People don’t care about politics is what we are told but is it true?

In this Video Tony Robinson finds out that a lot of people have an opinion and an interest.

It would seem that the word from Parliament itself is that Social Services have become a wepon of oppression in the hands of local councils and courts. In this debate it is exposed that Social Services are not only free of any oversight or scrutiny but have actively been used to stop people talking to their MP on threat of thier children being removed.

On the processes of councils, it is interesting that I have discovered that their senior management and councillors have no knowledge of what is really going on in social services departments throughout the country on a day-to-day basis. There is no real scrutiny in the councils, and the fact that elected officials are in charge of them does not result in any proper scrutiny.

17 Mar 2011 : Column 145WH

REgardless of the outcomes of 5th May 2011 I am personally going to make it my mission to change this. Pressure will be applied! Reading the full hansard documentation is a little dry in places but the examples of abuse are enough to make my blood boil. No authority in the UK should ave the power to oppress people and forbid voters from talking to their MP.

(Edited for clarity)

Today I made a very important and long thought out decision and signed up as a member of a political party.

It’s not been easy to choose a party and I am not going to claim that everything about the party I have chosen makes me happy but at least for now I can live with my choice. This does, now, change my disclaimer that I have no party affiliation as clearly I now do.

For a while there back in 2009 I came close to joining the Thanet Labour Party. My reasons for considering joining were two fold. First Clive Hart had left me with the impression that he would happily support my standing for election for Dane Valley (something I have long felt I should do) and second I do not in all fairness feel I could join Thanet Conservatives.

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» Continue Reading: Where Thanet Labour lost me.

On the fifth of May 2011 when we go to vote for our local council we have the opportunity to vote in the national referendum on changing the way we ellect our MPs. We might never get the chance to vote like this again on such a fundamentally important issue.

The current method of voting we use in this country is called First Past the Post and the change on offer is called Alternative Vote.

The Alternative Vote or AV as it is known is a way of having lots of ellections very quickly without actually having lots of elelctions. It allows rapid recounts as each round the most unpopular candidate is removed from the poll. By expressing a preference by numbering your choices 1, 2 and 3 (and 4 and 5 if you want to) you can be sure that you will have voted in each round.

This is a bit like sending someone tot he shops and saying I'll have a Cola please but if that is not available I'll have Lemonaid.

This new voting system will do a number of important things for us.

1. MPs will need to get to 50% of the votes in order to win. This stops radical parties like BMP standing a chance of winning.

2. MPs will have to reach out to more than the narrow collection of swing voters. That means my opinion and your opinion will count for something.

3. It will end "jobs for life" where lazy MPs get to live life to the full at our expense in a safe seat.

4. It will allow us to vote with our hearts and not just our heads. If one wants to support some minor party like Green or UKIP or Monster Raving Looney Party one can without wasting your vote. For me this means that I can show my support for single issue candidates while still making a sensible contribution by voting for a candidate likely to win.

5. Voting will no longer be a waste of time.

Find Out More about the May Referendum

The local authorities are planning a new building in a park in Broadstairs. Why are they doing this and who benefits?

See also: The Broadstairs Tree Massacre: Following the money (part 1)

In my first article I asked a lot of questions about the building of a new office slash community centre in Pierremont Park.

Cllr Chris Wells, the official spokesperson for the building work, finally got back to me with a two page statement in which the building was described as community hire space. This suggests that the purpose of the building is to earn money.

But for who?

I don't know yet but I have kept asking.

What I have found out is who is what the building is for (roughly), who is paying for it and what the total cost will be (an estimated £1.4 Million). This I also got from Chris Wells who took the time to talk to me on the phone.

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» Continue Reading: The Broadstairs Tree Massacre: Following the money (part 2)

I recently picked up on this press release: "Demo to be held against tree massacre". I had to wonder why this centre was being build and who actually wanted it. I asked questions but I found too few answers.



Michael Child has published some of the planning diagrams. However none of the press releases allowed me to "follow the money".

I spent most of the morning tracking down information about the Pierremont Park development. I tried to contact Mark Nottingham (Labour) for whom this was the wrong part of Thanet, Clive Hart (Labour) who failed to answer and Chris Wells (Conservative) who refused to answer. This might be because Clive Hart has been ignoring bloggers and Chris Wells only seems to manage a "no comment" these days.

The first clue came from Liberal Democrat hopeful Louisa Latham who pointed me to this. However upon chasing Thanet District Council for answers no one seemed to know of the Pierremont Park development as a financial issue. Whatever part of TDC is funding this (if indeed they are) they are keeping things most secret.

The plan is based on the original plans submitted in December 2005 by a "Community Centre Trust" with the proposed centre being built where Park Hall currently stands. The question I was starting to ask was - who benefits from this and who was funding this trust?

Changes to the plans were made and approved in 2008 but this failed to become anything after Thanet College's planned move to Westwood was cancelled in 2009 which meant the community centre trust did not get much-needed funds under a planning agreement.

Finally the trust failed to get hold of a £2,000,000 grant from another trust and that seemed like the end of the plans. However someone somewhere must know what or who has happened to bail out this questionable plan and that someone is also likely to know what benefit our local authorities are getting from it.

A new development (planning application F/TH/05/1175) which has so upset people is (it is said) being funded by Broadstairs Town Council and with Thanet District Council and Kent County Council. Which makes it look more like a land grab for yet more office space for councils. However Thanet District Council seem to be misleading me or as much in the dark as I am.

Did they not get enough when they moved operations in the library?

Why do they need office space in the park too?

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» Continue Reading: The Broadstairs Tree Massacre: Following the money (part 1)