Wednesday 27 August 2014

The Thanet South Nigel Farage Equation.


Personally I am very pleased that Nigel Farage has been selected to stand in Thanet South, frankly it’s time that the political spotlight was shone on us and some of the local issues here came to the attention of the politicians and the media.

My main area of interest and understanding in this constituency is Ramsgate and as far as I can see looking a previous election results it is in Ramsgate where the political swing mostly occurs that makes Thanet South into a winnable marginal.

I will be kicking off by writing to the main candidates asking for their views on the main local issues, asking them what they see as being solutions and whether they feel that they are in a position to implement or influence the implementation of their solutions.

The issues I have thought of are:

Manston Airport and the complex balance between any means of saving the airport, noise pollution to Ramsgate particularly with respect to night flights and particulate air pollution caused by an airfreight hub in upwind parts of Thanet South.  

Port Ramsgate, its possible short, medium and long term uses.

Pleasurama and if there is any way to speed this problem to resolution and of course what they see as a viable future use for the site.

The Pavillion and the associated problems related to turning it into the largest pub in Europe or even if the feel that there could actually be some grant funding to turn this publicly owned grade 2 listed building into a public venue of leisure attraction.    

Ramsgate being the main non supermarket food shopping centre and the council trying to reduce this by buying up shops in fully let and occupied shopping parades in the town with the intention of turning them into social housing.

As with any open letter for publication here, I will put some thought into it before writing it and any suggestions from readers would be appreciated.

I think the main issue is really one of focus, with most of the focus at all levels of government being directed on Thanet North and particularly Margate, with KCC focused on Turner Contemporary and TDC focused on Dreamland.

Obviously UKIP and the Conservatives have considerable influence at KCC and Labour and the Conservatives having considerable influence at TDC but all of them wanting to win the Thanet South seat I think we may be in with a chance of directing some of the focus on Ramsgate.
    

28 comments:

  1. I would also like to add Broadstairs onto that list. It does need a spit and polish occasionally. But I will concede that - with a committed effort - Ramsgate Royal Seafront could - once again - blossom.No more neglect. Time to redevelop.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Duncan what I can offer here is a fairly high profile blog and some knowledge of Ramsgate issues where some level of government has messed up, mostly publicly owned sites.

      When it comes to the other parts of Thanet South I don’t have much in depth understanding, so while I can send an open letter for publication here which I would expect will get some responses, I need help making a case for the other parts of the constituency.

      Delete
    2. Michael - I admire and 10000% agree with your stance (I thought I put another response to this up?)

      We can get Ramsgate some national attention that it deserves if we work with the media. And if the right person pays attention, the area could boom. Ignore the politics and get peoples attention on the area that needs the most help!

      Delete
    3. With all due respect to the people of Ramsgate, and a lot needs doing there, I think it is Thanet that needs wider publicity. Many have heard of Margate, Broadstairs, Ramsgate etc. but Thanet is an unknown, at least till now. A piece in the Telegraph today, and UKIP party leader throwing his hat into the ring will help with the publicity, but the constituency is Thanet South/South Thanet, not Ramsgate.

      Delete
  2. Think this will be a fight between UKIP and Labour with the Conservatives pushed into third. Whatever, it will certainly be quite high profile with the Green candidate basking in the reflected glory of so much media attention. Mind you, I still think Laura Sandys would have won it had she stood again, but her retirement from politics certainly opens up the seat to others.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ian Driver will be wetting himself with excitement more TV appearances

      Delete
  3. After today's jump ship in Essex Labour is offering odds on which Conservative Councillors will jump ship to UKIP.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. http://www.buzzfeed.com/jimwaterson/ukips-clacton-candidate-says-he-wont-stand-down-for-douglas interesting development

      Delete
    2. I guess the South Thanet Conservatives feel fairly safe as their candidate has already been UKIP and so is unlikely to jump back. The literary term (Garp) is pre-disastered, with Garp arguably America’s greatest feminist novel ironically written by a man, the party trick is to name three famous American feminist novelists that most people would have heard of.

      Seriously though I would think when it comes to finding candidates for TDC councillors next year, with UKIP and the Conservatives essentially using the same group of people I do wonder if there will be enough reasonable candidates to go round.

      Reasonable candidates I take to mean those who, don’t get don’t get removed as candidates before the election (hoes and brasses), don’t make some racist, sexist homophobic or other ist comment (ting tong), don’t get sent to prison (printing money, getting council property on the cheap, sword of truth)

      Apologies for the somewhat flippant comment, it’s mi day orf. Just love the “If Mr Carswell wants to join us then he can get in the queue and hand out leaflets with the rest of us.” Barry.

      Delete
  4. The trick for Thanet's Conservative councillors is for half of them to defect to UKIP now and then stand in next years local elections as UKIP. Then shortly after the elections they can defect back and the Conservatives may even then be the majority party.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This is hardly unique to the right of course. I suspect people of all parties locally are wondering when Ian Driver and John Worrow jump ship... again!

      Delete
  5. How will south Thanet look when we have the only UKIP MP in the country

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Better imo.

      Delete
    2. Better await the result of the Clacton bye election first, but it could be UKIP v UKIP because the current UKIP PCC, at least he thought he was, is not happy with being usurped by an ex Tory.

      Delete
    3. For the good of the party Nigel has already promised the sitting MP the candidacy and no doubt the out going one a good prospective seat elsewhere,. thats politics.

      Delete
  6. With all the shenaigans going on in politics we must not forget the failure of our local officers in dealing with and making worse many of the problems we face in Ramsgate today. The diverting of monies to improve Margit and the expense of Ramsgate to the blighting of the seafront by their failure to complete "due diligence" of the alleged developers. The mealy mouthed response to the acceptance of £1M from said developers without performing the basic checks on the source of the money received . Lest we forget our current (off sick) Chief Executive was the Finance officer that allowed this issue to happen.
    It may be that the silver lining is the money could be used to get the site sorted when the Developers get their marching orders however long that takes.

    ReplyDelete
  7. If Nigel Farage becomes the only UKIP MP in the country, then he HAS to be seen to making South Thanet (not just Ramsgate) better! There'll be no other place in the country scrutinised so closely. On the other hand, if Tory or Labour win then we'll just get more of the same old thing. Think about it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Barry the only guarantee in life is that we're all going to die someday, the rest is pure chance.

      Delete
  8. Barry the matter of the pleasurerama site is insignificant on the scale of things when Ramsgate is faced with the potential doom of being ruined by the airport city. Just think of how many developments would be cancelled, how many investors would never consider investing, but the main point would be, the seafront is seen by many to be a place of attraction for visitors if TDC decide to go ahead with this idea of a airport city then that would be the end of any tourism thus leaving the seafront abandoned it would never see the sort of money it would take to regenerate it. The only reason for TDC and private investors to put any money into Ramsgate seafront would be to get more out

    12:50
    I have thought about it. UKIP do have one good point, that is some control over immigration is necessary if only to know who lives in the country. England has been made great over the last 300 years and for all that time it has had an open door policy. The right would have you believe its the fault of poor and immigrants, this is not the case. Its the same old fight between the rich wanting it all their own way and the poor fighting for a half decent wage. PS, look at wages in the last 5 years and you don't think that's right enough???????

    ReplyDelete
  9. Then insist every candidate agrees to support a Living minimum Wage and no salary differentials greater than 10x and limit CEO salaries and bonuses to say no more than £500k. While capping Wonga interest would help too. But the poor would rather blame immigrants...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And then stand by for the biggest brain drain in history and watch the UK disappear into economic obscurity. Yes, great idea Anon 5:42. What do you propose for encores?

      Delete
    2. How confusing does that apply to the self-employed?

      Delete
    3. 8;14 Bankers say if they don't pay their employees a huge amount then they will go elsewhere but if you look at their jobs a lot of it is done with a computer program, how many people do you see on the stock exchange floor? Also many people who are offered jobs abroad don't take them as family and friends are here.
      I'm not saying people don't deserve some higher wages but what I am saying is people with a huge amount should pay a little more and take a little less

      Delete
    4. When the economy is booming investment bankers get obscene bonuses. But you would struggle not to make massive amounts of money, if you have billions to gamble and shares are rising. The acid test comes when shares are falling. Then, the investment bankers just large bonuses. Time was, when a door-to-door brush salesman was just that. Now, he appears on the Apprentice and is looking for a salary in excess of 100K. Time was when a singer had to spend years touring the clubs and pubs to learn their craft and build up a following. Now they turn up on the X-Factor and expect a record deal in weeks. The values of society have become corrupted, The professions which care for, educate and protect people are poorly paid and poorly regarded. The most admired people are in "business" or are singing and dancing on the X-factor.

      Delete
    5. One local estate agent is looking forward to the spotlight falling on Ramsgate and urges people to make the most of this opportunity to get any good news into the national press

      Delete
  10. Cabinet is due to debate the next stage in their dealings with SFP on the 11th September. The options paper will be available 7 days before and the Friends of Ramsgate Seafront are organising a public meeting for Friday the 5th. Time and venue to be sorted

    ReplyDelete

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.