to the British public.

In regard to the Human Rights Act, we appear unique in Europe in regard to a generous judical interpretation of the Brussels legislation and unlike our European neighbours, who live under the 'Code Napolean' our judiciary are entirely free of political interference, which is a good thing at times but clearly not where the national interest in involved.

So where other European states will frequently roll-over the decisions of their judiciary in their own national economic or security interest, we can't, which to me, at least, makes having our own national bill of rights a logical alternative to one which is being used by clever lawyers to club us to death with our own liberal goodwill.

At what point, I wonder will government of any party be prepared to finally stand-up and say a resolute 'Non' to Brussels or do we silently accept the rampant abuse of our national goodwill, as a necessary condition of being part of a greater and more prosperous European dream which is fast becoming a nightmare as monetary union appears closer to collapse with each passing day.

A Loss of Confidence

2011-10-02T10:54:00.024Z

I don't like to criticise our police, who at the best of times, have a difficult and often thankless task to perform with dwindling resources. However despite my admiration, today, I was unimpressed at action, coordination and initiative and this is why.

A little earlier, I decided to cycle my regular time trial along the seafront to Reculver towers.

Being a fantastic morning, one could see for miles and shortly after entering the sea wall beyond Minnis Bay, I saw a plume of smoke rising from the nature reserve.

I sped along in that direction and found three other cyclists trying desperately to put out a freshly started and fast spreading blaze.One cyclist was on the phone to the 999 operator trying unsuccessfully to describe where we were. I asked him to pass the phone over and had the same problem as a couple of weeks ago attempting to explain a position in space that did not have a post code or a road name and offering her the GPS LAT/LONG coordinates weren't much use either. 'Hopeless' would be too kind a word to use and I have to confess I was abrupt with the poor operator who had no idea where Birchington or perhaps even Thanet was and could only work in postcodes and not geography.

The people at the scene told me that they had seen three teenagers, a girl and two boys emerge from the fire and cycle off towards Minnis and their description tallied with three that had passed me in the opposite direction earlier. So after exhausting my pitiful water bottle on the leaping flames and fruitless efforts to beat out the accelerating fire with the others, I called the police and told them that I was going to cycle-off after them and would meet the fire engine at the Minnis Bay car park.

At Minnis Bay, I gave the details of the fire and the three suspects to the fire crew that had just arrived and four police officers, two on bikes and two in a car. I also said I would be getting after the suspects. One of the policeman offered to come with me but as he was much older than me by many years and his bike about 15mph slower, I said I would use my better speed, try and locate them and then call his number or 999.

Cycling hard, I luckily managed to catch-up with the three by Westgate golf course. The policeman's mobile wouldn't answer and so I called 999 and had to go through the long process of giving all the necessary information that the police need these days.

I won't bore readers with the details but I made three or was it four further 999 calls along the route which finally took me to Fort Hill. Each time, starting all-over, explaining who I was, where I was and where the promised police car should stop to intercept the suspects. On the way along the seafront, one of the three, the largest, managed to crash outside Pav's cafe in St Mildred's bay attempting a wheelie and had to be helped back to his feet by bystanders. It's also where I picked-up an old friend, Mike W. on his bicycle and we followed the three teenagers, together towards Margate, finally stopping until on the promenade below the police station at Fort Hill and despairing of the authorities actually doing something, I decided to leave my friend and cycle-up the cliff slope to their front desk, while Mike said he would stop the kids for 'a chat'.

At the police station in Margate,the nice lady once again took all my details and told me that I had recently reported a fire and made at least three 999 calls, 'No kidding.' When my information I finally been typed in, once again, I asked if there was such a rare commodity as a police officer at the station who might come outside and collect the three suspects. The desk clerk managed to raise the desk sergeant, who was quite concerned that Mike might have laid hands on them. "I've no idea' I said, but 'why doesn't the sergeant come outside and ask them?'

Perhaps someone was in danger of being oppressed or a Human Rights issue was involved, I've no idea but what followed was more bureaucratic 'umming' and 'ahhing' and finally and after nine minutes at the police station front desk, I declared that I "had lost the will to live.' From where I stood, the 'police were clearly uninterested in catching the suspects', who had probably gone by now and I was quite worn out after fifteen miles on my racing bike. So I left.

Outside, there was no sign of Mike or the suspects and I've come home to write this.

The final irony is that the police just called me at home and wanted to know where the suspects are, as a car has now been tasked to follow-up. That was at 11:40. The Incident took place at around 10:15 about a mile short of Reculver.

A decade or so ago, I might have had the energy to cycle on a bit longer in the direction of Damascus or even Ramsgate but at 55, fifteen or twenty miles at a 20 mph pace on my Roberts Racer, leaves me crashed in a small heap for the remainder of the day waiting for the evening and an ice-cold lager.

I plan to complain to the Area Commander in the morning. Perhaps I should have asked the three suspects to follow me to the police station for a chat to make it all easier for everyone involved in this 15 mile chase?

And Mike, if you read this, what happened next??

Bad Boys

2011-10-01T17:15:00.003Z

Hastings today and a banner around the town for an hour, advertising open evenings next week for the new 'Hastings Academies.' I suspect most people were on the beach shown below.

I will admit that it's a novel way of promoting community involvement in the school and that I quite possibly thought the same as you but "Ours not to reason why."

Two O'clock this morning and Westgate Bay Ave and Westbrook Ave had appeared to have attracted a group of teenagers keen to take turns road testing a very noisy mini motorcycle as conspicuously as possible.

Unable to sleep I went outside and challenged the two left with the machine and it was the usual 'Bad Boys' of around sixteen plus. The conversation became very heated on their part and very nearly became violent but neither seemed prepared to act out their threats and they dispersed, pushing the now stalled mini-bike back towards Wesbrook. Hopefully the incident won't repeat but I will be reporting this to our community officer and have already passed on the information and address of an alleged heroin and marijuana dealer living within two hundred yards of my home, which a concerned local resident has shared with me.

What did worry me most perhaps was that this is becoming more common and so many of these kids were sixteen or under. Several I recognised and there they were running around in the early hours of the morning causing havoc. I spoke with one girl and told her that I would be having a word with her dad in the morning but she replied her parents had recently split-up and she was living in the house on her own; she's just sixteen. What can I say!

In The House Again

2011-09-30T15:55:00.007Z

This afternoon I was back to the Big Brother House again, with a message for a young lady called 'Maisy' from her father. That's four flights I've done over the place in the last six years, Jade, Ulrika, Maisy and a message, one year, "there is another house" which made no sense to me!" I suppose the emotional reaction was predictable though!

Over Essex I photographed the Red Baron through the thick thirty degree haze. Unlike the Fokker Dr1 in the photo, I don't have a machine-gun but I 'm a little faster!

Four days of flying in these temperatures beats the very best weight loss programmes. Working at low level, as I do, the cockpit can be uncomfortably warm and I have every sympathy for the helicopter pilots in Afghanistan, where temperatures can reach 50 celsius while they are going through start-up checklists, which can take twenty minutes or more, in the case of the Apache.

It appears we are expecting a bumper weekend here on the coast and I'm already getting reports that our local traders are benefiting from the extraordinary Indian summer weather.

I noticed driving out of Birchington this morning, the steady line of cars coming in with more than one, occupant, as people did the sensible thing in this temperature and headed for the seaside!

Red Hot Chili Peppers

2011-09-28T20:38:00.000Z

Absent-mindedly managed to mix up a homegrown live red chili with a red pepper this evening and munched on the wrong one. Not a mistake I plan to repeat in a hurry! Reminds me of the time many years ago when my poor father confused my tube of deep heat ointment in the bathroom with a similar-looking tube of red and white Colgate. The scream could be heard for miles.

I was out at Northampton today and in the descent towards Kent this afternoon, the inversion caused by the high temperatures really stood-out as a purple layer of smog drifting down the Thames estuary from a city of London almost hidden completely in the thick haze.

If the temperatures continue to build as predicted over the coming days, I would expect one heck of a thunderstorm unless the wind changes direction dramatically.

Thursday morning sees me out over Essex again playing hunt the scrap metal caches with a suitably powerful camera lens. I suspect that if I gave readers a map of the county and a few flagged pins, they could take a pretty educated guess as to the route.

I thought I might add something about local politics and the council but as other blogs are quite happily indulging their own fantasies in this direction, I would hate to spoil the fun and to be honest I could do with an early night for a change.

Scorchio

2011-09-26T08:20:00.006Z

For those of you still young enough to remember 'The Fast Show' here's the Thanet weather forecast for this week from the lovely Paula, with temperatures predicted to be in line with the best Mediterranean weather.

I'm sure if the show were still running it would have something to say about the size of the Greek national debt as well, given that the country is expected to default this week and potentially drag the Eurozone down in the process, unless of course a cunning plan of remarkable ingenuity is discovered.

To be honest, I prefer it to the BBC's own regional weather coverage. Sorry Kaddy!

Rocking All Over the World

2011-09-24T12:46:00.012Z

The wind has picked-up enough for the colourful giant kites to start flying over Margate Beach as part of the annual 'Big Sky' international festival on the seafront and I'm just home from a 'Rock Doc Walk' local geology interest with Alasdair Bruce at Kingsgate and Botany Bay on a stunning September morning.

A German television crew were in tow, filming a documentary and they were suitably impressed with the light and the Thanet weather; it's like this all the time as we know and a good a reason as any to come and admire the famous sunsets from the Turner Contemporary gallery in Margate!

Alasdair was holiday trekking in Yellowstone Park last week so the contrast in geology between there and Botany Bay must be remarkable.

You can book a place on one of these walks here and having an expert like Alasdair living locally, makes it even more worthwhile for the outing to enjoy our coastline.

Other news of the day, is that I'm reliably informed the Thanet Gazette's 'Captain Thanet', Saul Leese, has departed the paper suddenly, for a new career outside journalism in London and I wonder if we'll be reading about it in Smudger.

Reportedly, the title's future is uncertain enough for people to be worried and Saul, who will I'm sure be sorely missed, appears to be the first overboard. I wish him luck in his new role.

Staying with Smudger a moment, there's a nasty catty piece in the paper this week, taking a swipe at Laura Sandys for promoting our tourism and decrying our ' Knee deep in rotting seaweed 'covered beaches as if we had some control over the tides and the largest seaweed harvest, by orders of magnitude in Britain. I've visited much of our sixteen-mile coastline in the last twenty-four hours as you can see from the photos and our Thanet beaches look magnificent and picture-postcard attractive; quite enough to impress a foreign TV crew today and I hope, even David Tennant, who spent some time filming on the sands, this week.

For further information on Rock Doc walks please contact Thanet Coast Project on 01843 577672 or email

A Despicable Business

2011-09-23T08:28:00.004Z

Normally, as readers will have guessed, I always carry a camera but not this morning unfortunately.

I was getting money from the station cashpoint in Westgate when I noticed something unusual happening outside the Piggy Bank nursery. My suspicions were aroused when one of our more vulnerable children in care, who doesn't apparently go to school, shot across the road on his bicycle, to join a group of pupils from King Ethelberts school, who were involved in some kind of veiled financial transaction with a man in a yellow hooded tracksuit top.

He appeared to be passing them something in silver paper and money was changing hands. He then went into the newsagent and re-appeared with three packets of SuperKings, more money exchanged hands and the kids went on their way, boys and girls happily smoking their cigarettes and the 'dealer' wandered off towards Beano's cafe, I assume to buy his breakfast with the profits.

I can't express how angry seeing this made me and so I followed him into Beanos and confronted him at the counter there, politely explaining that this was a criminal offense and that I intended to call the police. Very surprised, he retorted that the kids were his, which was a poor excuse, given his darker appearance and he then made a quick exit, leaving a cafe full of interested onlookers watching.

I did try reporting it to the police but with no answer, I've tweeted and sent an email instead. I can easily identify him if required as can the manager of the newsagent. If I had my camera I could have recorded the whole thing. It may appear to be a minor business but what starts with exploiting our local children with cigarettes and soft drugs invariably leads to more substances as time passes.

I should add that if the police wish to recover the CCTV footage from the shop and outside (08:40) then I'm happy to act as a witness and I would hope the store manager would too as he confirmed the purchase.

A Birchington Tennant

2011-09-22T11:24:00.005Z

Quite by chance on my cycle ride this morning, I came across the house where David Tennant is filming a new BBC drama series, 'Love Life' with Billie Piper. It's just back from the seafront at Birchington at Epple Bay.

I'll take a bigger camera along next time and see if I can grab some better photos. The film crew were busy setting-up as I came past, the only thing narrow enough, on my cycle, to get down a very busy road, with all the parked up production vehicles.

Frying Tonight

2011-09-22T09:21:00.012Z

Council cabinet tonight and as the Labour group normally have their speeches well prepared in advance, so they pop-up on the internet shortly after the meeting concludes, I even thought I might have a quick bash at writing the inevitable starting monologue for them. This normally has absolutely nothing to do with the business in hand and is simply a reminder that the outdated notion of 'class-war' remains alive and well in Thanet;

Invariably, this takes the form of an introductory political speech from Cllr Poole on 'Greedy bankers,' 'millionaire public school' toffs and how the economic crisis is a fantasy, made-up by the ConDems, as an excuse to steal public sector pensions and smear the outstanding work of fifteen years of Labour Government.

Short pause then, for the regular finger-pointing chant on how a Labour government gave us new hospitals, schools - and several small foreign wars, before the important business of the evening starts-

I wonder what David Miliband would make of it all and if you don't believe me come along and see how local government works, despite the exhausted slogans and regular interruptions, for yourself.

Fed-up with watching re-runs of small boys cage-fighting for the delight of the audience at a Lancashire Labour club on Sky News, I'm going for a cycle ride to Reculver before I read through this evening's papers again. I wonder what the national outcry would be in contrast, if teenage pole dancing was the evening's entertainment at the local Conservative club.

In the photos, yet another Minnis bay car park puncture and pictured, Sammy the Terrier who is 90 today. In dog years anyway. She's had 1 candle in a corned beef sandwich to celebrate!

Nothing in the World

2011-09-20T21:13:00.007Z

I must admit, having David Tennant filming in Margate is good for the town in terms of attracting good publicity and of course raising its profile. I hear he's enjoying his new TDC press officer acting part so much that he's thinking of giving-up acting and moving down permanently!!! Without a doubt he's made a number of friends around the town and reportedly the public and his fans have found him very approachable.

If you fancy being an extra in his new TV drama then follow the link here. Or call the Casting Network on 0208 391 2979 during office hours.

From looking at Twitter, it seems that the link between the two is encouraging some people to think of giving it a visit and in particular, the Turner Contemporary, which is of course showing it's 'Nothing in the World but Youth' exhibition.

I'm out flying tomorrow, with a marriage proposal at the pier at Southend and a secret mission for Channel 4 somewhere else in the country. I can't say where because they are very sensitive about it. To be honest, I don't know myself what it's all about but I'm sure I will find out soon enough! The projected wind speeds for the target location are however very 'iffy', so I'm only giving them a 50/50 chance of pulling it off.

A New Tennant

2011-09-19T16:48:00.009Z

Days like this one don't come along too often.

On the one hand, as you may see from the photo, the former Dr Who and Casanova, actor, David Tennant, is filming this afternoon at the council offices in Margate and so I have to tiptoe about the second floor, until he's finished perfecting his new TV series role of a Thanet District Council press officer.

And on the other hand, I had a call from the Studio agency today, asking if I could be Hollywood action man, Brad Pitt's pilot for a film on Thursday. Why is a long story but unfortunately for me, it's Cabinet evening at TDC, which of course takes priority over everything else and I can't be sure of getting back to Margate in time.

So I guess that ruins any chances of a future date with Angelina Jolie either!

A Faustian Dilemma

2011-09-17T10:46:00.019Z

It's the Liberal Democrat conference in Birmingham this weekend and the Deputy Prime Minister, with his attention trapped between his political survival and the really important policy issues, such as education and the NHS, has pledged to make his Party less 'male and pale'; reinforcing the case that this country is now run by a coalition government and not simply a Conservative one.

Labour's future is now directed by the Edwardly lesser talent of the two Marxist-educated Miliband brothers and the equally left- wing Shadow Chancellor, Ed Balls, which should give some of us good reason to worry over a future in their hands. At least a generation will have to pass, before the record debt left to this country - £140 million a day in interest alone - by the last Labour Government, may reduce to manageable levels, under an unavoidable regime of tight austerity, regardless of which Party happens to hold power.

At Westminster, what might appear to be a number of common sense policies to the bulk of the population, are frustrated by the 'Eurocentric' LibDems that stand in the way of Conservative manifesto commitments, while holding a disproportionate number of Ministerial appointments as their Faustian bargain to keep Labour out of power. It's the political equivalent of the lesser of two evils but without a clear majority, no single party can easily or swiftly deliver a complete programme of Post-Labour reforms, political, legislative, social and more.

Here in Thanet, people also forget that the situation is not entirely dissimilar to that at Westminster; the balance of power held by the Independent group, which can lead, almost inevitably, to a drawn-out process of compromise, which is not without its challenges, with so much to do and so little time available in the execution.

Time to take the dog for a walk I think and mull-over the potentially awful consequences for the Eurozone of Greece defaulting on its eyewateringly large national debt. Thankfully, for all of us, the LibDems, distracted perhaps by their more important diversity agenda, aren't quite able to achieve their policy goal of full European fiscal and legislative integration or complete surrender to the Brussels bureaucrats.

Airship

2011-09-15T12:15:00.007Z

It started as a dazzling September day and I made an early morning visit into Damyns Hall airfield just outside London, where the Good Year airship was readying to fly off to Manchester to cover the football.

It's big enough but flies quite slowly and must be a handful in any strong wind.

Back to a very unexpected award in the mail from PADI for twenty years as an instructor member and then shower and change for several council meetings this afternoon. Meanwhile. here's a view of the Canvey Island oil refinery on the way past. From there you can clearly see the start of Thanet's chalk cliffs reflecting the light from Minnis Bay.

From time to time you can see the cooling tower from the Stoke power station on the Isle of Grain, sticking-up on the western horizon past the Isle of Sheppey and opposite Sheerness. It's a feature to be avoided on a foggy day as it's on a direct route from Stapleford back into Thanet. (Click the image to enlarge)

Flying Fred's Kite

2011-09-14T21:31:00.004Z

Many readers are far too young to remember the classic 1960's Boulting Brothers film: "I'm Alright Jack' , starring Peter Sellers as the pugnacious, slogan quoting Shop Steward, 'Fred Kite.'

Today's Congress, I think proved that Fred still lives, at least in spirit as the Trades Union movement wallows in such as perilous state of denial that yesterday, even the Leader of the Labour Party was heckled when he attempted to level with delegates over the link between a struggling economy and public-sector pensions.

I noticed that the NUT and others have it firmly fixed in their minds that there is no public sector pensions crisis, a problem which is only too familiar to local councillors of all parties, who, like me, have had the simple mathematics explained to them in briefings. While Cabinet Minister Francis Maude points out the necessary steps that Government must take to avoid following Greece, Ireland and Italy down the pan, nobody seems prepared to listen.

Perhaps standing with one's eyes closed, one's fingers in one's ears and shouting 'La La La' loudly, is enough to avoid the negotiation and common sense required of the movement during the worst financial crisis since the end of the Second World War.

Anyway, I'll leave you with Fred Kite, who if he were alive today, might have been deeply shocked to learn how much Trade Union bosses are paid these days; with free housing and pension rights thrown-in for good measure.

Margate Rooftop Protest

2011-09-14T11:14:00.009Z

14:30 Update: I'm hearing that the man has now come down safely.

The protest taking place on the roof of Boots the chemist in Margate still appears to be on-going.

Police have cordoned-off the approach roads and you will see from the photograph, that this is a young man, locally-known as Daniel, seeking parental access to his children. He is following the controversial example of "Fathers 4 Justice" in taking 'direct action' of this kind. If you have a car parked in Cecil Square, then I suspect it's going to be there until this incident is peacefully resolved.

Comments are now switched back on and the photo is available for use with attribution.

Meanwhile, the police presence continues to build, with the helicopter now arriving on scene, I suspect from the sound of the clattering noise overhead.

See Thanet Gazette link full story here. Photo with a Samsung EX1 (F1.8) at full digital zoom.

Dear Comrade - A Day in Politics

2011-09-09T12:56:00.009Z

Misquoting Oscar Wilde: 'To lose one Councillor for Northwood, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both within six months looks like carelessness.'

Reports coming in of political skulduggery in Thanet's Labour Group today, with one of the comrades apparently having torn-up his party card and resigned to start his own 'Hard Labour' party.

In the absence of further news of this driver-less train, I will leave readers imaginations to enjoy a classic Monty Python interlude. This may offer a comic parody on events so far and the intemperate language (warning) reported by the local paper today.

Tides and Thames

2011-09-08T06:54:00.009Z

I have the greatest admiration for David Walliams and his charity raising swims but when his PR company contacted me a few weeks ago to inquire whether I could follow him along the Thames with an aircraft banner, I did remark that I feared he wouldn't make the full distance. In particular, the heavy rainfall of the last week will have triggered considerable drainage, so not a time, I would have thought to go swimming in Father Thames.

I competed in the Windsor triathlon in 1997 and the mile-long swim took us along the Thames from the old town. I think everyone I spoke with viewed the muddy water with some trepidation. After seeing a large dead rat float past my face during the race, I made sure to start a course of antibiotics when I arrived home; I had made the point of going to see my doctor before the race. The London event later that same year had the swim in the black waters of Docklands and didn't seem so bad although it was bitterly cold in the water and somewhat faster with no current to fight.

I can't imagine a sustained immersion in the Thames, even in these modern cleaner times, as the personal health risks from a variety of risk factors, such a e-coli and Weils disease are far too high in my opinion. So why his advisors didn't talk Walliams out of the project, I can't quite understand.

Walliams is swimming downstream and so if he works the tidal flow he will at times be moving very quickly. If he completes the challenge, my admiration for the man and his remarkable physical and mental determination, will grow even further.

The subject of rivers leads me on rather loosely to the topic of flooding and I'm giving a BBC Radio Kent interview this morning on the start of work on Margate's new coastal defences.

Roughly every hundred years or so, tides and low pressure conspire to deliver a giant storm surge, as in 1897 and 1953 (pictured) and the new work along the seafront at Margate is designed to protect the Old Town against the risk of one of these flooding events occurring in the next 50 years.

Seagull Proof

2011-09-07T12:25:00.005Z

I've been out and about in Ramsgate this morning with council officers, showing visiting Hastings councillors how successful Thanet's 'Seagull Proof' bag campaign has been.

Augusta Road, in the photograph, used to be a regular black-bag pecking disaster area before the introduction of bird-proof bags led to the end of the marauding seagull problem. Now,with thousands of these, now liberally distributed across the island's problem areas, Thanet's 'Staffy-sized' gulls are now having to hunt for their takeaway meals elsewhere.

Our guests were impressed at how efficient and cost-effective Thanet is at rubbish collection and keeping its streets clean in contrast with the challenges and successes of neighbouring authorities. While we may have well-known pockets in the towns, that absorb a disproportional amount of effort in tidying up, our streets are, in general, as I reminded the Labour Group at Cabinet recently, the tidiest they have ever been with the highest satisfaction rating to match.

In the past, it wan't unusual for house-holders of another generation to take a personal interest in keeping the path outside their homes tidy. My own wife (pictured) was bought-up that way and she takes it upon herself to sweep the pavement and remove the weeds from growing under our wall. Perhaps if more people followed her proactive example our own streets would be the tidiest in Kent.

Blogging Up

2011-09-06T19:56:00.003Z

It's a toss-up between 'How Facebook changed the world' or write a new blog entry.

I'm experimenting with 'Daedalus', a new iPad app and so with luck, I will manage to get through the entry without my usual spelling mistakes. At times I find the iPad virtual keyboard does strange things, as readers will have noticed from time to time. However, I've found the Apple device has made such an important contribution to both work and personal tasks, I can't recommend it enough.

From a councillor's perspective its invaluable. Local government produces mountains of paper documents and correspondence and now I can carry what I need, with me, fully searchable and up to date with portfolio briefing documents and council papers going back months.

If you go into the big computer store retailers, then you may notice that they are almost desparate to off load this year's generation of laptops. Why? Because the industry is about to experience a convulsive technology change as the end of 2011 approaches and a new generation of devices starts to appear. Already, we are seeing the impact of such generational change on cameras, with the convergence of GPS and wireless built-in. So, if you are holding on before buying a new PC, you are either going to get some very good deals in the Xmas sales or with a little extra wait, like that for the Apple iPhone 5.0, you will be in at the beginning of the next leap forward in terms of integrated features and processing power.

So, Daedulus appears to work without a hitch. Let's see if I can now upload the results to my blog!

PS.Anyone remember the Apple Newton, pictured. I have one and it still works!

Paws for Thought

2011-09-04T12:12:00.007Z

It's that day, each year, where hundreds of brave and tortured runners tackle our coastline for the annual Thanet coastal marathon and half marathon. Today, the brave souls have quite a strong wind to reckon with and having cycled to Reculver and back earlier, I can confirm it's it the wrong direction to favour any part of the run, which means a struggle in both directions.

Some thirty years ago, I reached St Mildred's Bay, the race having started at Ramsgate, only to find my Labrador had escaped and was sat on the promenade, watching the runners pass. So I had to briefly interrupt the race and take him home; none too pleased with the detour. A local character. he had a habit of running off on little adventures of his own and could either be found on the railway bridge, watching the trains go by below or comfortably settled outside the butcher's shop in Westgate, looking for a free lunch.

As he got older he became much wiser to my daily running routine to the end of the promenade and back and so rather then run with me, he would stop outside the cafe at West Bay, rest his paws and wait for me to come back the other way. On reflection, he was probably smarter than me.

Times have changed quite considerably since 1981, and I was quite shocked last month to discover how many stray dogs were being picked-up off our streets, 52 in July alone and predominantly abandoned or unsupervised 'Staffies' I'm told. The bigger picture involves predictable hot-spots across the island with links to anti-social behaviour, dog-fouling and fines.

I'm hoping to kick-off a new campaign to try and address some of these problems during the autumn but when I see the likes of the old putting green in Westgate, which I've opened to the public as a dog walking, play and picnic area, littered with dog mess from larger animals, I can see that educating an anti-social minority of dog-owners isn't without its challenges.

Finally, I think we may be expecting some heavy weather over the coming days, as an increasing number of vessels, including one giant construction rig, seek shelter from the wind off Margate.

Loose Metal

2011-09-01T16:44:00.004Z

Not much happening today over the Essex Travellers site at Dale farm. I assume that the authorities will seek every opportunity to find a peaceful compromise but looking down on site from my vantage point, I might loosely describe it as well-fortified encampment and the occupants have made it very clear to the media that they do not intend surrendering back the greenbelt land they have occupied without a struggle.

I dropped into the giant PC World at Rochester on the way back to refuel and to have a look at some cameras. Over the weekend I did visit Westwood Cross and was very disappointed in the lack of choice and apparently higher prices across several stores. In fact, I had the distinct impression that even with our own large shopping mall, we appear somewhat out on a limb in terms of quality, quantity and pricing of electronic goods. Why I can't say.

The two cameras I was looking for weren't however in the store. Why? One they couldn't seem to have delivered and the other was out of stock. The sales assistant told me that they have big problems with their display cameras, of which they have rather a lot, being stolen. That said, I was told earlier this week that the brass fittings from the clock tower building in Ramsgate have been stolen, a story, which rather ties in neatly with another of the aerial reconnaissance tasks I've been doing recently and that's photographing several scrap metal sites in Essex from above.

What continues to amaze me locally is how we can lose lengths of promenade railings or the fittings from one of our historic buildings without someone noticing. Perhaps in a way we are lucky. I read that one village elsewhere has been without telephone and broadband connections for two weeks now after thieves ripped out over half a mile of BT's copper cabling. I suppose if the the thieves arrived in a white van, together with a man in a day-glow vest carrying a clipboard, then nobody would have taken any notice at all!

One of My Cigars is Missing

2011-08-29T12:18:00.002Z

Bank Holiday Monday, autumn has arrived early, the weather is a typical disappointment, no flying today and one of my Cuban cigars has gone missing!

It wasn't a great deal better over at Weymouth yesterday between some very heavy showers. The beach was busy but not what the south coast tourist trade might hope for on a Bank Holiday weekend. The restaurant at Compton Abbas airfield was packed with visitors, some to watch, some to take short pleasure flights in their vintage Tiger Moth aircraft and others simply to enjoy lunch and shelter from the rain.

That said, the visibility between showers was excellent and from 2,500 feet passing Brighton, I could clearly see the City of London and the 'Gherkin.'

Thankfully, everyone who got into difficulty in yesterday's RNLI charity swim race at Joss Bay, in Broadstairs yesterday, were rescued by the inshore lifeboat without mishap. There must be a moral to that story somewhere.

Now, if I can get that cigar back from the usual suspect to enjoy over the remaining holiday, without the end being chewed off, I'll be lucky!

On the Blink in Margate

2011-08-28T08:43:00.009Z

I’m not quite sure what to make of last night’s ‘Blink Margate’ event on the seafront. Like many thousands of others, I came, I saw, I stumbled around Marine Parade in the darkness and then went home. In danger of being accused of being an artistic vacuum, I’m not really any wiser for the experience. Perhaps others can share their views. The Thanet Waves weblog doesn't pull any punches in a very lucid opinion piece, so what did you think of it all?

Anti-social behaviour in its many ugly and different forms, is a constant theme if you happen to be a councillor and as the Cabinet member for the environment (health etc), aspects of this falls on my patch. It’s pretty diverse and can involve dog-fouling, tall tree and hedges disputes between neighbours and of course late-night noise; the one most likely to drive the most reasonable people over the edge.

Yesterday evening, having returned from ‘Blink’, I parked-up my motorcycle and was amazed to hear what sounded like a music festival coming from the direction of Westgate village. 'Loud' would be an understatement here, the sound was bouncing around the houses and could be heard well into Westbrook. So I followed the noise and eventually wound-up at a house in Roxburgh Rd where a party, in full swing, was being held in the back garden being entertained by a live band at ‘full amp’. Guests were walking in and out and so I asked for the owner who appeared a few moments later. I then politely introduced myself to this gentlemen householder and asked “As a courtesy to your neighbours and the residents of Westgate” if he might turn the noise down as it was unreasonably loud at such an hour. He said he would, I thanked him and then left, thinking that was the end of it.

Thirty minutes later and at the other end of Westgate I could still hear it, so I called the police. Apparently their Maidstone switchboard was receiving a stream of complaints from the public about the noise but of course, they were preoccupied in Margate. However, with a little polite persuasion, the operator said they would send a car to the address and deal with the complaints and about fifteen minutes later, the noise stopped.

The point I’m attempting to make here is that nobody minds an energetic party but within reason. Whether this be ‘Blink’ on Margate’s main sands or a family celebration in Westgate. There are however sensible boundaries set by society on what is considered acceptable and what is not and as a general rule, if adults can’t exercise restraint and consideration for their neighbours, then why should we expect our children to do the same?

Loud and sustained noise is often regarded as a form of assault and I’m presently dealing with the complaint of one local resident in social housing, whose upstairs neighbour keeps unsocial hours and allegedly enjoys playing her stereo loudly, reportedly robbing him of sleep. Resolving the problem is awkward, takes weeks and involves several different agencies.

In the example of last night, a polite request from a passing local councillor should have been enough for common sense to prevail. Our hard-working, over-stretched police, here in Thanet, have, I’m sure, much better things to do on a Saturday night than remind people in a residential area, that others and particularly young children, need their sleep too!

A Burning Issue

2011-08-23T09:11:00.004Z

It's too wet to venture outside and I've a few minutes to spare and so I will share the news that the toilets in West Bay were the subject of yet another arson attack last night.

To be frank, I've now lost count of arson incidents and the total costs involved. Last night's at West Bay, is, I think #3 in the last six months - I wrote about the last one here - and then there's Minnis Bay as well with toilet and beach hut destruction wreaked as far as Ramsgate, although we have a particular problem with juvenile arsonists in the Westgate area.

The police had told me, last month, that they had caught one teenager who had confessed to earlier incidents but obviously they come in pairs or even small groups and as much as I might like, I can't speculate on where these teenagers might be coming from.

Other than the inconvenience to the public 'convenience' before the Bank Holiday weekend, the costs are becoming a real problem. Significant amounts are now being spent across Thanet, dealing with the consequences of arson and vandalism and last week alone, the beach huts from Minnis to Westgate were attacked.

These are difficult times and budgets are under real strain. The mounting costs of constantly repairing damage along our coastline are bound to be felt elsewhere. This may not be Tottenham or Croydon but the actions of a small group of troubled teenagers are costing our community far too much and if you live in any of the areas affected, as I do, please be vigilant. As a local citizen rather than a councillor, I plan to start taking my dog for a regular late evening walk along the seafront at Westgate to keep an eye on things and if you would like to join me for some fresh air, do let me know.

Update:

I've just walked over to have a look and the damage is more than I expected. The men's toilets are a burned and blackened disaster area with the pervasive smog of arson still clinging in the air. Apparently this happened in broad daylight early yesterday evening!

When Birds Strike

2011-08-22T11:00:00.015Z

In the aftermath of the Red Arrows tragedy on Saturday I've had several conversations over the last twenty-four hours or so with people asking me about ejecting from an aircraft and to be honest, I don't know the answer and can't. Until the formal investigation in concluded by the RAF, into what happened at Bournemouth, everything else remains media speculation.

The first thing however that occurred to me was a catastrophic bird-strike at low-level and I did notice the usual sea-bird activity around the cliffs when I was flying on Friday afternoon. When a large bird hits an aircraft the damage it can do is quite remarkable.

Parallels are being drawn with Rob Davies' miraculous escape at Duxford a few weeks ago, where he managed to bale-out of his P51 Mustang, 'Big Beautiful Doll' moments before it smashed in the ground after a mid-air collision with a heavily built Skyraider. Rob was extremely lucky as he left the aircraft well below the advertised safety height for his 'Fast Reaction' emergency parachute and only picked-up bruises. The £2m Mustang, between owners, wasn't so lucky and it proved to be uninsured.

When things go wrong at low-level there's very little time to do other than react and fall back on one's training, as any deep thinking process can take too long. During a display, like the one shown below for the Glider FX team at Shoreham last weekend, the aircraft is down to 300 feet along the crowd line during part of the display. Whoever shot the excellent video also got a little mixed-up on the pilot roster for Saturday.

In a relatively complex and delta-wing-loaded jet aircraft like a Hawk trainer there isn't the same level of gliding distance that may be available in propeller aircraft and when the engine goes silent time to impact is measured in fleeting seconds as this cockpit video from Canada illustrates. You can see the 'kamikaze' Canadian Goose hurtling in from the left of picture just after the video starts with the aircraft just above the runway.

Hopefully it will explain more clearly what goes on and in this example, there are two pilots in the aircraft working the problem and not one.

Risky Business

2011-08-20T21:13:00.004Z

The tragic death of a Red Arrows pilot at the Bournemouth Air Festival this afternoon has added a somber note to the weekend. I last saw the team at 18:40 yesterday evening as I was waiting at the Echo hold for the Memorial Flight to get underway ahead of me. The 'Arrows' were enjoying a BBQ with other pilots and friends about 50 yards away at the flying club. If I hadn't had a flight to do over Bromsgrove this afternoon, I would still have been at Bournemouth today.

My thought are with Flt Lt. John Egging's family and team mates and the awful incident illustrates only too well that air displays, while conducted under strict safety rules, are never without an element of risk and to lose any pilot is bad enough but one of the Red Arrows is a national tragedy, given their massive popularity and professionalism. They are also really friendly, nice guys too, as I find are all display pilots.

Bournemouth's Air Festival has been incredibly well organised and yesterday morning, while I waited for the car to take me back from the Queen's Hotel to the airport for my small part in the performance, I wandered down to the seafront to enjoy the view and admire how well the local council have arranged everything to show the town off to its best. There are some useful lessons to be learned from both the Bournemouth and Dawlish events of the last few days and I'm hoping we can put some of these into practice for Margate's own 'Big Event' in 2012.

Thursday's thunderstorm at Bournemouth was quite unbelievable; even one of the roads collapsed under the weight of water and the evening 'Night Air' display was cancelled. I had been finishing-up the afternoon with a flight after the Arrows at Dawlish, where the weather had completely collapsed into a claggy drizzle. I left Exeter climbing straight into the clouds, up to 5,500 feet to avoid the high ground, with no chance of breaking through into sunlight. Fortunately I popped out back again a half hour later, at 600 feet in front of the runway on a vectored instrument approach into Bournemouth and when I landed I watched the Memorial Flight Lancaster attempt to leave, take-off and return very promptly having seen what the weather was like.

This week gave me plenty of opportunity to ask several of the pilots who took part in our our air show this summer, what they thought about moving the venue from Palm Bay. The answer I received was that Palm Bay is great location but Margate sea front with a sweeping display line from the Harbour Arm along the sands towards Westbrook is even better. The Hawk pilots also suggested changing the display line angle slightly to maximise the run along the cliffs for the jets to take in the crowds gathered there. I'll pass these ideas and others to my cabinet colleague Alasdair Bruce.

Tomorrow, I've a marriage proposal to do at Botany Bay towards the end of the afternoon, so you may see me running a banner along the seafront on the way there. The name is unusual enough not to confuse any of the thousands of lady visitors on the beach into thinking it's aimed at them.

Too Late to Blog

2011-08-16T19:51:00.005Z

I think I did eight display sorties today but haven't checked my logbook yet and dinner finally beckons; I only just got in from Bournemouth and Dunsfold. Anyway, if I get a moment to add some more pictures and text this evening I will.

Below is "Jules" the RAF's talented lady display pilot, who you may have seen flying the black Hawk at Margate's Big Event. She's been promised a ride in the Fox when the airshow reaches Bournemouth on Friday but quite frankly I know which of the two aircraft I would rather take a flight in.

Gone Fishing

2011-08-15T11:27:00.006Z

With several airshows to cover across the south of the country this week, I'm 'sort of' on a busman's holiday, although I think the last proper holiday I took was back in 2007 and I've still got a TDC meeting to attend this afternoon.

Tuesday is the press day for the Dunsfold 'Wings & Wheels airshow which looks like a lot of fun for anyone planning to visit the Top Gear testing track. Next weekend also sees the big Shoreham Airshow, which is always packed and further west this week we also have the Bournemouth Air Festival and Dawlish Airshow.

I think we've done the subject of last week's riots to death now and it's very much up to the politicians and the police to come-up with a solution that reverses the damage of the last twenty to thirty years done to inner-city communities by a series of well-meaning but misguided Government policies and a society that has steadily lost sight of its moral compass.

The really big question surrounds jobs and opportunities for the young and for those not qualified enough or financially capable of making their way through university. Once upon a time, a university degree was a passport to a career but that's no longer so. Young people that didn't go to university used to find office or banking or factory jobs but these have now been lost to China or India or even Mexico with the call centres and cheap labour. So where does that leave us I wonder as jobs, even skilled jobs, are outsourced, off-shored or simply automated out of existence?

Europe's politicians, in the middle of their own crisis, really have no firm idea of how to meet the challenge of globalisation as the planet's economic centre of gravity slips towards Asia. Once I even asked Mr Barraso the European president what the answer might be and he couldn't offer an answer, other than pointing at the Lisbon Agenda, which has, in retrospect, failed miserably in meeting its objectives: "Sustainable growth and employment are Europe's most pressing goals and underpin social and environmental progress."

The fact that Britain still lies outside full European union gives us a ray of hope that we can fix our own social problems but the remedy won't be without pain and soul-searching and many might ask whether we have the time to fix the deep-rooted problems of a generation, as populations rise and pressures increase.