A recent TDC survey polled 400 people about their opinions but was the survey unduely biased? I think it was.

I was recently forwarded a press release which appears to have come from Thanet District Council (TDC) announcing that Operation Clean Sweep was universally popular. While I have no fixed opinion on the subject I do object to the way in which the data was collected.

Why do I object to this survey so much?

1. This press release came out at the begining of November but the survey runs until the 18th of December. Rule number one in statistical sampling never tell the target population what everyone else has been saying if you want them to tell you their opinion and not shift it to fit with the "popular" view of things. This press release undermines the value of the final findings by biasing the whole survey towards the early results.

2. This data collected came from 400 out of about 125,000 people a statistically insignificant sample size. That is just 0.32% of the population of Thanet. A bigger number than that vote BNP and we do not consider them a significant reflection of the area's opinion.

3. Thanet Community Safety Partnership spent a week getting 400 people's opinion from sites around Thanet that ammounts to 80 a day which must be taken to roughly equal 80 per point in Thanet visited. again this sample rate is too low. Furthermore these people were being asked if they supported or liked something that the question asker was part of promoting. Hardly a nutuural assesment.

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» Continue Reading: Could TDCs problems be bad fact finding?

Ramsgate resident and businessman Michael Child is worried about the Royal Sands Development and the state of maintenance of the cliff face. However the council insists that everything is safe and fine. Michael is not convinced.

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When enforcing the law of the land becomes a war on the innocent something must be done.

Locally we have a history of significant crimes (of which a large number are fires) going unsolved but of minor offences being prosecuted as if they were international crimes. We see councils using anti terror laws to push non terror related agendas and we see situations such as one single real police officer to deal with all of Millmead, Dane Valley and Palm Bay.

These crimes cost us all and make Thanet less attractive to investors and scare away what scant tourism we might have left. There is, therefore, not a single one of us that does not pay directly and indirectly for this failure of the police to do the one thing they are paid to do - their job.

We do not pay police to help the council fine people, we do not pay them to keep huge databases on people with a political opinion we pay them to make sure that cars are not stolen that people are not murdered and that buildings are not burned down. We expect them to arrest currupt politicians, judges and abusive officers in thier own ranks but what we get is a lot of highly paid office clerks filling out forms or beating up on bystanders.

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» Continue Reading: Who else wants to live in fear?

Thinking of the Ellections in Dane Valley (bits of Dane Park and Millmead in old money) it is clear that both the Conservatives and Labour have set themselves up with such epic lack of a snow-balls-chance-in-hell that I figure they might need some help.

What follows is approximately ten thousand times better than anything Labour and Conservative normally spout and a whole lot more logical. Now they have no excuse for making an interesting election with an actual attempt of the impossible (getting anyone to stop laughing long enough to vote).

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Dear Voters. Leading Tory councillors have sugar in their coffee, Hitler took sugar, therefore do not vote Tory or it would be like voting for Hitler and we wouldn't want that would we. Love the Labour party (rightful rulers of Millmead).

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A message from the conservatives: A Conservative Councillor is better than Nothing. Nothing is better than a perfect councillor. Therefore a Conservative councillor would be better than a perfect councillor. Clearly it is in your interest to vote for us.

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» Continue Reading: Revamping the ellection battle.

Following up on Tony's post here are a few more thoughts on the Dane valley By-Election.

Both main parties are going to be hard pressed to win much of the vote and should be working flat out to see off any chance of some fringe nutters (like the BNP) from grabbing a seat. Sadly this does not seem to be the case. According to my Labour party source the Labour councillors that had the opportunity to do exactly nothing for Dane valley prior to the last ellections were all doing one last stint before retirement in a "traditional Labour ward".

In other words Dane Valley was seen as an area where Labour would always get in and so needed to do nothing. While it is true that Dane Valley is a hot spot for Labour voters it is a race of two parts.

Prior to some rather pointless looking boundry changes what we call Dane valley was made up of Millmead estate and Dane Park. Strong Labour and Conservative respectively. The resultant ward is one of 13 places in the whole of the UK where the number of children from families that claim out of work benefits is twice the national average (so is Newigton by the way). To be sure of a win a councillor must not only court the attention of the home owners that largely consider themselves to be "Dane Park" but also the disenfranchised Millmead crew who are likely to tell you voting is pointless because they are all the same anyway.

With a low publicity election a councillor might slip in on Dane Park votes but should be careful because anyone able to muster even a fraction of the Millmead vote will soon find they have a strong majority. Right now, however the Millmead voter is facing unemployment and the political force behind that appears to be the Labour party. Thanet Labour are going to have to work like stink to get a seat and then keep working like the end of the world right up and through the next election. Right now however they are being sufficiently "safe" to safely get no seats at all.

Unless the lib-dems can pull something out of the bag we could be stuck with another four years of Sandy Ezekiel selling carpets to China instead of real care for the district.