Manston airport: Helix/Riveroak reply

Hi Nick

Thanks for your reply: can you clarify your role at Helix and in the DCO?

I'm unclear why you are surprised at myself and the public, and police, participating in the DCO by requesting information of yourself. Especially given previous issues at Manston and media coverage.

Can you advise on the questions I've raised that are unanswered and provide any documents you think relevant to support your view. Helix directors are also available media and public questions?

Could you also clarify that you understand the East Kent drinking water is underneath the runway and there are missing Infratil/Stagecoach fines.

Tim




On Friday, 31 May 2019, 09:00:16 BST, Nick Rothwell wrote:


Dear Mr. Garbutt,



I am surprised by your e-mail if you are standing for Parliament as you should understand the public process that is a DCO.



I further do not understand your reasoning for copying your e-mail to various persons of the Kent police.



As with this public process all documentation and submissions have been provided to the Public Examiner and this has all been disclosed on their website. This fully discloses our involvement and where UK residents are involved are all fully disclosed to HMRC.



Finally, as you are aware there are the public hearings all of next week which all interested parties and the public in general may attend. If you cannot attend I believe that it is fully recorded and again made available on the Public Examiners web site.



Regards



Nick Rothwell





From: Kim Stuppan
Sent: Dienstag, 28. Mai 2019 16:51
To: Nick Rothwell ; Rico Seitz
Subject: WG: Claudia Thalmann Helix corp: Manston airport and Riveroak public inquiry
Importance: High

UK and Thai Parliaments similar?

Interesting article on Thailand and UK parliaments:

https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/1686236/british-thai-democratic-systems-cant-be-compared

A couple of other points to make are that the UK House of Lords also contains Church of England bishops (including the Archbishop of Canterbury here in East Kent) the only chamber to do so outside of Iran. A Religious Affairs committee could adjust that anomaly.

While the 92 hereditary Lords is blatantly undemocratic and the only chamber in the world. Previous hereditary Lords ejected in 1999 but still the strangest elections of the elderly hereditary Lords as they die off having elections by just the other hereditary Lords.

The Lords is also nearer 900 members than 780 - the largest outside China.

And if the principle is that experts are appointed that's largely untrue with political party appointees booted upstairs form the Commons.

And the Lords is distinctly aged: more members over 90 than under 40 - a particular failure on the expert issue as Britain enters the digital 21st century rather than analogue 20th century.

If the Thai Senate is derided in rap songs as 250 bootlickers certainly there are less military and police in the UK Lords and none serving on active duty.

Perhaps George Orwell and sandwiches (invented here in East Kent) are better role models for the Thai parliament (and its written constitution and codified laws) than UK parliament.

And with the May parliamentary coup perhaps UK is less democratic than the new Thai parliament?


Time for Change
@timg33

Garbutt: new Thailand-Cambodia railway opens

Tim Garbutt, East Kent MP candidate 2019 said:

"I am delighted the new Thailand-Cambodian railway has been opened by both Prime Ministers.

After 40 years since the destruction of the Khmer Rouge it is one more possible to travel from Bangkok to Phnom Penh.

As a further part of my MP manifesto it's time for the link between Phnom Penh and HCMC to be built connecting ASEAN's main cities and capitals.

Along with Kwai rail upgrades to Yangon, which would be ideal for Hitachi here in East Kent too with its Eurostar and Channel Tunnel and HS1 hispeed rail expertise.

With the first UK Strategic Rail Group gaining the Cairo Metro contract it would be a Great British success, as the inventor of hte railway to deliver on ASEAN and India connectivity.

Thailand as Chair of ASEAN this year and Vietnam next year would also be best-placed to deliver on the HCMC link and through to Hanoi and China. And galvanising the delayed Singapore rail.

Along with 1M UK tourists to Thailand I am looking forward to travelling on the new improved railway."

Time for Change
@timg33

Karen: Weekend of Blood Police review meeting

Dear Karen

Just a quick note to thank you for organising the Ramsgate Police Review meeting. A very useful session airing lots of similar concerns by businesses and public and councillors.

I've lived here c.18 years and with Surin Thai restaurant for most of that and stood as Mayor and MP and never seen it as bad as the last 12 months or so.

Worth remembering specific lowlights in the recent decline:

* tramp tent on High St near WH Smith for all last Summer and cops ticketing it
* Weekend of Blood last week with airlifted stab victim
* a dozen naughty KFC/Subway Kids
* a dozen tramps and street drinkers at the crossroads, previously in Streetdrinker Square by the police station (!) and by Wilko. The cops can't even patrol around the cop shop.
* knife fight outside Red Lion at 4pm(!)
* tramps camped out on Harbour St for c.8 months
* axe man on High St
* BMX bikes on pedzone and cars, often the wrong way in the one way system - somebody will be knocked over and killed: an OAP or child
* cars on pavements: kebab shop car
* junkie dying in public toilets near Barclays last week
* open drugs dealing at the High St crossroads
* tramps collapsed and ambulance 9am on Sunday morning
* street drinking from 8am, tramps throwing up at 9am in town centre on a Sunday(!)
* six gypsy caravans and vans parked on the actual seafront promenade(!) for over 10 days at Bank Holiday: same/next day removal needed

As I said in the meeting the main issue is lazy cops.

All the above very basic problems of course means less visitors, less tax, less jobs/payrises, less public services, brain drain etc etc.

There is c.£250k in new Street team TDC funding (if not £500k) and prowl cars, similar policing staff levels over the months/years, new CCTV, multi agency etc etc.

All of which is useless without enforcement and foot patrols.

The recent crime surge is an underculture of thuggery and drugs that has become overt through lack of policing: drug dealing, thugs, skunk cannabis openly smoked, illegal/dangerous driving etc.

Specifically I visited the police station c.3 weeks ago and spoke to the police there over various incidents and was horrified:

* PC Sharon Doughty: unsure who was in charge/nobody in charge - it was a base to change uniforms. I thought Sgt Moat was day to day in charge and now with Laura interim at Margate?

* PCSO James Howard: parking on pavement is OK as long as it's just one side of the pavement not both sides(!) Police training apparently. Refusal to contact CCTV on drive through cars as policy of their own making. Also not 24 hours?.

* PC Andy Hawe: streetdrinkers under the no streetdrinkers signs are OK unless they get more drunk and cause subsequent undefined trouble - invariably at night as the day shift clocks off.

Other members of public in the meeting citing police just wandering around and inaction with crimes in front of them and reporting crimes at the cop shop to inaction.

There also seemed no liaison between the day and nght shifts and prowl cars.

The result of all those systemic points is of course a cushy life of inaction for the cops and riding the decline down. And increased tax to reverse the problems as people are sacked/transferred.

I have heard/seen/had no/few issues with pubs/cafes serving drunk customers etc and both the bouncers and street cleaning teams do a good job. Especially Thorley Taverns.

The public have mentioned The Goose very late at night but I don't know of any details.

Perhaps Wetherspoons as a factor as the largest pub in UK with the violence concerns raised at the time?
The prowl cars do a good job but obviously they just drive through without stopping unless there is a 999 call.
The policing seems to be 9-5 and not at weekends at all except with the prowl cars?

10-10 policing would be better 7 days, also extending pedzone 8-10 and to seafront.
Concern at the 101 reports delays mentioned.

To help I think there are some proven points that work:

1. Broken Window Bratton: regular crime monitoring and zero tolerance. The current softly softly approach has devloved into inaction.
2. Police monthly reports as you mentioned eg patrols, arrests, CCTV reg no etc etc
3. Newsagents ban on selling single drinks cans and serving tramps. ASBO and Drugs Most Wanted and hauls
4. East Kent version of main Most Wanted
5. Foot patrols
6. An ambulance forward-positioned discreetly on the seafront at weekends would be useful as before with Mayor Green for heart attacks etc
7. 999/101 calls review
8. Drugs: port/yachts as with Manston 3am flights no police checks
9. TDC (RTC) inward investment dept: little delivered by Locate in Kent, Kent Film Office, Produced in Kent etc etc
10. Police issuing parking tickets as they patrol: there seems a view that they shouldn't be doing that especially at night - also prowl car reports of broken street lights/potholes etc
11. Knife ban/extra year in jail
12. Pedzone/pavements - clamp and crush cars

None of these problems are some vast issue of County Lines and Krays gangs it's the normal crime of a small 30k seaside town that has been neglected.

Worrying that Margate residents now see Ramsgate as rough when the reverse has usually been true.

Any cop day or night should feel free to stop and search for drugs/knives especially with known repeat offenders and in the town centre/seafront. And advise on court sentencing/delays.

The taser cupboard is a minor point and I have concerns on if/how they are used as you raised too. And machine guns/ammo/training costs for minor crime.

Reeling in any police drones/AI/facial recognition bloat sooner rather than later would be useful too. Faecal recognition would be more useful given the state of the towns. Or for where the cops are hiding.

A few wider issues are:

1. KCC and London borough social dumping: review of care homes, hostels, property purchases etc etc?
2. And truancy/expelled/offrolling from schools?
3. Concern at suggestions of TDC removing benches: policing is the issue not street furniture/trees for beautification. And pubs with their own outside CCTV: again a policing issue with new CCTV. Pubs are already funding bouncers in the absence of policing.
Worrying if the cops live in the area but aren't bothered.
4. Quartery issuing of police/council tax rather than annual and via a reformed RTC would ensure better public/councillor grip on services provided
The danger being the proverbial pay more and get less and do it yourself - especially with KCC £2BN and Kent Police £300M budgets all with semiautomatic increases. Public donations are nice but those budgets are tax funds for town improvements.
5. The Harbour St RTC £1.5M has disappeared/no FOI? And a £400k budget is too low given Ramsgate tax is c.£17m as is switching budgets between the towns to paper over the cracks and not obtain extra funds. 30% Styles RTC tax reserves and purdah election breach is absurd.
Fair points on jobs and investment and youth work by Charlton Athletic etc.
6. Review of Police Domestic Extremist database with councillors spied on and Cllr Driver TDC prosecurion for revealing Pleasurama corruption documents
7. A petty point list: tarmac repairs of brickwork High St are a mess, Xmas decorations left up in June, trees cut down and not replaced/with small saplings etc, bin collection on streets around market day should be rejigged so as not on Friday, faster Public Health clean up of flytipping: typhoid, typhus, cholera and Pandemics etc

Many of these issues also apply to Margate and Cnaterbury High St - all the towns benefit form the other towns doing well. A Westwood Cross review of tax etc would be useful given its strategic failure.

Four other wider issues:
1. Cancelling and clearing Pleasurama - this has failed
2. Cancelling Manston and Parkway - these have failed
3. Demolish Ramsgate £8M fire station on sports fields/swimming pool
Worth remembering that over £60M on these corruption and vanity projects has been wasted.
4. KCC in Private Eye Rotten boroughs for a further £60M waste on pensions

From the above a minimum of £120M KCC development budget for Ramsgate?

A wider issue is ensuring public sector failure has consequences in pay cuts, sackings etc etc.
Obviously everybody wants a wonderful Summer 2019 and preparations - in advance - for Autumn/Xmas and 2020 plus key events such as Yacht Week and Dunkirk Little ships and Sandwich Golf Open.

Hope these are useful and many thanks again for your efforts.

Kindest regards

Tim

PS: Addendum

* a review of TDC/KCC policy to end jail for council tax nonpayment and BBC licence fee (30% court cases) given Parliament petitions would be useful

Claudia Thalmann Helix corp: Manston airport and Riveroak public inquiry

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Hi Claudia

I wanted to write to you as Helix Compliance Officer about your role/investment in Riveroak for Manston airport in Kent.

I am standing for Parliament in the area and there is concern over the process and public inquiry eg recent news link below:

https://theisleofthanetnews.com/2019/05/27/manston-dco-hot-topic-of-compulsory-acquisition-scheduled-for-resumed-hearings/

https://www.helixfiduciary.com/profiles/claudia-thalmann/

I presume there is no wrong doing in Riveroak funded via Belize, BVI, Delaware and now Switzerland with your firm Helix. Confusing perhaps via tax havens without full details of directors etc.

Can you confirm your involvement and funds etc and any documents/emails provided to Riveroak/Planning Authority etc.

Kent Police/NCA/Parliament copied for their information as Manston has already featured in various Parliament investigations and news reports since it closed in 2014 and previously with Wiggins/Riveroak staff.

In my opinion it is a junk project and should be compulsorily purchased for one penny by the council for transparent review.

Please advise.

Many thanks.

Tim

Prem death premature for Thailand and UK stability?

General Prem has had a good innings dying today age 98.

The former PM and Privy Council chief dies at a crucial time for Thailand. As with King Bhumibol dying last year, Prem marks the end of an era. And a changing of the guard in Thailand with the new democracy election.

Prem's involvement in public and military life stretches back to WW2.

And apt with the refurbishment of the Thai Army Museum is a reconsideration of that thinly-documented era.

The French-Thailand War of 1940-41 not just the Thai Navy's finest hour but the first loosening of the Western Empires in Asia after the fall of Dunkirk an Ramsgate Little Ships.

And the famous landmark in Bangkok of the Victory Monument, Thailand's Nelson's Column.

That era ending to all practical purposes only with the Prem armistice of the Thai Communist Party in Northern Isaan in the early 1980's and withdrawal of the Vietnam army from Cambodia by 1990. And more symbolically with the return of Hong Kong in 1997 and Macau in 1999 to China.

As an aside, perhaps the Portuguese Catholic Church in Bangkok overdue UNESCO status as one of the first European outposts in Asia.

And surely an old soldier like PM Tu would consider a more detailed study of Japan in Vietnam and Cambodia and Thailand in WW2 beyond the familiar points of the Kwai railway and March 1945 Japanese coup. Even the UK occupation of September 1945 through to 1946 that sowed the seeds of the Vietnam conflict - few if any CWG war graves.

The first Allied victories in Burma in early 1944 after the near defeats at Kohima and Imphal - the Kwai railway put in place to resupply the Japanese army for the invasion of India - showing how near the Allies came to defeat.

One of the strange quirks of the Kwai campaign is a memorial tucked away in a side street raised by the Japanese military in March 1943 to celebrate the completion of the Kwai railway - and to commemorate the deaths of the Allied POW's, Asian conscript labourers and Japanese soldiers. A strange revisionism to Western eyes that the Allied 15k and Asian 100k deaths would have been a mere footnote in a successful Japanese Empire.

Western memorials at the Kwai bridge rather peculiar with a small plaque to American soldiers who died there and a plaque from the Welsh Male Voice Choir of Hong Kong plaque to all the prisoners amidst the souvenir stalls and still working trains.

Perhaps a Prem Studies course in a Thai or UK university could also highlight the Thai contribution to the Korean and Laos/Vietnam Wars largely unknown in the West, whether Thai volunteers or Thai soldiers redrafted in civilian clothes.

The Max Hastings Vietnam book even detailing the American OSS role at the end of WW2 with the rather splendidly named Major Archimedes Patti trying to organise resistance to the Japanese military. FDR promises of an early end of European Empires disappearing amidst 93k French troop deaths before the end of the French War in Vietnam - over double the eventual USA deaths.

And if the role of the Thai military in government has exploded into life with the new constitution and 250 appointed senators and anti-conscription policies of Future Forward Party then the older embers still spark into life beyond ASEAN. Whether North Korean nuclear missiles, naval exercises off Taiwan or the Chinese Spratly islands and seizure of the Paracels in 1974 from Vietnam.

Even the fragments of the KMT nationalist armies in the border regions of China and Myanmar repurposed as drugs gangs.

With Thailand and Cambodia and UK active in the UN Peacekeeping Mission of South Sudan perhaps similar is required with ASEAN auspices and Myanmar. In my MP campaign I wonder what use the last 3k UK troops in Germany from WW2 bases and the vast stockpiles of rusty lorries etc that could also be deployed from Bielefeld etc to better use in South Sudan before being scrapped.

Frau Merkel and Herr Weber in the running for EU roles must also surely be considering a shift westwards to former East Germany for US Army Europe bases as well as how long Germany can hope to ride on the redcoat tails of UK and USA military taxes for NATO and concomitant reductions in trade investment. BMW cars proving of more value than Ajax armoured cars.

Perhaps USA should talk up the Iran War and the supposed inevitability of a China War a little more for a lot more defence tax. the Trump Japan visit surely beginning a retrenchment from Korea and Okinawa and increased Japanese defence funding. Perhaps greater investment in the East Asian equivalent of ASEAN or EU for Japan, China, Koreas United, Taiwan, Russia and Mongolia.

The resolution of petty islands disputes or oceans cleanup and exploration perhaps the easiest Trump takeaway since a McDonalds Happy Meal.

As is the colonial disengagement of the last fragments of the European empires - the Caribbean surely ripe not just of the Caroline Munro Doctrine but greater Commonwealth investment in transferring the bananas republics of cocaine and tax haven economies to a surer grounding whether solar panels or vaccines.

Thailand's massive success to date in reducing drugs in The Golden Triangle surely a wider lesson for other nations: the first deployment of EU Border Guards to Albania a measure of EU effort needed along with Southern Italy, and UK efforts on SOCA crime gangs by Lincs Crime Commissioner.

And surely UK efforts in the Northern Ireland Troubles and strong relations with Malaysia and wider Commonwealth provide support for peace and prosperity in the Deep South.

Although at present, with the Brexit mess creating a disUnited Kingdom and no political government in Northern Ireland for years now - whether jerrymandered from Ulster or not. Perhaps the only factor now preventing a reunited Ireland by 2022 would be Eire not wanting to take on the bankrupt province nor UK wanting to invest funds to see it fall under the sway of Dublin, albeit with civil rights guarantees for Protestants of Londonderry and Belfast.

While the DUP emerging form the shadows of UK politics proving unpalatable to UK citizens on abortion etc and out of step with a more liberal and sectarian Eire now loosening divorce laws from the Catholic Church.

Brexit revealing not just the minefield of Europe for a Tory government again but also digging up the ticking timebomb of the Irish Question that defeated the Prem of that era, Disraeli and Gladstone.

And perhaps one of the key takeaways from Prem's life is - as with the EU for UK - the rise of ASEAN as a stabilising force for peace and prosperity after WW2 and the Cold War.

@timg33

Thailand and UK and USA bridges rusty politics?

It is perhaps apt for the 5th anniversary yesterday of the Returning Happiness to the People coup in Thailand that politics returning to normal with battle lines drawn up in Parliament rather than the streets (the Ratchaprasong Junction anniversary of 2010 earlier this week a reminder on what can happen outside Parliament).

One can argue Thailand more stable than UK at the moment with the collapse of the political parties even before EU elections - those elections a strange sop to ending the Brexit shambles. While hot talk of coups is merely PM May being replaced in Parliament. Although the strange democratic twist of a second unelected PM via a new Tory leader in 3 years.

Let's gloss over the Battlebus election fraud for the previous election and Kent endemic corruption as the County Barn rots.

And business in Thailand is returning to normal with the announcement of two bridges across the Mekong to Laos and repairs to the other Friendship bridges.

https://www.bangkokpost.com/news/asean/1681504/minister-to-push-for-two-more-mekong-bridges


The new bridges strategic in knitting together Thailand with Laos and Isaan with Bangkok from the Charter referendum. For the Nong Khai bridge ready to link with the new China-Laos rail. That something of a boondoggle without connecting to Isaan and Bangkok.

And perhaps even more importantly the second bridge by Transport Minister Khun Arkom linking the Ubon region with The Four Thousand Islands of southern Laos and Northern Cambodia.

And there seems a strange disconnect in the Khun Surinya Bangkok Post article with Thai tourism sites:


https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/1679852/must-visit-cultural-sites-evoke-pride


A Japan World one of the leading tourism sites in Thailand? Then surely improved rail links through Isaan are the motor in the engine not just of the Future Forward Hyperloop one debate, but also Thai tourism and UNESCO sites.

### UNESCO and Royal Road ###

UK perhaps overly full of UNESCO sites such as Parliament and Canterbury Cathedral here in East Kent, but a Lego World with an Eiffel Tower surely wouldn't feature in the UK must-see sites?

But Thailand has an opportunity with the Royal Road of temple sites, not just Angkor Wat in nearby Cambodia (or the almost limitless supply of new temples found nearby) but the temples across the Mun River plateau to Preah Vihar and Pakse and The Four Thousandx Islands.

All of which are both slightly neglected as a tourism package and UNESCO rankings: Thailand rather badly served with only 5 sites but more on the Tentative List including the Royal Road in Isaan.

And the new bridges, as with the new Thailand-Cambodia railway through Battambang opened by Prime Ministers Chanocha and Hun Sen, leave a trail of tourism breadcrumbs. The bridges launched in Buriram apt given that city's aims as a Sports City not just with the Thundercastles succcess (the Manchester City of Thailand?) and new sports stadium and motorcar racetrack - not dissimilar to Kent's Brands Hatch.

While Surin further on has its elephant festival with the Isaan silk and silver shared with Sisaket and then the Ubon Candle Festival.

That Royal Road tour and rail link from Surin to Siem Reap and Battambang would open up much of southern Isaan. As would improved rail links to Roi Et and Kalasin.

Khun Arkom probably oiling his bicycle chain for both pedestrian-friendly and healthy Smart Cities and cycle races. A Tour de Isaan or Tour de Deep South to rival Tour de Yorkshire?

The latest Great export ads for UK focusing on Advertising for the Cannes festival week - not a bicycle but a speedboat surging through Union Jack waves. Probably on the Tonle Sap lake. Or Lake District UNESCO site. Isaan from space and textiles featuring previously.

### Newcastle University Rail and Kasetsart ###

And with the successful launch of the new LNER East Coast fast trains in UK with Hitachi (here in East Kent and Sunderland - just down the road from the Newcastle University and Kasetsart rail dept venture) from London to Edinburgh, surely UK, flush with the $600M sale of the Bangkok Embassy, the largest-ever land sale in Thailand, would be pumping some of those funds back into greater working with Thailand?

Certainly some of those funds a useful pump-primer with AIIB and ADB, on the former Danny Alexander former LibDem Treasury Chief active as AIIB Vice President alongside Nick Clegg former Deputy PM and Facebook advisor, George Osborne former Tory Chancellor and Black Rock director in establishing the AIIB with former Prime Minister David Cameron, fresh from the shepherd hut in finishing his memoirs, to reverse the Who Lost China concerns. Danny long advocating infrastructure in Asia beyond merely pouring tarmac.

A shame if UK lost ASEAN too - that would be a lot of Manchester University graphene water filters and Crossrail-style London SuperSewers to waste. The German PM last year and Ambassador this year wasting no time in emphasising Germany's Rolls Royce engineering skills.

Ja, ja, achtung Heathrow und Thai Air, das ist smooth as silk.

All that rather galling given I for one built Concorde with my Dad, the real thing of Great British Engineering, not just an East Kent Airfix kit.

And extra Jollibee restaurants or Gails Bakeries or Thai sticky rice or Quorn of scant consolation for the doldrums of the UK High St with the collapse of Jamie Oliver restaurants and Patisserie Valerie.

### Ramsgate Weekend of Blood. Ting Tong. ###

Best to be quick before Chief Constable Pughsley places an order for more champagne on the rates for Kent Police. I am convinced he could be a major contribution to Road Safety. Especially after the disastrous Ramsgate Weekend of Blood if he patrolled more and kept away from the gypsy encampments and leave the incessant tarmacking of driveways and highways to the KCC County Barn.

The positive of Ramsgate's first Asian female Mayor Raushan, after the dark days of UKIP and Ting Tong Janice MEP, no doubt keen to ensure a grip is taken on the town centres and councils after years of failure.

Indeed what better time than this year with Thailand's ASEAN Chair 2019 of Connectivity but also leading into the Vietnam ASEAN Chair of 2020 for completing the HCMC-PP-BKK link. And UK and Hitachi Kwai rail upgrades all the more fitting for UK and Japan and Thailand to forge closer links in the 21st century after the disastrous conflicts of the 20th century.

Indeed, with the new Philippines Space Agency close to being ratified by the Senate, surely UK and Thailand with ASEAN and Commonwealth friends as at the Australian Space Agency be working closer on not just Richard Branson's Hyperloop but his Space plans. As a minimum a Thailand Space Agency could participate with UK and EU Space Agencies such as Surrey Satellites just over the Kent border, and Woomera rocket ranges near Adelaide.

### Space City Glasgow and Moscow just a hill of Heinz beans? ###

With Glasgow the Space City of Europe with more manufacturing than anywhere else, even to rival Boeing Sheffield's new HQ, Thai Resilience would be on firmer ground for 5G flood forecasts etc with dedicated satellites in the skies over the Royal Road of Isaan?
And those hitech tools not mere pie in the sky, or the moon is made of cream cheese fantasies, with POTUS Trump and NASA - as well as China - dedicating to new Moon bases and Mars colonies by 2030.

Prince Charles staging a coup of his own with not just the riproaring success of his Cuba visit galvanising UK efforts in Cuba and the Caribbean (the new James Bond movie already creating EKFOS-style jobs for 500 Jamaicans), but also leading the State visit for POTUS Trump in the next few weeks around the DDay landings commemoration. Prince Charles no doubt securing a few packs of Duchy Original biscuits at the 19th hole vending machines in Donald Trump's UK and Eire golf clubs.

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/entertainment/20190518/jamaicans-working-all-areas-bond-film#

Maybe in his golf bag to share with Tiger Woods out on the course. But also galvanising USA infrastructure with a booming USA Steel economy and rather soggy British Steel industry.

In the last few months before the frenzy of 2020 elections, POTUS Trump no doubt keen to keep the economy on the boil without bubbling over and kickstart the economies of the Rust Belt Swing States with length after length of rail-line and if not a hill of Heinz beans for Virginia-style school dinners, then a mountain of rocket parts ready to be supplied and assembled. Whether in USA or Thailand or UK. Thailand's Senator Tammy Duckworth and Anna Eshoo must certainly want to secure some of that NASA supply chain to their states.

And Californian Kamala Harris and Kent Pocahontas Elizabeth Warren (now teaming up with Kent Puerto Rican spitfire AOC) gaining far more traction in UK than other Democrat Presidential hopefuls.

Trump infrastructure reforms so far a bridge to nowhere beyond border wall tweaks.

Those Boeing and Elon Musk and Richard Branson and rockets need to be built somewhere to hit Mars in the next decade. And with USA and Russia on speaking terms after the froth and fury of the Collusion McCarthyism, POTUS Trump and President Putin warmer telephone chats (don't tell him the nuclear codes Donald!) might encompass the growth of the Russian Space industry too.

And John Deere tractors across the steppe aside, even or more of those lengths of railway steel across OBOR and the Bering Strait tunnel.

That certainly a coup for both Trump and especially Putin in returning happiness to the Russian people.

Perhaps Thailand but certainly UK having to wait longer.

@timg33

Raushan for Ramsgate Mayor Revival beyond TDC corruption

As Ramsgate's first female Asian mayor, Raushan has swept away the stain of UKIP. Now as a new broom she has the leeway to reform RTC and TDC:

1. Pleasurama: on her first day, Raushan can issue a municipal order cancelling any sale, call in the police and remove the fence and concrete pillars for a public consultation before another Summer is lost. The dodgy deals under both Tories and Labour have gone on too long. Bayford as Deputy Leader under the Gang of Four and now Leader must know of something given sharing an office with Terence Painter the site estate agent. Even details on how Blueberry Homes in Broadstairs the local property developer bought the site from the Caymans and Panama etc etc? My Big Fat Gypsy Police Chief needs to spend less time with the gypsies and more on such policies.

2. Manston airport. Much the same corruption as Pleasurama with the Infratil crimes of removing air pollution monitors with TDC assistance and faking the data. A bumper crop of cancer rather than jobs with the assistance of the Homer-Howes regime and clerks Berry, Button and Sproates.

Again, Raushan can cancel the Riveroak dodgy bid via Delaware tax havens and wherever else by Roger Gales Wiggins friends. If needs be a £1 CPO would end the nonsense.

And Chief Pughsley must be frothing at the mouth to begin Infratil extradition from NZ: handcuffs and orange jumpsuits and the first Kiwi criminals with a free passage back.

Or are Kent Police not keen on protecting Kent's Cancer Victims, leaving Terry the Gravedigger to bury the evidence deeper?

3. East Kent Water. The Manston aquifer is depleted under Manston hence Southern Water scrambling now to repair the sewers. A public inquiry is needed on how water is pumped in form West Kent's Bewl Water reservoir.

4. Blue Flag beaches. An ongoing success for East Kent but a slipping of standards with the far weaker UK Seaside Awards. Which Blue Flags will be regained?

5. A clearout of RTC: an astonishing breach of civil service purdah rules by Richard Styles Town Clerk with his views on elections the day before an election. And similar gross misconduct on FOI refusals on staff pay/pensions etc. New Broom and New Blood. Even Chief Pughsley urging a cleaning of the Aegean stables.

6. Harbour St £1.5M Fund: a question also for Styles on where is this fund announced c.2 years ago? A Cardigan Empire of handymen and payrises/pensions seems to have been created with Shonky not the services promised for the funding.

7. Ramsgate finances need putting on both a surer foot and responsive to local needs. the corrupt actions of TDC are matched by simply stealing Ramsgate funds to pay for Margate regeneration. Ramsgate's £17M in local tax needs to be kept in Ramsgate by the above council reforms. While the KCC £2BN funds needs to be apportioned between West and East Kent and Medway with a deprivation allowance. As with Kent Police and the abysmal local policing so far, funds need to be issued to the quangos on a quarterly basis to ensure responsiveness and scrutiny.

8. Channel air pollution: a review of shipping.

9. Nuclear pollution: faster closure of Dungeness and review of Benelux nuclear sites - plus military weapons removed eg WW1 sea dumping and SS Richard Montgomery WW2 explosives ship.

10. Town centre policing: the astonishing idleness and delays of gypsies on the promenade, town centre tramps and junkies flytipping, CCTV failure and pavement parking and pedzone breaches needs new cops before pedzone expansion from 8am to midnight and along the seafront and Arches.

11. Pfizer derelict wind turbine removed: the apathy of a council of pensioners and one party politics.

12. Brain drain reversal: 5k missing jobs at Pfizer and East Kent Core Companies: Pfizer, Hornby, Givaudan, Bakkavor, Saga cruises, Hitachi Ashford, Fujitsu,Canterbury Cathedral UNESCO, and Visit Kent. Zero effort on jobs beyond public sector padding. Zero effort
for East Kent so far form Locate in Kent and produced in Kent and Kent International Business.

13. Town wifi and buildigns insurance.

14. Demolish £8M Ramsgate gold plated fire station - not wanted by the public except the foremen themselves and but on sports ground left in perpetuity for clubs such as Charlton Athletic etc.

15. 20mph towns: Road Safety deaths and injuries increasing to be reversed.

16. Brett aggregates fishy expansion again with former/current civil servants: review.

17. Overbuild eg 100 Se rd garden grabbing and Lidl duplication not EKFOS.

18. High St Business Club needed to ensure stores remain open eg Peacocks, TUI/Thomas Cook and empty shops brought back to use etc and expand products eg Waitrose/Asda.

19. NHS and Education and PCC/police/courts: astonishing gaps of responsbility in the councils eg QEQM stroke unit and asbestos deaths of teachers and pupils and truancy/expulsions and vaccinations.

20. Cinque Port structure: one of the oldest forms of UK government for Caesar and landings attractions and Hoverport cleanup.

21. FOI: monthly routine.

22. Slipway development with Horny cancelled and return all slipways back to use: a working port not twee tourism and tickytacky housing overbuild.

23. Refurb Eastcliff bandstand and Motor museum and Port plan for Ostend and Dunkirk trade.

24. Cancel housing estates until c.3k East Kent empty houses (c.17k in Kent) are brought back into use. Absurd property overbuild and speculation.

25. Cancel RTC and TDC and KCC duplication: a waste of tax saalries and reduction of democracy and begin Direct Elections of Mayors after the parties corruption and failure.

Time for Change
@timg33

Robert De Niro, Jeremy Kyle and UK-USA media reform.

How refreshing to see Robert De Niro turning in a great performance in his advertisement for Warburtons bread or rather bagels. The ad pastiches his Goodfellas role as a mobster and even channels his Casino movie fashions, perhaps even touching on the Eagle Supermarket of The Deer Hunter.

And a lovely flourish of NYC tourism with an I (heart) Bolton mug.

Warburtons becoming not just a master baker but rather UK's master film maker attracting superstars as De Niro to these shores plus Sylvster Stallone and The Muppets.

Surely Al Pacino is next as The Codfather for a Warburtons fish finger sandwich or some cod-Shakespeare malarkey with De Niro fresh from The Irishman movie.

Ads and movie stars a well-trod path for both the advertising and movie businesses - currently Harvey Keitel rather wasted in a clunky pastiche of his Reservoir Dogs role for First Direct Insurance. Ryan Reynolds and Jeremy Renner both helming BT wifi ads.

And by far the best of the lot at the moment, Kevin Bacon with a bravura performance with Britney Spears for several EE mobile phones ads.

Leaving aside the view that the film star outshines the brand in such commercials there is no doubt that say Dudley Moore for Tescos or John Cleese for Sainsburys lends talkability and standout to more workaday brands. Does a Keira Knightley for Chanel perfume have the same kudos?

Japan usually a cash-till for movie stars appearing in ads far from USA and not impinging on their film roles: Harrison Ford of Star Wars selling Kirin Beer and Keanu Reeves Suntory whisky for example. And perhaps the king of them all James Coburn paid $1M for voiceover of two words. Schlitz. Light.

Lost in Translation with Bill Murray a whole movie based on a movie star in Japan for a commercial. He found a distraction in Scarlett Johanssen perhaps De Niro not so lucky in Bolton, or Leeds and Liverpool and Birmingham for his Actors Studio style stage shows.

And therein lies the rub as noted Shakespearean Pacino might emote. Surely UK and USA media reform could uplift the one-off or under the radar blip of such successes.

In my MP and Mayor campaigns I've argued not just for the East Kent Film Office and Studio as a counterweight to West Kent Maidstone centralisation but also reinventing the 1930's studio system for the 21st century.

Few would argue with Hollywood as the centre of the world film industry even against the rising tides of Bollywood and Nollywood and China.

It's astonishing that the UK is still essentially a cottage industry of just three dozen or so movies produced each year.

That in itself is a British failure given the head start of the English language, close ties with the American studios and cluster of studios since the Chaplin and Hitchcock era of Pinewood etc.

Add in though the success of the Japanese and French and Italian film industries without any of those advantages and its a monstrous British disaster.

And add in the outrageous success of the Bond movies and Star Wars now Disney franchises and Harry Potter movies even Lord of the Rings and its a British failure of epic proportions.

I've worked on various movies in marketing James Bond (East Kent's main movie source), Harry Potter and even De Niro in Fokker mode and Ken Russell for my first Cannes awards and always surprised at the lack of grip on maximising UK film and Creative Industries expertise.

Lord David Puttnam of That'll Be The Day and Chariots of Fire and Cambodian Killing Fields with East Kent writer Bruce Robinson. Something of an East Kent tradition with the Bond scriptwriters and Ramsgate as the Cannes of South East England with a mini movie star colony to rival Carmel, of Ramsgate's Brenda Blethyn and Timothy Spall, and new Film Festival.

Puttnam's Lords seat growing colder as the creative links forged beginning to rust and the white hot heat of the Open University film and television boost cools callin gfor MOOC and Eire Atticus growth.

And perhaps therein lies Britain's secret weapon of The Caroline Munro Doctrine.

UK casting off the vestiges of the Empire and last flecks of colonies and Cold War prattle that soak up so much government time. But rather, as it were, embracing not just the Bond Babes but the UK film industry as a whole for Global Britain and UK plc growth..

Britain punches far above its weight than the La Motta of De Niro or Stallone's Balboa from Laurence Olivier to the Connery and Moores and Brosnans and Craigs of 007.

While the back office functions of production and special effects are world-beating with Star Wars and Bond even Kubrick making their home here.

And the array of locations that the Hollywood of Canada or West Kent's Chatham Dockyard simply cannot match.

And there is Britain's second secret weapon to be deployed.

Tom Cruise.

Who else has done more for Britain in Hollywood in recent years with the Mission Impossible movies not just with British actors as Simon Pegg, now active in the Star Trek and Star Wars franchises.

Rumours swirl of Prince William and Harry cameos as stormtroopers.

But with Cruise Control Britain has never looked so alluring whether the Channel Tunnel and Liverpool St tube station of the first movie through to Piccadilly and the Tower Bridge riverfront of the latest movie.

All of which translate into Eurodollars and jobs and future skills onto the bottom line of UK plc.

Surely its right for The Cruiser to hear the words Arise Sir Thomas of Mapother IV for services to the British film industry and tourism industry?

The Royals not averse to handing out gongs with a headscratching insouciance: Tom Hardy as a CBE for a handful of popcorn films? Floella Benjamin a Lord from PlayAway?

Surely,as with Sir Thomas, there should be a lightsaber-like precision to how Global Britain is promoted and recognised.

I wouldn't describe myself as a Royalist: they seem quite nice and half a dozen senior hereditary roles no vast problem once the 92 hereditary Lords are cancelled - the pensioners club stalling under Fowler reforms. Over 75 and 20 years surely a no brainer for the basis of a cull. And Lord Archer as Lord Grabiner blatant corruption on the red benches.

And the honours system is already in the hands of Parliament except for half a dozen awards (a badge for the Duchess of Sussex on her birthday?) in the sole gift of the Queen. That too likely to change under Prince Charles guidance with tweaks such as Commonwealth replacing Empire in medals.

Such honours though not lightly to be traded - after the efforts of lollipop ladies over the years or Red Cross volunteers - for mere brace-twanging vanity.

As with the Royal visit to Cuba, there are ways and means for the Royals to deal with diplomatic and trade problems and help keep or put a UK foot in the door.

That Caroline Munro Doctrine perhaps all the more visible with POTUS Trump regime efforts for 18 Caribbean nations, and Africa trade with Ivanka and no doubt A Very Special relationship coordinated by Ambo Woody beyond mere softsoap and warm words that butter no parsnips or bagels for A Very Special Relationship in UK and Hollywood as well as the crunchy Pacific Resilience Group beyond the showbiz stardust.

Kent with its tarmac and tickytacky housing developments culture and County Barn corruption on Infratil, has made no overtures to the excellent Viriginia sister state Film office. While the lavish UK Film Offices in LA and San Diego are equally quiet on both slating new UK movies and pulling in USA and UK locations.

Few would argue for Sir Bob of De Niro on the basis of a bagels ad and his own stage show. But many would cheer to the rafters for say a BBC series of Actors Studio talks from the mook himself. Perhaps The Mooch lending VC support to mook movies.

Perhaps even his buddies Martin Scorcese a fan of East Kent in tbe Powell-Pressburger A Canterbury Tale, Leonardo Di Caprio or UK ronin as Sean Bean and feather man Jason Statham. A Sir Alan of Pacino would be the cream on the bagel for UK-USA media growth.

And why not a BBC and Netflix or PBS joint venture on say Hollywood in the 1970's, the greatest film era? Or Italian-American New York? Kent's Puerto Rican spitfire Congresswoman AOC might want to urge on a guide to Puerto Rican New York or cinema or a sequel to her movie?

Buckingham palace would no doubt get out the movie projector for a series of shows on Cuba and even The Commonwealth. Surely peak Money Tennis with Joanna Lumley on a train around the Commonwealth?

With a Netflix deal under his arm former POTUS Obama might well steer away from rather syrupy biopics of he and Michelle and put UK and USA at the front of the movie queue for a series of different shows. Especially with Chicago introducing a Netflix tax and UK calls for High St taxes on the online giants.

A series on Presidential libraries seems a shoo-in, perhaps even a rerun of Bear Grylls shows and certainly the almost bottomless well of not just The Kennedys but the real Camelot of Civil Rights. Virginia's Charlotteville surely an initial treatment already tp go in former Governor McAuliffe's new book?

And beyond the sterling efforts of Sir Thomas of Mapother few would want to neglect Steven Spielberg as American suburban clay is shook off for the mud and blood of Saving Private Ryan and not just the Eire opening beach scenes of Omaha but the creation of a whole new UK studio at Leavesden.

With he and Tom Hanks on their way to UK with POTUS Trump for the D-Day 75 landings commemoration it's perhaps astonishing how few remembrances there are of Britain and Canada's meaty roles. Liberation Route Europe with Visit Kent and Operation Fortitude and Portsmouth's DDay museum about all.

Britain struggling as with Kwai railway to even commemorate the British beaches without Peter Rickett's efforts.

USA not just taking the British invention of cinema with Leeds Bridge in 1888 but also taking Britain's invention of the museum and CWG and perfecting it whether DDayMuseum in New Orleans and Virginia or Smithsonian.

Dark days for the British Creative Industries.

And darker still with the suicide of not just the Jeremy Kyle show guest but East Kent Margate's Mike Thalassitis Love Island suicide: one of 40 reality show suicides worldwide.

If Lord Puttnam is too polite to pull the seat away from Floella Benjamin or Lords Archer and Grabiner surely he should be banging the table upstairs with Kent's dynamic Damian Collins of the media committee downstairs on UK and USA media reforms.

I'm no Mary Whitehouse but disgusting slop such as the Kyle Show and even Love Island and certainly Naked Attraction with naked contestants comparing each other's genitals along with the cod-psychology of Kyle before going on a date, shouldn't be served up to the primetime viewing public whether the licence fee is cancelled or not.

It's hard to see it as other than the end of days for once great British broadcasting - not just the impartiality of the BBC but fizz of Channel Four and vibrancy of regional broadcasting with World in Action etc.

Britain has slumped into the stripping Italian housewives, or Japanese violent gameshows and topless weather forecasts that a Clive James or Chris Tarrant would mock mercilessly often with the unspoken line that it couldn't happen here.

Yet it has.

The worst excesses of a Jerry Springer freak show are now normalised and certainly Messrs Puttnam and Collins, beyond reviewing some of the more frivolous election tampering claims of Facebook or Huawei spyware, should be considering 15 points for vigorous broadcast reform:

1. Licence fee cancelled for tax ring fence: end the absurd imprisonment of pensioners and diversion of funds from programming into tax collection

2. UK-specific content quotas in film and television as France. Sir Thomas or Spielberg may not like it initially but would certainly consider putting UK higher in their location and funding lists. Mission Impossible Scotland next?

3. Repeats quotas. Lazy and cheap programming routinely criticised in every parliament review but the broadcasters treating Collins and Puttnam in Parliament with contempt. That last point surely overdue in questioning pubic servants etc refusing to appear before parliament. 3 months in jail? 6 months? As the highest court in the land Parliament could issue the warrant or instruct the Supreme Court to type it up. The High Court holed below the waterline with Russian court cases and corruption judges as Mann etc.

4. BBC3 refloated. Again every piece of research suggesting it was excellent and popular as a new Channel 4 yet closed into a strange web version.

5. 24 hours broadcasting. Repeats aside it is absurd to have channels barely on air eg BBC4 from 7pm for just 6 hours or so.

6. Plus1 time shift broadcasting: as the previous point but staggered viewing eg C5+1 etc.

7. Maximisation of Freeview: a desert of empty channels that the riproaring success of Talking Pictures TV (and Turner Channel before that) for old black and white movies shows a pubic appetite for interesting content well-promoted.

8. Reviews of cheap and cheerful shows: a nasty rash of reality cop shows, Police Interceptors and Operation Hanoi antics aside, is junk telly not an inquiry into police practices. As is Cash in the Attic jumble sale junk telly. And perhaps Kyle is so popular (1M viewers?) due to heavy rotation through the day. Perhaps a live hanging of Kyle and his producer would draw in similar audiences and end such feral shows?

9. Film Offices: EKFOS East Kent Film Office again - too much regional content cheated via brief news broadcasts. A reporter in the rain outside the closed council offices to read out the council press release? Or Kent BBC with "today the news from Brighton..."
isn't journalism.

10. The skateboarding duck has taken over much of television news - perhaps the nadir this week with BBC news broadcasting a Colorado window cleaner stuck on a skyscraper. From the newsreaders phone. And journalists interviewing journalists about unknown sources or the newspaper headlines. Mere saloon bar opinions on the rates.

11. Film locations? Even film festivals - France from Cannes to Deauville old masters at the art of promoting film.

(to be continued)

Time for Change
@timg33

Election Princess and Princess Leia and Tiggers for Thailand and UK?

The Thai election is still sparking with life from the brief campaign of Princess Ubolratana standing for Prime Minister.

Within a day though King Rama X, that new title from the Coronation last week, ruling that the candidacy would not be viable despite Princess Ubolratana being a commoner rather than royal albeit with royal duties.

And the Coronation confirming Princess Ubolratana as 7th in line for the throne and a honorific royal title too. The princess no doubt still with a sceptred view on Thai politics amidst the cobras and watermelons of the new constitution.

Even the Future Forward party facing legal action over fairly minor and innocuous website errors raises the spectre of another judicial coup against young turk politicians such as Nottingham's Thanathorn and London's Pannika, sporting a Princess Leia hairstyle to channel real and even R2D2 virtual opposition to any evil empire, in Thailand or ASEAN.

The revived flurry of 1984 Orwell and three fingered Hunger Games salutes and sandwich protests even had a brief Battle of the Hashtags with Princess Ubolatana's #howcomeitsthewayitis vying for popularity with Future Forward's #porrakpor.

And now the judge crimes against the police of #IamChokesbestfriend – Chief Constable Pughsley of Kent Police presumably decrying it all as a Big Joke on his Resilience fax.

As an aside, one or two Thai election posters entered the arena of #TimsThaiTypos worthy of the printing errors on Australian banknotes. A lack of “responsibilty”, or responsibility if you prefer, at Canberra's Central Bank that such financial silliness could only delay hispeed rail from Sydney to Perth, despite the sterling efforts of Miss Moneypenny of the FCO and BPO, dynamic Vicki Treadell new UK ambassador to Australia.

### A bumper crop of new political parties and politicians ###

Reassuring for Thailand’s UN Peacekeeping troops deployed to Sudan is dynamic new UK ambassador Chris Trott in South Sudan gearing up for UK Peacekeeping and UN Policing with lavish DFID support and Kent’s Royal engineers and Ghurkas.

Separately Lord Balimoria, a cobra expert for India and UK strategic overhaul of international students whether STEM or not, also to the fore in demanding an upgrade of NHS shortages and training gaps.

But in Thailand if nothing else the 24th March election has yielded an astonishing crop of 10,000 candidates standing after over 4 years of junta rule, and Future Forward not the only new kids on the block, with parties such as the Forest Party or Commoner Party and their rather fun and innovative rice basket posters.

The new Thailand-Cambodia rail link officially opened 3 weeks ago by PM Tu and PM Hun Sen providing carriage for such increased rice trade, or Isaan silk and Kampot pepper and Nissan car parts if you prefer, not just on the new link to HCMC but through the Kwai upgrades and Yangon and Bangladesh to Hyderabad. If anything a template for South Sudan and its dusty and rusty Wau-Juba-Kampala link.


### China’s railway to Thailand and Cambodia? ###

Chinese grasp of the new Cambodia railway and talk of a metro and monorail similar to the London Underground and Bangkok Skytrain perhaps a strategic failure for both UK and Thailand without a Rail Group. That an astonishing oversight for UK given its secret weapon of the British Transport Police. Inventing both railways and police and not being able to export a railway police a rather silly British joke worthy of Mr Bean but at the taxpayer's expense.

While Brexit in Britain has sucked the life out of the political process, even with horrifying statistics such as UK life expectancy falling a further 6 years and regional discrepancies of 11 years, as Parliament splinters with breakaway parties such as the Change party Tiggers.

Yet dynamic Princess Ubolratana's intervention has surely helped charter a path through the seismic quandary of Thai politics and The Shinawatra Syndrome: to lose one Shinawatra as Prime Minister may be careless, but to lose two in a modern democracy?

That Thai Charter public opinion for a decade returned both the Shinawatra's, Thaksin and Yingluck, to the Prime Minister's office with policies such as the 30 baht healthcare scheme that is in essence the basis of the UK NHS free healthcare or stalled US Medicare.

For despite Uncle Tu's efforts as PM, and forestalling serious clashes of colour shirts, (that Uncle Tu light touch military intervention surely heeded by new military heads such as Khun Apirat after the chaos of the Bangkok and Pattaya revolts), the Charter revealed a seachange if not an overwhelming tsunami of public opinion in the North and Isaan and Deep South in stark contrast to the metropolitan musings of Bangkok.

The Westminster Village navel-gazing of Brexit similarly weakening UK's standing in Brussels and Berlin and Buriram and the wider world. Everybody waiting for the MP election rather than MEP.

### White buses and red buses? ###

With both Thailand and even more so Britain looking like disunited kingdoms could Uncle Tu run Englandshire on half day closing Wednesdays? Perhaps even London’s Paris Hilton, the glamorous Khun Nailert of Surrey (Chaneling her inner fashionista?) could be deployed on the buses again after the airclearing success of the Nailert Garden Festival and UN Women activity?

UK is facing a perfect storm of narrowed Brexit bandwidth and stalled infrastructure and transport even in Meiji Kent with downsizing of Japanese investments from Panasonic to potentially (confirmed just today) Honda. Hitachi and Fujitsu immune so far. And few strategic tourism initiatives on the scale (perhaps with the exception of the third runway at Heathrow and landing slots for Thai Air etc) of the Khun Kobkarn repurposing of U-Tapao for both tourism and the EEC industrial strategy. And the Smart City projects in ASEAN and being developed by Panasonic and Mitsui and Hitachi.

The sensitive handling of UK and Thailand and Japan in improving the Kwai railway could be as effective a 21st century commemoration as Eire’s remembrance of the 10,000 Irish workers in the USA Transcontinental railroad.

### Blue Flag not Crapita plus Gilgamesh ###

The Shinawatra rice pledging scheme if mired in tales of corruption or excess also formed the basis of a welfare system. Indeed Uncle Tu has lately reinstated elements of the rice scheme but also developed the quietly excellent Blue Flag shops and credit card. The shops perhaps translate into UK food banks or perhaps the value range at Tesco supermarkets, while the credit card is a step far beyond UK efforts for digital welfare and Universal Credit.

Indeed the dynamic Public Affairs Committee guru, Meg Hillier having to wield her handbag on the Verity UK government scheme of another UK Big IT and Big Data fail by such as Crapita. And if the plug has been yanked out on that scheme surely Ms Hillier and lead tigger Sarah Wollaston must be questioning how to involve Tim Apple and Bill Microsoft, even Warren Buffet's UK investment charge, for the goldmine of 70 years of NHS data.

Dynamic Senator Eshoo in Silicon Valley California would no doubt see it as another goldrush, far beyond the Uber float, for tech companies such as Google's Calico - their anti-ageing work vital for a Gilgamesh Strategy for ageing societies such as UK and USA and even Thailand.

Even for rollout in Myanmar - that new Thailand Cambodia railway extending through Kwai and beyond the dead-end of Dawei to Oxford's Aung San Suu Kyi's door with wagonloads of TB and Cancer and Dengue vaccines?

### A corrupt High Court is Choke’s or Grabiner’s best friend? ###

While Brexit from my MP and Mayor work underscores a weakness in much of UK society, those PM May burning injustices still burning strong, highlighted by the UK justice system rot with the Secret Barrister bestselling book on court failings, corruption from One Essex Court and Lord Grabiner through to the Londonski routine Russian corruption of the High Court, whether Magnitsky or GPT-Saudi arms deals.

Choke’s best friend may well be the corrupt judges sat with Judge Mann in the UK High Court.

Perhaps a glimmer of hope though for Russia with both Bill Browder and Michael McFaul linking up at a Scaramucci conference, and Secretary Pompeo heading from UK to Moscow for Putin talks after the McCarthyist froth of no collusion of POTUS Trump has fizzled out like a dud rocket on the launch pad.

Russian oligarch wealth from fossil fuels evaporating like Scotch mist or Chiang Mai haze.

But UK's long-held reputation for healthcare whether NHS or Alexander Fleming and invention of penicillin and genome research has been rocked by the rising tides of Brexit with a lack of preparedness in the May government even for diabetes insulin.

That a strategic failing relevant for Thailand too in stockpiling and manufacturing for Pandemics. Both Princess Ubolratana and Uncle Tu aware that TB, Thailand’s blight, or the next Spanish Flu are as dangerous for royals and generals as for Isaan buffalo loyally toiling under the ever-hotter sun of Climate Change.

### A Chinese dagger pointed at Bangkok? ###

It may be excessive to describe the Chinese-Lao railway as a dagger pointed at the heart of Bangkok with PLA troop trains thundering through the night from Yunnan, but certainly the debt trap is as real as say Chinese swine flu leaping a species and few hundred miles without the necessary Resilience support.

And, potable tap water and water wars aside, The Mekong dams and Tonle Sap and ocean overfishing no doubt food for thought for a Royal (Thai) Navy Resilience Group with the Royal (UK) Navy

Ms Hillier perhaps only pausing for her colleague dynamic Transport Chair Lillian Greenwood to unbuckle her cycle panniers, and set about whacking Transport Minister Chris Grayling around the head and chest over the Ramsgate fishy ferry in the Homer-Howes tradition of East Kent council corruption with Manston-Infratil and Pleasurama.

Don’t let up Lill, give him another one, he knows he deserves it!

And if Princess Ubolratana's sincerity shines through in both loyalty to her friends in Dubai and Hong Kong, (Hong Kong's shipping container industry surely vital for both Bangkok's and Sihanoukville's new deep sea ports and even Yangon's), and her diligence to the public, surely her To Be Number One charitable works are in the tradition of King Bhumibol in resisting the scourge of drugs infecting UK and USA with deaths from Shan, Wa, and Afghan heroin, much as yaba infects Thailand.

While the Princess Diary and Number One TV shows and films are in the tradition of Uncle Tu's Friday FDR fireside chats in clearly advertising (Sincerity Advertising or not) peace and prosperity for Thailand. After the Senate rigmarole Uncle Tu might well feel cast in a role similar to the UK’s Duke of Wellington, he exasperated on moving from the military to Downing Street at issuing instructions to politicians who wanted to debate them forever. Perhaps Uncle Tu’s cardboard cutout standins were wise props for any such dull meetings.

Peace and prosperity all the more important this year from a stable Government House, with Thailand as ASEAN Chair and Finland EU Chair to highlight OBOR rail and port and airport links between Thailand and Europe - UK no doubt remaining in EU after a few more weeks of arcane debates akin to how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

### UK Sporting Superpower in Europe and ASEAN and the only World Series ###

While most Brits could forgive Princess Ubolratana for supporting Germany in the 2018 World Cup the potential for Sports Diplomacy is all the stronger with Khun Tippy promoting the King Power and Leicester City teams. And four UK teams in both European finals is an astonishing success for the Premier League, surely the real World Series of sport, much as baseball in the USA Year of Sport would like to claim otherwise.

And with the flagship Tour de Yorkshire cycling event and London Marathon, few would doubt UK as a Sports Superpower. That expertise and sports science STEM work as relevant to a Raleigh Rally in Juba or Tirana, or a Toshiba Thailand Fun Run in London or Tokyo. On the latter surely the UK needs more of both rice cookers and stylish running vests?

In my Mayor and MP campaigns in UK I've urged not just the Shinawatran politics of the watermelon in Climate Change but also rejuvenation of the UK High St and school meals. Laos and Virginia leading in both those areas: Britain's nation of shopkeepers bankrupt.

While UK universities leading the world with USA universities is surely a strong team to say expand Thai students and Chevening and Marshall scholarships. 8,000 Thai students in UK seems anaemic compared to 20,000 Malay students even with that Commonwealth heritage. Eire and Australian universities could surely ramp up their Thai graduates and even Surin Charity Village Schools support. The first Surin School built for just $30,000, as both UK and USA struggle to spend their $20BN aid budgets to deliver UNSDG30 and over 60M children still not in school being vaccinated or playing on their Apple phones or Toshiba computers.

Thailand's expansive yet underperforming education budget on English language learning is proving a handicap in ASEAN as far as Hyde Park Corner with the aforementioned Malaysia as well as Singapore and Philippines and even Vietnam outperforming Thai schools. To Be Number One for Thai schools and the 500 Clubs and 134,000 16-24 year olds surely a worthy aim for King Rama X renewed support alongside the King Bhumibol Royal Projects.

### An Army of Junkies? ###

Debates around conscription or the rise in defence spending or even the purpose of the Thai military within ASEAN, issues along with S44 and lese-majeste use and even reforms to the junta constitution are the weft and weave of a modern democratic Thailand. And it’s hardly outrageous to consider Thailand has seen its last military coup. A UK Brexit coup forestalled by the usual patience and fortitude of the UK military as well as perhaps the ill-discipline of UK recruiting from prisons (a Sven Hassel regiment of convicts for landmine clearance in Cambodia or Sudan?) or an Army of Junkies marching on its septum rather than stomach with cocaine squaddies not turfed out of the army.

Perhaps even reforms around the use of coups in Thailand are required: the outflow of FDI and shortfall of Chinese tourists in particular - the Great British Tourist not deterred by gunfire or bombs in struggling into their Union Jack shorts and heading to the beaches of Phuket and Hidden Thailand - damaging to Thai prosperity. While a Kaine War Powers Act being debated in UK and USA on the use of military force whether the Gulf of Tonkin or Iranian Gulf.

Those Thai Royal Projects though not so dissimilar to Prince Charles' Duchy of Cornwall projects: biscuits and cakes to British exports what Isaan silk could be fashioned for Thai exports. Prince Andrew also kickstarting UK exports and Royal reforms with his rather fun Pitch at the Palace programme that wouldn't be out of place at Government House (Bangkok or Naypyitaw) or Hua Hin palace.

The Thai auto parts industry benefitting not just from closer OBOR links with UK and Europe but the UK car industry: Jaguar and Landrovers the huge Ford and Nissan and - hopefully still -Honda factories. Even Richard Branson's Hyper Loop Rail (Buriram to Bombay or Hyderabad to HCMC in an hour?) nestling next to the British bus and tractor industry, even USA's John Deere, with 21st century tech in planting trees and hedgerows and clearing klongs and monitoring top soil and crops.

The Thai farm industry not mere peanuts either in value or scale of SME farms, that watermelon politics of Yingluck again.

### Britain on its bike and in the lead? ###

And building from the ground up an even stronger Thai film and television industry not just with Premier League football but a Bangkok Studios whether King Naresuan or Star Wars movies on multiplex rotation or not.

Even King Rama not averse to cycling with the Bike for Dad event or football from his Milfield days. While UK football king Gazza (Lineker not Gascoigne of King Power Leicester City FC and Match of the Day) would surely bow to Arsenal's ASEAN lead in community work.

The Trump-Kim nuclear summit highlighting rail travel through the Koreas and China to Hanoi and beyond. Kunming surely a strategic rail hub for Thailand and the Greater Mekong region, PLA troop trains perhaps heading for Uighur or Tibet or Hong Kong or Yalu, through to the auto industries of Chengdu and Yingluck container trade via Hong Kong.

The Kra Canal project perhaps viable, in Thai military terms, in reducing any need for two submarine bases on the Indian Ocean and South China Sea approaches, with a wider debate on the Indo-Pacific arms treaties and potential of drone shipping and submarines. Singapore perhaps over-hasty with German submarines against a backdrop of a second Chinese aircraft carrier. That carrier perhaps even more useful than Huawei for the Pentagon to talk up a new enemy and war in Asia. And the wider relevance of Resilience from Climate Change storms the length of the Kra peninsula and islands, as well as ASEAN Philippines and Indonesia and Commonwealth Malay peninsula surely more relevant than a sabrerattling.

With UK navy ships being phased out (HMS Kent the ship not region described as junk fit only to be scrapped) and the RAF surely in its last year or so of manned flight, Thailand and UK, even Commonwealth Australia, should be best placed for a strategic debate on coastguard gunboats and helicopters and RNLI. Even Weather and Space systems – still no Tsunami Warning system or Australia Space Agency launches? Sunday Times author Max Hastings calling for a new fleet of cheap and cheerful light frigates rather than the two UK vanity aircraft carriers in danger of following the previous carriers to the bottom of the sea off Singapore again in any Asian conflict.

If the Thai election and Brexit shambles have revealed fault lines in those nations surely interventions such as Princess Ubolratana and new political parties as the Tiggers and Future Forward are to be admired in beginning to steer a course through the logjams that beset the ships of state.

@timg33