Time for Change: Campaign for an Independent Green Thanet MP and Ramsgate Mayor

Many people are familiar with this: repeated garden grabbing attempts rejected. Then strangely rushed through by TDC earlier this year then silence over public complaints. Copy of the minutes below from a meeting I had with Abigail Raymond and Lin Fairbrass and Emma Fibbens following a site view by Simon Thomas and apparently a site visit by Steve Albon- none of the points denied mere silence. The strange thing is not just 11 flats specified in TDC's own Local Plan(!) but 13 being built if not more. But that RTC approved only 11 flats and didn't know of 13 and now seemingly unwilling to raise it with TDC which rather makes a mockery of the RTC approval process. While TDC as you can see below attempted to rely on a Planning Inspectorate letter for withdrawn plans - and had expired(!). Clearly we have a situation where TDC is randomly breaching its own rules. The latest email was form a formal complaint raised to Tim Howes the legal bod who said he's considered the p...

Tim Garbutt KCC Leader 2017 candidate said: " Ann Barnes seems intent on one final bout of nonsense before she stands down as PCC. I think few of us would jump at the threat of AlQaeda in the Garden of Kent as opposed to the new threat of paying an extra £5 council tax for 37 extra firearms cops. Rather it's a laughable argument. Why should there be this notional 50% increase of 37 firearms cops? It seems a central government made-up number. Why not 20? Or 50 extra? Why not a regiment of guncops? What would they do? Patrolling the fertiliser aisle at BandQ? Coordinate a drone strike on the failed towns of Medway? Raiding the machete shops of East Kent? What other options have been explored say Ghurkas on stand by, police rota improvements or even a review of existing firearms cops, training and weapons? From the Twin Towers terrorism of 2001 and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and Libya and Yemen barely a shot has been fired in Kent. Manchester may ...

Update 16/12/15: * KCC were claiming they follow UN investment principles which is cobblers given they're investing in tobacco and oil etc. UNPRI the investment authority confirm today KCC aren't signatories to the principles. Complete cobblers by KCC to pretend investing in tobacco is valid and somehow approved by the UN. Outrageous. * UN announce today there will be a clear and open UN Secretary General election process for 2016 - although they don't say exactly what. The days of closed door appointnments, Buggins Turn rotas, and even lack of a UN Parliament seem numbered #whennotif * TDC confirmed the Munday election is open to candidates for TDC and RTC to at least 21st Dec not 5th ie 10 days notice not 4 but still far too little. * GRIT campaign for elected Mayors in Thanet again which is positive. * Good news too the Wetherspoons application for the Pav is declared invalid (I've made no bones I want to take it on as a Community Asset and restore it prop...

Tim Garbutt, KCC Leader candidate 2017 said: "It seems to be Carter versus the public. He seems not content with the contamination from Manston monitors and Thor on his watch, or the corruption around British Virgin Islands/Pleasurama for Kent's largest seafront development or 0% salaries council fraud - apt for Anticorruption Day today (9th Dec). Now we have Kent Public Health - tobacco, alcohol, mental health and obesity and pandemics - being scrapped for the sake of £4M on a £2BN budget. We need Public Health and a clean environment in the Age of Climate Change not KCC investing £250M in tobacco and fossil fuels or watching the slum towns of Medway fall apart. 90% of Kent orchards gone since 1945 and in the week of COP21 not one Climate Change policy. Not one. We have a Third World health gap in Kent with dirty NHS hospitals in Special Measures (only the 20th best in EU according to OECD), contaminated Southern Water, Jimmy Savile Children care homes an...

Dear Madeline I wanted to write to you regarding the Cllr Vince Munday election for TDC and RTC. I understand TDC have issued a strange notice on 1st/2nd December requesting candidates before 5th December ie two days’ time (tomorrow) for an election on 21st January? Clearly 4 days or so is far too short a notice for candidates (or even as the notice says for the election to happen?) – can you advise on detail/electoral Best Practice? Also any Returning Officer fees: I understand the £62k general election fee can be returned/not claimed? It seems excessive given most of the electoral process is handled by volunteers. I’m also unclear why the election is referred to “a Casual vacancy for Office of Councillor”? Presumably it simply means a notice of an election for a councillor? Weblink: https://www.thanet.gov.uk/the-thanet-magazine/news-articles/2015/november/notice-of-vacancy-in-office-of-councillor/ No information is provided on the Ramsgate Town Council election – for wh...

Three issues dominate the headlines this week: COP21 Paris Climate Change, bombing Syria and Ramsgate Town Council fake election. OK perhaps the last one is fairly minor. But COP21 Climate change Summit could be as irrelevant. 150 world leaders and 4,000 people for a summit on Climate Change for a fortnight? So what? Thankfully Climate Change is now recognised as one of the greatest threats to humanity, up there with pandemics or another meteor strike or a nuclear winter. But what will be achieved? Some warm words? A pledge to do something? Where for example is the UK Action Plan on Climate Change already? I’m interested n this stuff and I couldn’t tell you. I’m sure a casual observer of Climate Change hoping something is being done, but not knowing what, wouldn’t have a clue either. A beanfeast summit like COP21 and Copenhagen and Kyoto before it achieve nothing now. More effective would be the UN Climate Change group issuing its annual report with specifics at the UN. We s...

Dear Editor Here we go again. Barry Coppinger Police PCC of Cleveland writes in today’s Independent that police budgets should not be cut. Because he’s spoken to senior police officers. Well I never. Xmas and turkeys are nearer than I thought. Rather than ratchet the fear and paranoia levels up a few notches, why not cut police budgets? At the very least they didn’t prevent terror attacks so to paraphrase Dave Brown’s thoroughly unpleasant scaremongering cartoon heads must roll. And the Paris attacks weren’t deterred by Frances’s nukes or aircraft carriers or even 20,000 UK Cold War troops still sat nearby in Germany watching their tanks rust. Or even with GCHQ already monitoring every phone and internet call. Surely we should consider the effectiveness of a mish-mash of 43 police forces (larger than the Royal Navy) tripping over each other. Or the ludicrous procurement waste of different police boots costing from £25 to £125. Or the Police Scotland £737k copper. Or even th...

Cheer up Cancer Victims. It’s not so bad. It could be worse. Before we talk about the problems in Kent from Infratil and Thor mercury and Southern Water and TDC and KCC have a think about cancers Agent Orange or Minamata or Thor Cato Ridge. Almost all the info is googleable. There’s a few interesting points in the book “An Army Waiting to Die” perhaps the definitive source on Agent Orange. The book is useful in summarising the problems of Agent Orange but also the battles of US army veterans with the government for medical screenings and treatment – the book title referring to the policy of simply waiting for them to die off. Similar to the UK more recently with Ghurka pensions or soldiers in the Pacific nuclear tests or Gulf War syndrome of uranium and chemicals or even medals for the Arctic Convoys. Wait long enough and they’ll die off and hey presto no extra costs to be found. Also relevant for the Syrian War and Assad’s use of chemical weapons even more recently. ...

I wanted to write on the FOI review by Jack Straw: email, below and you can write too or copy and paste/amend this note if you want before 20th November: foi.commission@justice.gsi.gov.uk Dear Sir/Madam Page 37 of today's Private Eye eloquently lists the outcomes of various FOI investigations: MP expenses, offshore companies, Saudi/MOD arms bungs etc. I would particularly cite though here similar Kent outcomes: * Infratil secretly removing airport monitors at Manston with the council thus contaminating 100k people * Ostend gunrunning and secret IranAir flights * Pleasurama tax haven corruption by council * Greg Clark's gardengrabbing review * 0% TDC salary fraud - declaring no pay increases but secretly providing 10% increases * KCC salaries the most over £100k in UK etc * Southern Water sewage and faeces in the drinking water * Thor mercury banned factory open and contamination by Env Agency inaction Also the failures: * Environment...

Speaking from the Great British Shakespeare room at Maidstone Police HQ Chief Constable Alan Pughsley said: "Many people have congratulated me on the Kent Police haiku from last week and asked for more. Especially as in the bustle of our everyday policing days it's often relevant to take time out and reflect on reform - whether that be procurement, tasering junkies and dealers, wider social policy or verse. That's why I'm delighted to be continuing the Meiji Kent initiative to promote such activities through the medium of haiku. I wandered lonely as a cloud on my beat Winter draws in Many pensioners dead from cold" Chief Constable Pughsley went on to point out that no more than £50M of the Kent Police £300M budget would be spent on poetry, and the cost would anyway be far cheaper than normal Kent council corruption or social failure. Time for Change www.votegarbutt.co.uk @timg33 Tim's Titbits: * a useful meeting at TDC this wee...

Garbutt draft KCC Leader 2017 and MP 2020 manifesto out for consultation and a few points in more detail below: 1. Lebanon: women’s rights tweak – illegal for a woman to vote unless she's completed elementary education. Doesn’t apply to men. A minor gender equality tweak though as both sexes c.94% complete elementary education. Nevertheless gender discrimination given all Saudi women can now vote. Only UAE and Brunei have equal opportunities of not allowing anyone to vote(!). 2. EU vote at 16: #whennotif the EU introduces a universal vote at 16. How can territories such as Jersey or various German regions or nations such as Scotland and Austria allow vote at 16 but not elsewhere? Wasn’t a key point of the EU to introduce consistent standards? 3. UK elections exams: politicians are the only public sector workers without exams. Elected then 5 years of fixed term power. Kent has politicians that can barely read or write. A simple multichoice exam on various political points sho...

FAO Michael-georg Link, Director OSCE, Office for Democratic Institutions Dear Michael-georg In your OSCE election observer/reporter role I wanted to raise various issues with the UK/Kent 2015 elections: 1. Not free: £500 or £5k charge for candidates 2. Illegal candidate: LibDem in in Thanet North election George Cunningham a civil servant for the EU/Taiwan 3. Dual roles: MP and magistrate – not strictly illegal but not a separation of powers 4. Doublehatters: numerous candidates standing for roles ie 4 seats but the same person so reducing democracy and increasing costs 5. Parachute candidates: numerous candidates from out of area ie diminishing local representation 6. Numerous family members and ex-civil servants standing 7. Police silence on point 2 despite being the required investigative authority 8. Electoral Commission: ditto 9. Vote at 16: bias to some UK regions eg Scotland (as well as in EU eg Austria) with greater representation 10. Postal ballots: numerous a...

Clearly Manston is already a dead duck. Indeed one point that seems to have escaped UKIP et al’s notice is the sale of Jentex at the corner of the airfield – which was the fuel store. So UKIP – and Tories - are trying to reopen an airport without planes or fuel or radar or buildings – only a runway that could be a lorry park. Maybe a Parkway train station soon. Don't titter. And after, almost 6 months, nothing for UKIP to show for being elected but an internal revolt and end of their majority to just one - and now none. And the DCLG poverty figures slide backwards to one of the worst in UK. Today Medway cited as the worst in UK for Year 4 schools. Not exactly a flagship process for Britain’s only – and last? - UKIP council. While at KCC any plans for Manston and trust in Latchford and Shonk and the NF chap were completely rejected. So UKIP at County has absolutely no policies. And to lose one District councillor is careless. But five? And are election promises ...

It's National Poetry Day and The Chief has released a Kent Police haiku to celebrate: Roses are red, Violets are blue Kent councils are corrupt and High Court too But not Kent Police. Speaking from the Kent Police poetry room, Chief Alan Pughsley said: "Obviously we is very busy what with drug dens raids and the Kent Police Xmas panto, but we felt it was in the tradition of Great British Policing celebrating the Great British Creative Industries that we should help celebrate National Poetry Day. Especially in Kent, he said, the county of literary greats like Dickens and Shelley and Keats, we felt that a Meiji haiku would be interesting. It doesn't rhyme properly but that's haikus for you. And anyway the Environment Agency contamination had too many syllables in it to fit. Meanwhile if anyone knows the whereabouts of good governance then please call 101 as it is missing." Time for Change www.votegarbutt.co.uk @timg33