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

A very good Vattenfall exhibition and consultation on expansion of the East Kent windfarm off Thanet. I was more than a little unfair on them suddenly announcing the events - as it turns out they were just a preliminary event and not even part of the formal consultation process which wouldn't start until Summer 2017 and be concluded by early 2018 with the Environment Minister. How refreshing compared to Riveroak and Wetherspoons - and Chinagate and Infratil - with their hasty formal events and lack of information if not downright porkies. On the Vattenfall proposal for expansion I have some specific concerns: 1. The 34 extra turbines are scheduled to be placed in front of (landward) and to the sides of the exisitng windfarm which is already the world's largest. This would dominate the seascape of our seaside towns - unless they were placed behind the existing layout. 2. The new turbines are much larger than the existing ones- so again would dominate the seascape if no...

How refreshing for Thai Air and the Thai Government to move promptly on the Rolls Royce corruption scandal. And Indonesia's Garuda Air and police have stepped up their investigations too. A dynamic approach sadly lacking in UK and especially Kent mired in the sloth and dirt of civil service corruption and police apathy. With Rolls Royce linked to corrupt deals for aviation engines across Russia, China, Nigeria, Indonesia and Malaysia it's astonishing UK has done so little to prevent this rampant corruption - for so many years and across so many nations. Unfortunately with my politics hat on it's par for the course for UK. Former PM David Cameron's Anti-Corruption Summit of March last year has highlighted the problem of corruption but with little action. The Rolls Royce scandal goes back decades and with on-and-off investigations by the Serious Fraud Squad only now being galvanised by the FBI and USA Justice Department. And this week the Panama Papers detai...

Thailand must be heading up the hit parade with last week the lilting melody of PM Prayut's Sapan bridge song, and a luk thung melancholia with sad death of Lop Burirat in December. http://www.bangkokpost.com/learning/advanced/1174345/prime-minister-prayuts-new-song-apologizes-to-yingluck And (even before the devastating Deep South floods) with Thailand developing its Year of Infrastructure along the road to democracy, as well as overhauling its bus and minivan transport networks, surely UK and Thailand should be working more closely together? The London Garden Bridge project will undoubtedly be scrapped as wasteful. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/11305419/Garden-Bridge-a-blot-on-the-landscape.html But there certainly is plenty of capacity in the Routemaster double-decker bus as well as UK's train and metro cars - and indeed its auto industry recording one of its best years ever must be ideal for the Thai auto parts industry and future space industries. A Tea...

Stop the Pollution. Stop the Corruption. Stop the Construction. First set of New Years' Resolutions for East Kent. 10 signatures needed in Thanet to stand against Shonk and end UKIP and Farageland. And 10 for Lenham and end Carter and Toxic Three. Please email timgarbutt@yahoo.com or @timg33 - name/address etc. New East Kent from 2017: 1. Dig up Manston runway and protect aquifer. No SHP New Town. No airport (or Parkway farce). A park. 2. End Pleasurama BVI fraud etc and clear the site for public consultation. 3. End Dreamland Caymans nonsense etc: an amusement park with effective public scrutiny. Publish all TDC costs/fines as Pleasurama. 4. Police investigation into Port GIAA £500k fraud and end Brettgate Phase 1 cement works that's slipped through - blatant TDC fraud as with 0% salaries: public paying twice for crooked civil servants. 5. End Pavilion Wetherspoons Britain's biggest boozer with no asbestos details nor councillor scrutiny. Bizarre and ran...