Tuesday 29 September 2015

Shush. Wheels come off Wells UKIP


Clearly Wells' UKIP have nothing to offer some 5 months into his reign over Manston and now the breakaway groups.

Credit to Gale and LocalCraigMP in managing to foist the blame for a Manston CPO U-turn onto Wells and ignoring their very clear election promises to reopen Manston.

It was interesting at the UKIP conference in Doncaster that Farage highlighted all the UKIP achievements of the last 3 years but made no mention of TDC as the only UKIP-controlled council.

And interesting that RTC meetings have reverted to 11am weekdays as hobby-pensioner events for very thin agendas. We're paying £110k in salaries to simply have empty meetings?

Nothing done.

And the danger with that is the civil servants also slip into stagnation or worse.

You may be aware of 100SE Rd the Daniel Gent mega-construction of 15 flats stuck onto a 5 bed house repeatedly refused then approved. But now only silence from TDC.

It's either a cockup or brown envelopes yet the Wells regime would rather keep quiet.

Would you like to ask them what's going on to? Phone TDC or email simon.thomas@thanet.gov.uk

And there's also the frankly bizarre Kent Fire and FOI for the Ramsgate vanity fire station.

Now I tend to think that Kent Fire is not too badly run and for £70M for fire over for all of Kent rather cheap.

But who knows.

For there's a very bizarre secretive and simply incorrect FOI (and worse EIR - the much better EU version of the weaker UK FOI) process run by James Finch.

There's the usual trick of delay on FOI - and worse the attempt to brand follow up requests as vexatious for requesting information not provided. And very naughty when EIR requests - that require a Public Interest Test are routinely refused.

As abysmal as James Pearce and the Environment Agency refusing EIR requests on Manson or Thor contamination.

Can you ask James Finch for the costs of the Ramsgate Fire station and consultation details - given the old swimming pool site is supposed to be reserved for leisure use in perpetuity.

james.finch@kent-fire.org.uk or 01622 692121

Quite frankly I would fire the pair of them - if not jail them for misconduct. Why should we pay for this sort of incompetence and misuse of our tax funds? And the service standards mean phone calls and emails shouldn't be ignored never mind FOI and EIR requests.

Pay your tax and shut up.

And, shush, Wells and his pensioners are sleeping.

Time for Change

www.votegarbutt.co.uk
@timg33

Tim's Titbits:

* good news the first VC paving stones are being provided - first Kent one in Herne Bay
* and the at the UK will be contributing more to UN Peacekeeping and UN Police especially in Sudan and Somalia - of far more use in stemming illegal immigration as with the Syria War
* disappointing the Thai steel firm SSI is having to cut back production in Redcar
* Kent Most Wanted back to 4 minor criminals - and good the horrific acid burns pair have been arrested
* KORA and 2LB coming son

Wednesday 23 September 2015

Volkswagen and Infratil pollution: same?

With Volkswagen fiddling the air pollution data on their engines, what exactly is the difference with that and Infratil and KCC/TDC removing the noise and air monitors from Manston airport when it was due to expand?

The main difference seems to be Infratil's Board and Kent Police and TDC/KCC covering up the pollution damage.

At least VW have apologized, are investigating and have set aside billions of dollars for fines.

With 500k deaths from air pollution in EU and at least 30k in UK, KCC and TDC have deliberately worked with Infratil (and Gloag) to avoid fines and endanger the public at Manston for years.

And of course to fiddle the UK's overall emissions data.

No wonder for example UK's newborn mortality rate is double that of Sweden: c.2k extra infant deaths. And Kent's mortality rate is one of the worst in UK.

Apart from the Chief's pension, why have Kent Police not made arrests of say Infratil's Fitzgerald and Clark and Buchanan, and Berry, Button and Sproates at TDDC as a start?

Next they'll be covering up Thor mercury and Southern Water again - the latter now fined in Sussex for polluting the beaches.

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

Tim's Titbits:

* #globalgoals launch on Friday: not one Kent public sector organisation signed up yet
* 100 SE Rd garden grabbing/Christopher Gent construction site dragging on: Cllr Peter Evans of TDC Planning Chair in hiding and Simon Thomas Planning Director refusing to return calls - not a leg to stand on mere silence
* UKIP conference tomorrow: no doubt good for a laugh with Thanet UKIP crumbling already - and Manston part of national manifesto
* check out the Most Wanted poster/PDF at www.votegarbutt.co.uk for the infratil crimes: in less than 18 months since it was issued almost all of the people listed have been sacked/jailed/resigned
* silence on the Ramsgate Port slipways demolition...
* silence on the Richboro Connection: both running cables through the SSSI Pegwell Bay itself and whether pylons on land will be buried...

Wednesday 16 September 2015

Rotten Kent in Private Eye again

Private Eye's Rotten Borough page today (page 18) reports on Wells and UKIP as: "all gone a bit Pete Tong" after just 4 months. And Wells gearing up with heeldragging for a Uturn on Manston.

The capable Ed Targett in Margate says the same thing - and highlights the potential for the film industry in East Kent.

Good news too that Edwina Crowley of Pleasuram and Dreamland at TDC has resigned - the clearout is almost complete.

And Farage's bizarre comments also in Private Eye that the EU is responsible for destroying East Kent's harbours despite the millions received in EU subsidies(!).

Unfortunately UKIP seem cut from the same cloth as the previous pensioners in Labour/Tory that mismanaged the area.

Another vote of no confidence and even Recall seem relevant.

5 more years? There's been 4 months of nothing. And there's not much more left to destroy.

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

Tim's Titbits:

(Interestingly Private Eye features the crooked Judges at the High Court too with Judge Smith's underpants -- and threatening to release an uncensored EC report on BA unless he gets his missing suitcase back! Would you want the Judge releasing your court papers because he felt a bit put out? And Smithy's one of the better ones remember. And crooked One Essex Court and Hollingworth mentioned in The Sunday Times).

Friday 11 September 2015

Carter's Blue Communism for Kent vanity projects


For Conservatives, Carter's regime is looking a lot like Blue Communists with Big Government bloat and ever-expanding salaries and pensions. Often for failure.

I wouldn't expect Kent Conservatives or even Kent Labour to be radicals.

But the symbiosis of the main parties blurring together, and frankly the stagnation of Kent Tories, always in power in Kent, almost automatically has resulted in a too-cosy Blue Communism of failing to curb the excesses of the public sector.

The politicians and civil servants simply become Tweedledum and Tweedledee for vanity projects competing to waste the most tax.

Perhaps the Corbyn election or even Miliband previously as leftwing shows how mundane the parties are. I don't agree with say nationalizing the railways but it hardly makes him Lenin. I couldn't tell you anything about the other 3 Labour candidates or their policies. Nothing. And even less about Kent Labour.

Hence the ridiculous Parkway or absurd £500M Stack plans or bizarre Daniel Gent gargantuan construction site at 100 SE Rd aren't prevented sooner.

I think we need:


* an end to KCC as the most £100k salaries in UK Local Government

* review of KCC Top Temps undercutting the recruitment industry and staffing-up on the rates

* review of District salaries and performance

* end doublehatter councillor roles/salaries

* replace all public sector vehicles with electric cars

* Kent Off Oil: solar electricity for all public sector buildings

* reinstate street lighting and expand library opening hours - impossible even at £2BN a year?

* merge all ceremonial roles into Deputy Leader role

* monthly full FOI

* end routine 1.99% automatic increases for the public sector

* ban tobacco and Conflict Minerals and Blood Diamonds investments by KCC eg phones/computers

* cancel public sector tax havens and zero hours projects eg Pleasurama, and Victorian slave labour companies like Sports Direct and Wetherspoons exploiting their staff:

http://news.sky.com/story/1550617/jd-wetherspoons-fresh-attack-on-living-wage

Zerohours and payday loans 1,000% interest rates disgust me. Along with DSS benefits sanctions targets and Disabled benefits - almost literally jumping through hoops for pennies. Mere exploitation.

* an end to Geoff Wild of the Toxic Three's empire of 150(!)KCC lawyers on the rates to prosecute the public and even hired out to other councils but funded by Kent taxpayers. And as with KCC Top Temps undercutting the legal profession.

Time for Change

www.votegarbutt.co.uk

@timg33

Tim's Titbits:

* bizarre of Farage blaming the EU in the newspaper today for Thanet's woes - I thought there had been lavish EU funding over the years simply wasted by incompetent and corrupt councils. Doesn't fit with his fanatical EU/Johnny Foreigner worldview though I suppose

* excellent Gazette reporting on the horrifying increase in Kent road accidents in the runup to November's Road Safety Day and 1M global deaths - we definitely need tighter illegal parking policing and more pedestrianisation on the seafront and High St and 20mph zones - cars scattered everywhere and on pavements is dangerous forcing pensioners and kids and pushchairs into the road

* a weird letter from Kent Fire delaying/refusing FOI requests on the Ramsgate Fire Station vanity project etc costs/plans - always a concern when they prefer to wriggle rather than providing the info - more later...

* Slipways/Hornby at Ramsgate's Grade 1 Harbour seems to have slipped through the planning process after being rejected - cement mixers ready?

* Excellent Sky News and BBCTV reporting on sports tourism - why isn't Kent making more of the excellent Margate beach volleyball/soccer activity or Canterbury Tour de France after the failure of 2012 Kent and even Japan being hosted by Sussex for the Rugby World Cup!
http://www.skysports.com/football/news/11095/9984952/football-tourism-on-the-rise-visitbritain-report-shows
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/34197370

* KORA and 2LB nearly ready

Wednesday 2 September 2015

KCC fails us. Carter Must Go.


Paul Carter Leader at KCC fails us:



* KCC worst libraries in UK: http://www.kentonline.co.uk/kent/news/kents-libraries-are-the-countrys-42339/



* Kent worst asbestos: http://www.kentonline.co.uk/kent/news/asbestos-deaths-on-the-rise-42260/



* Kent dozens of unsolved murders - even of the ones they've recorded: http://www.kentonline.co.uk/kent/news/kents-unsolved-murders-42165/



* Kent Environment Strategy: nothing done for Climate Change - kent.gov.uk


* 100 SE Rd garden grabbing - mere silence and delay

* KCC tobacco and fossil fuel investments

* Landfill bloat

* Tax haven Kent: Canterbury 4th highest in UK, and Dirty Pleasurama - do they think we're idiots supposedly selling Pleasurama to the same people who were involved in the BVI tax haven scandal?

* Shit on the beach again from Southern Water

* Lydd/Buchanan: 9-11 risk

* Seafront parking and tramps lager

* No Most Wanted of rapists and burglars

* Manston/UKIP leadership "a liability" - says UKIP(!)

* Ridiculous droopy knickers and bra event by RTC

And now Kent road deaths/accidents up 11% - but they can't even record Medway or motorway crashes for some reason.

Even the bizarre instance of LocalCraigMP also being a JP in Chatham - making laws and enforcing them? Admittedly he doesn't live in Ramsgate but how silly, and as illegal as the Libdem civil servant candidate.

And now the election pledges on Manston brushed under the carpet just weeks after the election.

We need the election rerun if they are just spouting nonsense policies they know won't happen.

For this we pay £2BN in tax?

Carter has failed us.


Garbutt for KCC Leader 2017 and MP 2020.


Time for Change

www.votegarbutt.co.uk

@timg33