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

A vigorous article in The Independent on Saturday newspaper by crime reporter Cahal Milmo details the horrifying murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. Daphne murdered by a car bomb of Semtex explosive that blew her car off the road and several metres into a field... Shockingly the fifth car bomb murder in Malta in the last 18 months, not dissimilar to the anniversary of the murder of Judge Falcone last week, and Malta holding the EU Presidency earlier this year. And now a 1M Euro bounty for her murderers. And some 2 months later 10 arrests after EU pressure highlights a rot in Malta’s governance. And Kent. The death of Cllr Ken Gregory opens up that KCC seat (and TDC as a doublehatter?) but the May 2019 TDC or RTC(?) elections are far, far away and nothing likely to be done now East Kent governance has collapsed into KCC meetings cancelled, and budget shortages now the pay rises are completed, and process restructuring with 20 fewer TDC (and KCC?)councilllors by 2019. ...

Hi Trevor As Mayor can I raise the following writtten questions for the Town Council agenda this Wednesday: please advise: 1. Pleasurama corruption: who owns the site and likely clearance before the Summer season of 31st March onwards - and given the Panama Papers etc tax haven involvement and Manston air pollution monitors/fines eg http://iandriverthanet.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/margate-dreamlands-offshore-tax-dodging.html 2. Vote of no confidence process before May 2019 elections: you've done nothing at KCC and TDC and now RTC and should resign 3. Police update: foot-car patrols ie rough sleepers on High St with a tent for c.14 weeks - also street drinkers, parking on pavements/pedzone etc 4. Pegwell Bay UNESCO site improvements: old Hoverport clearance, NEMO megapylons twice the height of existing ones and disused wind turbine near MT Energioe 5. RTC staff salaries/pensions/expenses/reserves for the £400k budget - the staffing seems to have grown from...

As an adjunct to my previous article on the malaise afflicting UK defence, with General Hughes the main US Army general in Europe citing concerns over UK defence spending and NATO inter-operability the problems seem deeper-seated. Both UK and USA hardly covering themselves in glory in voting against the UN ban on nuclear weapons last month - and surprising that Holland is the only non-nuclear power to also vote against the ban. Perhaps a few US military nukes are still on Dutch soil (a few teensie-weensie ones that have accidentally been lost on purpose?) - are some of the Saddam 15 minute nuclear howitzers there? It would hardly be as unusual as the Trident mishap of nearly nuking Disneyland in Florida last year and not releasing the details until after the parliamentary debate on Trident? And what is it with the US military building their own golf courses - surely some crazy gold ones would be cheaper and easier and free up the Seabees? And despite the vigorous efforts of Ca...

General Ben Hodges commander of US Army Europe couldn't have timed his remarks on UK defence spend better than just a week before Parliament's review of defence with former UK Chiefs of Staff and Kent's Defence Minister Mchael Fallon resigning and being replaced by the sharpened carrot of new Defence Minister Gavin Williamson. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41903960 But General Hodges has surely lobbed a grenade into the debate by calling for more defence spend by UK and NATO? Generals calling for more soldiers and shells is hardly surprising. And it's certainly not unreasonable for the US taxpayer to want to see bang for their buck with Europe sharing more of the defence burden. The US military had to ship containers full of ammunition because Europe's NATO and defence industries couldn't provide it? While the UK army and police stumbling over themselves to procure Belgian and German and Austrian machine guns and ammunition suggests the UK defence industr...

Clearly the #paradisepapers detailed on BBCTV Panorama and every main UK and global newspaper and website has implications for Kent. The #paradisepapers were hacked from the offices of Appleby lawyers in Bermuda one of many law firms arranging tax haven status - hence The Queen investing in Cayman islands (horrifyingly in Bright House the renttobuy firm recently fiend £14M by UK government and with interest rates of over 900%), Bono a Lithuanian shopping mall via Malta and Lewsi Hamilton his private jet via the Isle of Man. While Kent's largest council projects are: * Dreamland registered in Cayman Islands now via Arrowgrass and/or Sands Hotel - who knows previously for Lottery funds * Pleasurama in British Virgin Islands via the Cardy/Colin Hill sales - so murky nobody quite knows even the council who sold it * various other smaller tax haven items such as parts of Margate High St and hotels in Maidstone Manston airport the only main Kent project not registered in a t...

It's astonishing that Kent's role in D-Day with Fortitude South the feint to an invasion of Calais helmed by General Patton is so ignored in East Kent by Visit Kent - even Liberation Route Europe instigated by Martin Schulz EU president and recent German Chancellor candidate. Musch as Wellington's Waterloo HQ in Ramsgate, UN monument and film star Will Hay are as neglected as Kent's Beatles and Stones concerts or Van Gogh gallery. Surely new street names of Fortitude North Close and Fortitude South Close and General Patton Drive are needed. If not Sword, Gold, Omaha, Juno and Utah streets - indeed POTUS JFK's elder brother Joe Jr. killed over Sussex in the first experimental drone raids on V1 sites in France. And perhaps I am wrong but UK is the only nation that's failed to commemorate USA support in WW1 and WW2 (or Sikh and Asia allies as Thailand and Japan) with a Woodrow Wilson Avenue or Franklin Roosevelt Boulevard. Perhaps East Kent can redress th...

Luke Johnson's ode to capitalism in his Sunday Times Animal Spirits article last week is right on the money in its concern over the weak quality of UK universities and Business Schools. Hopefully the coffee and cake guru (and cancer with his ICE Cancer School - surely NASA's DNA work on the P53 cancer gene for Mars 2030 flights is calling out for his dynamic efforts in UK?) in his new professorship at King's Business School will be able to help resuscitate UK business learnings in academia. And why shouldn't King's Business School rival Harvard or Yale or Stanford? Oxford and Cambridge and LSE may be excellent universities in general but few would rate their business schools. Kellogg School of Management university could do better half-asleep in lectures. Indeed with UK universities punching above their weight in both the Times and Sunday Times university leagues where is the UK MIT, or even UK RAND and UK DARPA? Surely the latter a shoo-in for King's al...

Certainly Belgium in terms of military defence writes Alastair Campbell, former press secretary of PM Tony Blair, in the latest issue of The New European newspaper. And Campbell even press-gangs Lord West the former head of the Royal Navy into his argument that Tory defence cuts would result in a keelhauling if undertaken by Labour. I imagine that's possible in a narrow party political sense. But isn't the wider issue one of the competence of the military and MOD and military-industrial complex? The political parties and politicians don't fumble the ball over Caribbean Resilience or secretly nuking Disneyland before the Trident renewal debate or aircraft carriers without planes - that's the military and MOD. The politicians have issued the orders and the military as with Rear Admiral Burton can either carry them out effectively and efficiency or be marched around the parade ground, epaulettes ripped off and sword snapped over the knee, and out the gate they g...