Tuesday 5 April 2011

Thanet Election Special

The council have published the lists of persons nominated to stand in the forthcoming local elections, these are the elections where you vote for the Thanet District Council councillors and the town or parish council councillors.

I have published them on the Thanet Press release blog, here http://thanetpress.blogspot.com/2011/04/election-of-district-and-townparish.html I hope I didn’t miss anyone out, please let me know if I did.

Thanet District Council have also published this list on their website, although you may have a bit of a job finding it and when you do they have published it in the most peculiar way imaginable. 

Most people when putting a document on to the internet use html which is a computer code that you internet browser turns into what you see, what the council have done is to publish each wards list of candidates as a separate text file and put up a page of links to these files, see http://www.thanet.gov.uk/council__democracy/cllrs_democracy__elections/elections_and_voting/candidates_at_lg_election.aspx

What happens when you click on the link will depend on what programs you have installed on your computer and how they are configured. I would say that on most computers clicking on the link would cause the document to open in Microsoft Word.

Having just tried to look as who is standing where, I gave up opening documents lifted the whole lot and published them on the press release blog.

17 comments:

  1. Michael,

    Thanks for that, I must say I am surprised at the weak showing of candidates from the Independants and Lib Dems when you consider all the huff and puff that goes on between elections.

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  2. Confused in ThanetApril 05, 2011 5:17 pm

    And just where are the Thanet Action Group who claim such massive support for their anti-community centre campaign. Not prepared to put their claimed majority to the test it would seem.

    Similarly there are no candidates from the Manston protest group, Friends of Margate Caves and all the other noisy factions around. No doubt they will all reappear after the election to claim only they have a mandate for their respective cause.

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  3. Oh and that well known wannabee Tim Garbutt couldnt even get his nomination right, ruled out of order for several infringements.
    If I was a Liberal Democrat I would be keeping my head down as well and as for the raft of various groups who all claim the majority it does seem that they couldnt muster one candidate between them.

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  4. Tony I hope to keep it up to date with a bit of help form you candidates as the council one is almost impossible to use, so please keep me informed of any updates.

    Mike thanks for the update I will amend it later as this computer is my old one and won’t open the post for updating, I am not so sure that applying the same stringent levels of technical rules for the parish elections as are applied to the district ones is appropriate.

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  5. Cllr Harrison, you've reappeared after being a long time dead on these sites...

    I've just seen you've been scaremongering over on the BigNews blog.

    I disagree with your comment, Lib Dems have far more to hold their heads up over than the local Labour group who should be hanging their heads low after their recent shameful behaviour.

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  6. Confused in ThanetApril 05, 2011 9:31 pm

    I suppose, on reflection and in fairness to the Manston Protest group, they actually don't need any candidates as the Labour ones are running their campaign for them.

    Interesting how one of Mike Harrisons last blog posts before the Nottingham saga, was entitled NIGHT FLIGHT HYSTERIA wherein he lampasted the scaremongering on the issue. Then the Thanet Labour group comes out against night flights. Now there is consistency for you.

    Mind you, Labour do have Michael Child working flat out for them so they must live in hopes.

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  7. Are those the election candidates in those pictures?

    Ben K

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  8. Confused in Thanet may eventually realise that the Labour Group have come out against night flights after CONSIDERING ALL THE FACTS and not going with a gut reaction. In fairness you probably didnt realise that, and that is why I used the term hysteria.

    The problem with single issue groups is that being a Councillor involves making many more decisions other than one on your particular issue, usually the members of these groups havnt considered that.

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  9. Michael

    (1) I will email you with two attachments, my MP and Chris Huhne MP Energy Minister acknowledgments re technical report for the Nuclear Security review ordered as a result of tragedy befalling Japan.

    (2) The Thanet County Court case listed for today, Dan O'LEARY versus Chief constable and Emma TERRY, has been adjourned to July.
    Last week I gave a name to the murder inquiry who I want interviewed in connection with the murder of David O'LEARY at Valley Road Margate 2008.

    I submitted evidence to the Court quantifying the questions unanswered in the murder inquiry at £750,000. Getting serious here.

    The only response so far from Chief constable's London solicitors (All at taxpayers expense) is to cite Brookes v Commissioner Met Police (Stephen Lawrence case) that defects in a police inquiry cannot be used as a basis to claim damages.

    So I replied, and copied to Judge, that is strange because I am citing same judgment !

    What it is, my explanation, that a litigious society cannot exercise an influence against the sworn duties of a Constable. Lord Steyn setting out that the Constable must not be given reason to be over cautious in his duty to the Queen to protect life and property and preserve evidence.

    Rather ironic when the O'LEARY murder case started off by leaving taxi driver Malcolm Hussey alone with the body whilst police stayed away for 45 minutes till armed support could arrive first !

    (3) Best of luck to the blogger election candidates. National nuclear safety and security, local water supply and aquifer quality, safety of local planning developments. Bloggers taking responsibility where cllrs and local press have failed to engage. So let's hope the new candidates are given a chance.

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  10. Oddly enough the list of persons nominated that I copied from the councils various text documents and posted on the press release blog seems have updated itself, clever things computers.

    This is something I will have to play with as it suggests that there is a way to change what is published on blogs without password access, interesting!

    Confused, I should point out that when it comes to publishing Labour press releases, publish what they send me as I do with Conservative press releases. The trouble is that I have only had one Conservative group press release set to me so far, see http://thanetpress.blogspot.com/search/label/Conservative%20Group%20Press%20Release

    I suppose it is fair to say that with young children and a bookshop I don’t get much time to engage with local politics other than via the internet so I am most likely to vote for politicians who are likely to communicate with me via the internet, regardless of their political affiliations.

    Local government for me is much more about having someone who will respond and act if I have a local problem than political ideology.

    I would say that with the exception of Simon Moores when it comes to the internet the local Conservatives are complacent while the local Labour group are getting their act together.

    The Labour group now have their own blog and one of their posts has just appeared on the sidebar of this one I notice, as an example of what I mean.

    Ben k, the pictures are from a series of Ramsgate fund raising events and I think date from the 1930s, the only person I am able to identify is one of our local policemen PC Jordan, in the top hat.

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  11. Confused in ThanetApril 06, 2011 12:10 pm

    Cllr. Harrison, surely the Labour group made their decision on night flights before the full consultaion even started.

    As to Michael, I am not talking about your press releases site, where you do a worthwhile job, but the tone of your comments elsewhere, persistent attacks on Simon Moores and, even now, praising Labour whilst dismissing the Conservatives. You may think you have no time for politics but your preferences comes across clearly.

    Had a look at the Labour site which, as one might expect, is just political posturing. Bit like Hart's claim that he is going to reduce the number of councillors when it is not even within the remit of the council. Guess the ill informed might swallow it.

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  12. Currently there is nothing to consult on as the previous application was rejected outright and nothing has been heard from Infratil since.
    Coming out against night flights was a policy decision that was made some months ago as a result of a recommendation from the Labour members of the Airport Working Party AND BINDS ANY LABOUR GROUP IN THE NEW COUNCIL TO IT.
    So there will be no changing our minds.
    For information a full public consultation excercise is expensive and TDC cannot afford to consult on an intitial application and then each subsequent change to an application that may come about after each consultation takes place.

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  13. Goodness me Confused, I do seem to have been a naughty blogger, I will work on the tone of my comments, I am a bit confused about my persistent attacks on Simon, these have gone on since long before he becme a councillor, the last one being to do with Edgar Allan Poe’s poem The Raven Blackadder and the madness of George iii see http://birchington.blogspot.com/2011/04/ghost-in-machine.html  although Simon seems to give as good as he gets.

    As a local businessman I am obviously a Red under the bed and am likely to ask searching socialist questions, like why isn’t there any content in the local Conservative website?

    I notice one of Simon’s anonymous commentators in the same thread has accused Simon of being pro “hand over more power to the EU” because he had bought a domain that ends in .eu I have several that end in .com, as does Simon it therefore follows that we must both be communists, don’t you think?

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  14. Ignore them Michael. I really believe that this (along with possibly Margate Architecture) is the only major local blog not to have any particular political bias, & long may it continue!

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  15. Confused in ThanetApril 06, 2011 8:27 pm

    Fair comment, Michael, perhaps I read too much into your regular spats with Simon and tendency to be anti-TDC. I shall look for continued taking to task should the political flavour of the council change.

    As for Cllr. Harrison, I may at times be confused but I am no idiot. Labour took an opposite stance on night flights to that originally implied by you on your blog and we both know why. Ramsgate is a Labour heartland and the major opposition to night flights is in that location.

    Your activists happily scaremonger about aging 747 freighters thundering over in the small hours at regular intervals, when we both know it was just about the occassional out of hours flight.

    To hell with promting the area, jobs and economics for they all pale into insignificance against winning Labour votes.

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  16. Just for the record, Michael, the Labour blog your referred to is not open to debate it would seem. On Cllr. Poole's post on protecting green spaces, I made references to historic building on gardens and the green belt, but not published although in polite and moderate tone.

    Seems like it might be only for propoganda and self praise. Shall not bother again. At least our local MP replied to my letter.

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  17. Peter no worries I wouldn’t like it if people only agreed with me.

    Confused not sure about be anti TDC, suppose it depends on what you mean by TDC, a sort of collective idea perhaps, rather than the many officers and councillors I know and often agree with.

    14.41 Dave Green has no comment restrictions at all and only seems to put them on when things get out of hand, as do all the other bloggers, so I don’t think you can tar all of the Labour group with the same brush.

    We have been very lucky with MPs here in South Thanet Laura and Steve before her always responded promptly to me.

    I will give commenting on the new Labour blog a go when I get a chance.

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Comments, since I started writing this blog in 2007 the way the internet works has changed a lot, comments and dialogue here were once viable in an open and anonymous sense. Now if you comment here I will only allow the comment if it seems to make sense and be related to what the post is about. I link the majority of my posts to the main local Facebook groups and to my Facebook account, “Michael Child” I guess the main Ramsgate Facebook group is We Love Ramsgate. For the most part the comments and dialogue related to the posts here goes on there. As for the rest of it, well this blog handles images better than Facebook, which is why I don’t post directly to my Facebook account, although if I take a lot of photos I am so lazy that I paste them directly from my camera card to my bookshop website and put a link on this blog.