Broken Election. Hold your nose vote Farage if you must

Obviously your vote is for you to choose who to vote for.

But people ask me who we should vote for or avoid.

Here’s my views:

1. The first point is don’t vote or register to vote and spoil your ballot. Don’t fall into the assumption that you have to vote for the main parties. By refusing to vote you are in effect doing NOTA: None of the Above. This means the parties will, when faced with falling turnouts, have to come up with better policies. All of a sudden for example despite publishing their manifesto Labour suddenly announce rent controls just 10 days before an election – desperately casting around for popular policies. The Tories like Farage simply do these weird activist closed meetings for photoshoots and slogans.

2. It’s even worse in South Thanet with the nonentities we have from the main parties: laughable that both Mackinlay a Chatham councillor or Scobie the Younger the Margate Mayor say they are local to Ramsgate and Thanet South. And somewhat fraudulent suddenly – as Sandys did – renting properties in the area to appear local. Farage of Downe/Orpington at least has made no bones about having no real interest in Thanet.

Indeed your national vote is largely irrelevant anyway as you can see in two areas:

A. Come May 8th the backroom deals to form a coalition government can be anything - and Thanet’s 2 MP’s would be even more irrelevant.
B. The manifestos as they stand have no great earth-shattering policies: tweaks on tax is about it. Even the Greens are struggling to emphasise Climate Change in the election.

3. Vote for the minor/challenger parties: again this will mean not just the end of two party politics in Thanet and 3 party politics in UK as that’s already happened. But the cosy deals and corruption of Labour/Tory TDC is now definitely over. Only coverup of the guilty.

4. In North Thanet it’s as bad with the election in danger of being null and void with Cunningham of the LibDems being a banned civil servant and as laughably giving his home address as Brussels(!). Some Thanet representative. You couldn’t make it up. Madeline Homer as Returning Officer seems to have lost her grip and is keeping her head down so soon into her £100K CEO job – and the £62K Returning Officer fee that goes with it. Why are we paying council execs so much for election night? Especially when the candidates have to pay £500 or £5k for MEP elections.

5. Some wider principles for District/Town candidates (not one manifesto):

a. Avoid doublehatter candidates: desperately trying to crowd out dissent by standing in multiple seats
b. Avoid candidates who aren’t standing in their own town
c. Avoid turncoats – scraping around just to be elected
d. Avoid candidates who’ve served 10 years or more: they’ve had their chance
e. Avoid candidates without a manifesto for Thanet – you’ll struggle on that one again just 10 days to go
f. Vote Other ie Green/Reality/Ind/Lib to end Corrupt TDC
g. Avoid family team members in the same party - again essentially duplicate votes

h. Rascals to vote out:

i. Latchford – repulsive, and failure at KCC and the Infratil monitors. Our Little Corporal is likely to defeated either by General Winter or in KCC 2017 – by me
ii. Heale – repulsive and failure at KCC
iii. Everitt – the Port and Pleasurama secrecy/fraud
iv. Bayford – silent on Pleasurama/tax havens and Painter
v. Negro Roz
vi. Eileen the civil servant

But here’s the key thing: Vote Farage in South Thanet and Ed Targett in North Thanet.

What I hear you cry? Tim says vote Farage?

Yes. With one proviso: vote out Latchford and Heale.

Why hold your nose and vote Farage? UKIP are a spent force with or without him of perhaps 3 or so MP’s and some polls say as low as 1 ie Carswell. And along with Cameron a leadership election before 2020.

We may even have a collapsed parliament and election before 2020 due to gridlock and inaction – it was already the Empty Parliament for 2 years before 2015.

UK politics is largely regional now: SNP in Scotland, Labour in the South, Tory in the South and Plaid Cymru in Wales and DUP in Ireland. And a sprinkling of Libs, Greens and Inds.

So let’s get Farage elected as unpleasant as he is.

And every television or newspaper interview will be about Manston – and Latchford and the Infratil removed monitors - and the contaminated aquifer.

Indeed you can see my emails to him in March 2012 on that issue from his public meeting in Broadstairs.

He’ll bumble and stumble along into irrelevance – even before the EU vote fizzles out.

Without immigrants and the EU the UKIP manifesto could almost be Tory: no great seachange in politics.

He’s never mentioned Manston since 2012 and only now to hoover up a few votes – perhaps mistaken that the Save Manson crew represent a majority in Thanet.

Certainly those jobs aren’t coming back indeed none at all.

Manston can only be a $1 CPO as a park: demolish the buildings, remove the dumped jet dig up the runway and let the aquifer be cleaned.

The £1BN Gloag in the Sunday Times Rich list can hardly claim poverty in not cleaning it up especially after only a $1 purchase. Just another Thanet farce like the Parkway or Chinagate.

Can you imagine Paxman or Sackur or Neil questioning him on Manston and Infratil?:

• When did you know the aquifer was contaminated?
• Why did your KCC deputy remove the monitors with KCC and TDC?
• Why haven’t you replaced them etc etc

In effect Farage in 2015 and Garbutt in 2020.

In North Thanet vote Targett as Green to remove Gale. Labour have never seriously tried to do so and are just too old now.

Thanet’s future is cleaner, greener and younger. Corrupt labour and Tory TDC has failed and elderly racists around Farage have peaked.

The EU will be reformed - and expansion continue to Turkey, Caspian, Russia and Mediterranean.

If Farage wanted to change that - like Gale with Manston - he's simply too late. And had every opportunity as an MEP. If the EU is so all-powerful why does Farage want to be an MP to change it?

But like the Ku Klux Klan or Negro Roz or Tingtong Janice, let's give him a platform and no doubt laugh as he's hoist by his own petard.

TDC can’t even sort out blatant garden-grabbing as at 100 South Eastern Road: 20 apartments welded onto a 5 bed house and the garden dug out for dozens of car park spaces – that was previously rejected. Madeline is silent so far. I’m beginning to suspect we have a Macgonigal#2.

Thanet’s problems are not the EU or immigrants (rather these are positives for the area - whether tourists, language students, uni students, EU grants etc etc - but corrupt councillors and civil servants and lazy cops and contamination as Manston and Thor and MOD Fire and the collapse of Pfizer and the Parkway and Manston housing nonsense.

Time for Change
www.votegarbutt.co.uk
Twitter: @timg33

Broken Election. And toxic questions for Farage

Thanks to the many wellwishers but I refuse to stand as MP or Mayor in this election.

My blog post below on the illegal Cunningham nomination and Press Complaint to the Gazette on my manifesto provide details.

But interesting and pleasing to see the District candidates list of those who have stood down: Harrison, Nicholson, Moores, Hart and of course CEO Macgonigal after the shocking corruption and fraud and incompetence at TDC.

But where are the Police for say the 0% fraud or are civil servants above the law or it most be covered up to preserve the reputation oft he council we vote for and fund?

Which of our new councillors and MP's will be calling for a Police investigation of the Ancient Regime?

The last scoundrels are Everitt, Bayford, Campbell and Latchford and Heale (bizarrely the last 2 already KCC councillors but desperate to be District doublehatters and stifle debate).

Vote for anyone but them.

Bizarrely you can't actually vote for Ramsgate Town Council it seems as there seems to be a random assumption that TDC councillors would fill RTC seats too? Perhaps a legacy of the charter trustees farce that still operates for Margate.

An RTC seat is certainly not linked to a TDC seat - so where is the election for it?

And 3 questions for Farage now supporting Manston - although equivocating as to whether he can actually reopen it.

1. Nigel, when did you know the aquifer was under the runway and was contaminated and how will you clean it up?

2. And when did you question Latchford, as TDC Deputy Leader, when TDC and Infratil removed the monitors?

3. How contaminated is Thor and how will you clean it up?


It seems to me absentee MP's and won't be putting any effort into improving the towns and contamination sites.

Why would they?


Time for Change
www.votegarbutt.co.uk
@timg33

Broken Election. I refuse to stand as MP and Mayor.

We have another corrupted election here in Kent.

And I refuse to stand to condone this shambles of an election.

A couple of points as to why:

1. The absolutely blatant rewriting of my manifesto by the Gazette is detailed below. A newspaper criticising a manifesto is one thing but rewriting it is quite another. How can you vote for me if you don’t know what my manifesto says – or if it’s rewritten to say something else?

2. I received only today the final day for nomination papers(!) a reply from Madeline Homer the Returning Officer and Glenn Back from my letter last week requesting the actual nomination papers(!). Plenty of background verbiage was sent but not the actual papers nor are they online for anyone to read and download and mail or email. Shambolic.

3. I have had no reply for the Returning Officer as yet on the George Cunningham/LibDems issue of a banned civil servant standing for election. An illegal farce.

4. I see no reason to pay £500 for the privilege of condoning this shambles. Whatever happened to free and fair British elections? How can an 18 year old- or 16 year old in future - pay that, and why should they? The elections are run by paid civil servants on overtime or volunteers for one day in 5 years - why should we pay to enter the election for our own governance?

5. The nomination support for the Town Mayor seems different to other towns: random allocations of 8 or 10 people

6. While the Town Council elections don’t allow you to stand against a candidate you want to oust but merely a clutch of seats per ward which are then randomly allocated

7. No reply has been received on the issue of the Parachute Candidates: we have almost every candidate not just being from somewhere else - but actually being councillors for somewhere else! Will they be allocating Thanet funds to their hometowns? Have they/will they resign those roles?

8. With 28 days to go to an election not one manifesto has been released by the other 10 candidates and presumably none will be by the Town Candidates: electing chumps and party handraisers to do something or other once elected. And – unlikely I know – but if their manifesto was released say 6 months in advance I or anyone else may agree with it and not seek to stand

9. Zero FOI available – such as the Pleasurama secret valuation and tax haven fraud or Thor and Manston contamination levels. How can I or anyone else stand for Parliament or a Council if the FOI is not routinely issued for salaries, staffing etc? How can reforms be made if there is such secrecy? Why are budgets reduced by secret payoffs and write-offs for crimes such as 0% fraud or Thor negligence or Manston corporate manslaughter?

And we wonder why we have turnouts less than 65% for national elections and as low as 15% for local elections in Kent and the lowest-ever party memberships: barely 300k in total across all the parties - less than the RSPB or National Trust.

And TDC in the bottom 10% of failed councils by the Government itself eg the potential farce of Macgonigal as Returning Officer counting the votes after the 0% salary fraud or Moores selecting Tory candidates to keep schtum!

I say no.

I refuse to stand and condone this Broken Election and will consider whether it should be declared null and void and rerun.

This Broken Election contaminates us all.

I say no.

We need A Clearout of the same faces and fraudsters who have made Thanet a mess. Everitt and the secret Port or Bayford's silence on Painter/Keegan/SFP seem beyond the pale.

It is a shambles – and a disgrace whereby the corruption of the Infratil/Manston monitors, ignored by Farage and Latchford, and 0% fraud and contamination of Thor and MODFire and Manston to the aquifer has to be highlighted in an election as the civil servants and politicians and police are too corrupted and idle to act.

My manifesto still stands with its successes so far of closing Manston, demolishing Richboro power station, sacking the Gang of Four and $1 criminals.

I say no to this election.

I will consider whether the 2017 KCC election standing against Carter and the Toxic Three on a Water Protection Order for Manston with digging up the runway and demolishing the buildings, or the 2020 MP election are worth considering.

This election is broken.

Time for Change
www.votegarbutt.co.uk
@timg33

Gazette complaint: Thanet corruption and contamination

Dear Editor

I wanted to write to complain in the strongest terms about your feeble General Election and nonexistent Town Council/District coverage for South Thanet and North Thanet.

As you know I am standing as an Independent Green to “Stop the Pollution. Stop the Corruption. Stop the Construction.” as South Thanet MP and Ramsgate directly elected Mayor.

I supplied – at your request – a 100 word summary of details of my manifesto eg close Manston, Police investigation into the removal of Manston monitors by Infratil and TDC and KCC, Thor mercury contamination etc etc.

These are also detailed in full at my website www.votegarbutt.co.uk and Twitter @timg33 and campaign leaflets – all of which I have provided to you.

I was horrified to then see in last week’s Gazette your bizarre bowdlerised version of my manifesto rewritten as:

“Key Pledge: seeking to launch investigations into various incidents of what he sees as corruption on the isle by representatives of the local authorities.”

I distance myself completely from this tripe.

Can you explain this please, as criticising or not a manifesto is part of free speech and a free press, but rewriting the thing to this vague twaddle seems to veer down the path of Pravda or Signal.

The Gazette is in danger of being a toothless tiger simply hyping the latest nonsense from TDC or the declining main parties, and the only marker of the TDC corruption being the trail of forced resignations from the Gang of Four etc, and contamination marked in the line of cancer victims and tumour sufferers at the hospital.

Some newspapers would be active in exposing these crimes. Maybe the Gazette reporters are breathing different air or drinking and bathing in different water from the rest of their readers?

It’s worth noting that TDC is highlighted as one of the worst councils in Britain by the government itself, so why you should choose to downplay the horrific corruption such as the 0% fraud of Messrs Moores and Macgonigal (the latter would even have counted the votes in the election), Pleasurama tax haven and Port £3M secrecy, or appalling Manston corporate manslaughter affecting your readers by Infratil seems unbelievable.

It’s also worth noting that I have written to you before pointing out that election coverage should cover all the candidates and fairly equally. So far we have had almost no mention of the smaller parties and full page articles only for the larger parties. All parties are equal until May 7th especially in an era of massively low turnout and tiny party memberships.

You even mention outrageous guff such as Roger Gale: “a vastly experienced MP and..something of a high flier” rather than an elderly party hack with 30 years of failure for Thanet, or even George Cunningham who is a civil servant and therefore ineligible as MP, or why our parachute candidates are now drawn to Thanet despite being Medway or Tunbridge councillors/residents?

And you refuse to question the candidates as to why Manston should reopen given its repeated failures and position on the polluted drinking water supply.

Is this an East Kent or an East German election as your reporting seems geared towards the latter?

I’ve forwarded a copy of this letter to the Press Complaint Commission and for the sake of better and more balanced coverage during a British General Election, that only happens every 5 years, politely request it could also be printed in the Gazette with an apology and my correct manifesto.

This letter is also placed on my website at www.votegarbutt.co.uk for the public to make up their own mind on my policies (they still have to wait for any of the other parties to issue their manifestos even just 30 days before the election) and your election coverage.

Kindest regards
Tim Garbutt, Ramsgate
www.votegarbutt.co.uk
@timg33