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

England's First Town The Isle of Thanet - Margate, Ramsgate and Broadstairs Town centre focus not Westwood Cross Pedestrian priority not cars/lorries Town councils not District councils Tourism and Climate Change focus 1. Free wifi ie phone boxes/grants etc - 100% on and 100% free 2. Monthly and weekly events - plus Friday and Saturday markets expanded: apple, cherries etc 3. Police Broken Window misc: ASBO-zero street drinkers/beggars/junkies/rough sleepers/litter/parking/streetlights/empty shops - SME newsagents: tobacco/booze. Purple Flag and Pubwatch/Shopwatch 4. Town theatre/opera - flagpoles, RTC Town centre/events Manager - maximum 10% empty shops 5. Reopen Motor Museum/roof and pavement safety 6. Pav: Jazzwat, Grade 1 listing 7. Jobs: KORA and Sincerity Charity and EKFOS: East Kent Film Office and Studio, IMAX/VR 8. Red Cross Town: Debra shop - books/art, and First Aid training, Third sector coordination etc 9. RNLI Harbour - lifebuoy and phones and defibr...

The announcement the day before yesterday of The Open golf tournament returning to Sandwich in East Kent is excellent news. With the tournament taking place 14 times already at Royal St Georges course it's one of the world's great events up there with the World Cup or Wimbledon - and terrific it has another vote of confidence in East Kent. And Sandwich Royal St Georges is astonishingly evocative as the home club of James Bond author Ian Fleming and basis for the most famous round of golf in films in Goldfinger. Now with Heineken rather than vodka martinis. 2011 even saw Northern Ireland’s Darren Clarke winning the cup. In 2003 rookie Ben Curtis trumped Tiger Woods. And with 184,000 visitors to the event and millions more watching on television it's a great opportunity for Kent with forecasts of over £100M in direct revenue. Tracey Crouch UK Sports Minister and her Chatham constituency are right to cheer on the successful announcement for East Kent. It could even be...

The Eire ambassador to London, Daniel Mulhalll spoke eloquently to the UK Parliament on Brexit last week and raised several points of interest. Few could argue with an Irish diplomat: kissing the Blarney Stone must be part of the interview? And never has a policy such as Brexit been more unpopular, with the Eire and Northern Ireland governments and public and even UK government wanting to avoid a hard border again between Northern Ireland and Eire. A troublesome prospect even with Eire's dynamic reputation in UN peacekeeping with troops and police and aid integrated, while UK shilly-shallys on the collapse of East Africa - again - with not one but four famines in Sudan etc. With 1.85M cars a month crossing the border now, any return to a two-state border (or Ryanair air and ferry extra migration controls to UK) would not just be inconvenient but an economic blow. And a blow that would be felt more strongly in Northern Ireland, and UK, with 36% of exports to Eire. But only ...

Is it a 999 emergency for 111 or 112? Two major emergency call centre incidents last year is a cause for concern. First we have G4S with Lincolnshire Police making 999 calls to themselves(!) so as to fiddle the response times and pay-per-call figures. Not ideal in itself, nor with the G4S and Serco tentacles spreading across and through the public sector as a mega-civil-service-within-the-civil-service. As with Banks too big to fail or public sector monoliths such as BT, surely there comes a time when such contracts need to be broken up for both customer service and financial value? Then there’s the denouement of the South East Ambulance scandal following the resignation of the Chairman before Xmas and now Paul Sutton the Managing Director falling on his sword too. This is the call centre scandal of 111 NHS calls being delayed before being put through as 999 emergency calls. Perhaps 11 avoidable deaths have been estimated as the inquiry continues – figures likely to be dwarfed by...

Three very brief points: more later: 1. I'm horrified at the legal manipulation by TDC lawyers and senior staff to suppress the information from former councillor Ian Driver on the c.£900,000 in fines imposed by court on TDC for their mishandling of Dreamland with Sands Heritage. http://iandriverthanet.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/censored-did-thanet-council-push.html?spref=tw The silence of the sheep-councilors is as bad. We have East Kent dragged onto the dirt as a scumbag council of UKIP and the continued TDC and KCC corruption as with Infratil and Manston cancer and Thor and GIIA £500k Port fraud. As KCC Leader I will publish all the costs as routine monthly FOI and cancel the £20k fine - for the first time ever in UK - imposed on Cllr Driver for highlighting the Pleasurama tax haven costs. Wells has failed as TDC Leader only attempting the secret Brettgate phase 1 and phase 2 cement mess. 2. East Kent Council a positive step forward - I just cannot see how Homer and ...