I try to sketch Neil Gaiman, Manston, the council, the leader's resignation, another fine mess we seem to be in ans some old local photos.

Well the leader's fallen on his wosisname, the fumes of cars and vapes drift into the bookshop and I wonder once again what on earth to write.

I honestly don't think Chris Wells did that badly as leader of our UKIP council, his big success is that we are now leaving the E.U. and his big failure was saving Manston Airport. Obviously neither of these things which our UKIP councillors stood on and got elected on are something the council could achieve. Although there are still people saying "the king is dead, long live the airport." 

In the previous post I asked who people would like for leader of the council, given that this person has to be chosen from the existing councillors, I didn't get a list of names despite linking the post to most of the popular local Facebook groups. 

Me well I think the only thing we have left to try with our council is the elected leader system, a sort of mini version of what London has with its mayor, not a ceremonial mayor eating big dinners and opening fetes but a political elected one running the council. 

Lets try some old local pictures next to relive the wosisname, well politics is a bit boring for some people. 

 I do love it when there is writing to decode on the back of a postcard form over 100 years ago, don't you?

 On the picture front I have gone back to painting pictures of authors from their photos on https://www.fantasticfiction.com/ I haven't tried to paint likenesses of faces from the screen photos for some time and there is a sense where this type of painting isn't like riding a bicycle - once you have done it, what? O yes you can. Anyway it's partly because of this that I choose authors, I figure they understand the pitfalls of creativity and will be more forgiving. 

Gaimanish? perhaps 

On the airport front I keep getting the old justify your comments comments on Facebook - as though I have the time to write the same stuff over and over. 

I wonder whether it would really be the answer - to kill off a lot of the local oaps that is, would certainly help with the housing crisis, what do you think? 

Here is one reply from today, from me:-

"I suppose the people who would be most likely to suffer mostly in terms of death and dementia would be oaps in the Thanet towns, so if you don’t fall into that bracket you haven’t got that much to worry about. The other category fairly hardly hit would be students in the two schools that are listed buildings and therefore almost impossible to insulate in terms of sound.  

This isn’t something that RiverOak/rsp disagree with, if you care to read their 2018 PEIR document it is pretty detailed on the subject.

In terms of documentary proof the IRAC EHO 2013 study involving 312,944 people in nine European countries revealed that there was no safe level of particulates and that for every increase of 10 μg/m3 in PM10, the lung cancer rate rose 22%. The smaller PM2.5 were particularly deadly, with a 36% increase in lung cancer per 10 μg/m3 as it can penetrate deeper into the lungs.

When it comes to airports the main study was done by the University of Southern California and showed that the particles from the fuel burn travelled further than was previously thought. I have added a picture from the study for your consideration.

I haven’t put lots of links to the evidence in as you have google and can look for yourself, from my point of view the research showing the connection between particulates and dementia is the most worrying and at the main sources are gas central heating, diesel and jet engines it does seem to fit with the time framework.

However like asbestos in schools and hospitals, I don’t believe this will result in a reduction in the amount of travel, but the research into alternative fuels for jet engines isn’t going well.

I think perhaps the issue with Manston is that in order to qualify for a DCO the freight hub has to be seen as a new project starting from an airport capacity of zero and while you can have something that you know is killing people and take action to mitigate this. Building a new airfreight facility upwind of a large concentration of people, particularly where the onshore breeze is likely to hold the pollution in the densely populated part around the coast seem a bit like building a new hospital or school out of asbestos.

For comparison the amount of fuel burnt unfiltered and without a catalytic converter on the ground at Manston for one freight movement would be significantly more that that burnt driving a family car three times around the equator."

This was to a sort of you're making it up comment, which was partly a quote from RSPs own documents which say something along the lines of- we will go off and see how many people and airfreight hub will kill and how many it will drive around the bend. 

On the bookshop front, here is the link to today's post Only restocking the local books that sold on Saturday I'm afraid, I know I should try harder, but you know how it is. 

And yes I am going to try to paint more authors, but this time only authors I have read a fair amount of, I can't paint them from life, but I sort of thought that the influence of having read their books would - well if not shine through, at least make the process of painting from a photo, which I don't like much, a bit more interesting all round. 

The whole business of painting people as opposed to buildings, I don't do natural history, trees, bunnies and stuff as it isn't my bag, give me architecture and people any day, I'm just not interested much in the other stuff.

I sent off the following email about the council:-

"From: michaelchild
To: sajid.javid.mp
Sent: Mon, 19 Feb 2018 16:34
Subject: Thanet District Council

Hi Sajid.

You may have noticed our council here in Thanet is in a state of leaderless disarray, the leader having stepped down and as the opportunity for a vote of no confidence didn't occur it points to a poisoned chalice situation. 

I wonder if you would consider changing Thanet to an elected leader constitution so us voters could have a go at electing a leader rather the councillors putting up a councillor into a no overall majority situation with a rejected local plan, in fact a horrible mess.

Perhaps it isn't in you gift, if not, any solutions gratefully accepted.

Best regards Michael
http://michaelsbookshop.blogspot.co.uk/ Pictures of books going out on the shelves in my bookshop

http://thanetonline.blogspot.co.uk/ My general pictures and writing 

Due to the nature of Clown Computing this email has been sent to you from some sort of fruit, it may make you more comfortable to know the following:- If it makes sense, it was sent by my PineApple Device, which has an ordinary keyboard. If it contains random wrong words, it was sent by my RaspBerry Device, which has predictive text and a small screen that I can’t always see properly. If it makes no sense whatsoever, it was sent by my new BaNana Device, with which I develop the persona of a chimpanzee and hit keys randomly hoping it will produce the works of Shakespeare, or at least something coherent."

The problem there is I don't think it is in his power to do this and I don't fancy some unelected civil servant - I'm sure they would do a very good job, save the airport get a good deal with the EU, but it's the principle of the thing - democracy being bad but considered to be the best there is.    

Where we go from here though I don't really know, I do know that our council has issues, one of the main ones being that a lot of good administratores don't want to work for it and officer morale is generally pretty low. I think the council has made a very poor job of the way they engage with local people online, especially social media, which they were very late in accepting had a place in the governing process.  

I am adding this link to the TDC response to the 2018 RSP consultation, lest I forget 

My own response focussed mostly on particulate air pollution as I think it is the most serious problem related to a large fuel burn at Manston 

Thanet still predominately UKIP, more Pav painting, a bit of a ramble.

Well the election results for the Kent Crime Commissioner are in and according to the various local news sources although the Conservative candidate was elected UKIP got the most votes in Thanet.

I think this can only be seen as a clear message that local people are broadly behind the current UKIP administration at TDC.

I also think this result has implications for various local campaigns and for the other political parties here in Thanet.

I think there is some sense in which UKIP is becoming identified with what used to be called the working classes and I have recently seen referred to as “the man in the street” not my sexism – see “the popular press”. 

On to paining the Pav aka Royal Victoria Pavilion aka old casino, Showbar – well the list goes on and I would like to nail it as is before it gets Spooned. So here another sketch of a bit of it from Candy’s aka Topps. It is becoming apparent to me that The Pav is a very difficult building to draw.

I certainly couldn’t have painted it from the beach at lunchtime today, perhaps from a boat.

Working in a bookshop over the years one gets used to some unusual questions, so being asked, for instance. “Where’s your Dick?” has now produced a sort of “Philip K” protective, however I look forward to being able to respond positively to. “Have you got – Galactic Pot-Healer?” For anyone who reads modern fantasy think Gravelingas and Donaldson, you know Lord Fouls Bane type of thingy:- heal my jar.

See http://michaelsbookshop.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/galactic-pot-healer-in-bookshop.html we really do have it.

Back on the elections front the business of the Conservatives spending more than they ought at the general election is also drifting about in the background, I get stuff about The Electoral Commission’s enquiry into this from Chris Wells. From time to time.

Personally I don’t see the Thanet South general election result being declared null and void anytime soon, here’s  link to one of the news articles http://www.kentnews.co.uk/news/watchdog_requests_extension_into_south_thanet_expenses_probe_1_4514607

The council have put up a wosisname about bathing water quality, see https://www.thanet.gov.uk/the-thanet-magazine/news-articles/2016/may/water-quality-2016/

The question that comes to mind here is. “Is it safe to swim in Walpole Bay?”

The council says. “With a number of excellent water samples taken at Walpole  in recent years, Thanet District Council is encouraging potential bathers at Walpole to view more up to date weekly water sample results which will be displayed at the beach and online this summer.”

The EA results, as far as I can see, the only results, up to date or not are:-

		Pollution risk 24h forecast	Abnormal situation	Annual compliance				Recent weekly samples
Name	Location			2012	2013	2014	2015	IE/EC	IE/EC	IE/EC	IE/EC
Walpole Bay, Margate	Thanet	unavailable		poor ns	poor ns	poor ns	poor	27 / 10 Sep 2nd 2015	18 / 10 Sep 9th 2015	18 / 18 Sep 14th 2015	189 / 109 Sep 18th 2015

A go at a Thanet election special 3

Trying to predict which way the parliamentary election will go here in Thanet South seems to have fallen apart with various opinion polls disagreeing I think there is still a fair chance of winding up with either a UKIP, Conservative or Labour MP.

National government wise it is still looking like a no overall majority result with the SNP factor suggesting that the next parliament will lean a bit more to the left.

As there is very little I can do about any of this I am still thinking in terms of who will make a reasonable constituency MP and first up is writing to your MP if your benefits stop or you get some huge tax bill.

Of course your family income may be over £73,100 which takes you out of the benefit system and you may pay no taxes… but even then you may have occasion to write to your MP.

So after the election if you write to your MP… Will they reply to you? Will one of their office staff reply to you? Will they have a reasonable understanding of what goes on here in Thanet? Will they get Thanet much in the of government grant funding?

Predicting how the Thanet District Council councillors election will go seems to be the same only different, I am making the assumption most people will put their crosses against the same parties in this one as they did on the general election. So we will probably wind up with about a third UKIP, about a third Conservative and about a third Labour councillors at TDC.

As a bit of a TDC watcher over the past few years I am a bit uncertain if this makes much difference, however I would say you are doing pretty well if you can even find candidates you have heard of on your TDC ballot paper.

Over the last few weeks I have asked UKIP, The Conservatives and Labour for a TDC manifesto, nothing was delivered and as it's getting a bit late I am coming to the conclusion that most of the prospective TDC councillors have absolutely no idea what they aim to do.   

Thanet Election Special 1 TDC

On 7^th May everyone in Thanet will get at least two ballot papers and some people will get three. The ones that everyone will get is the one to vote for an MP and the one to vote for either two or three Thanet District Councillors.

On previous election days people who were only expecting the one ballot paper phoned me up to ask me if I knew anything about the people standing in the district election.

So first you need to know which ward you live in, if you don’t know, click on this link http://democracy.thanet.gov.uk/mgFindMember.aspx?

Once you know which ward you live you can find a list of the candidates by clicking on this link https://thanet.gov.uk/your-services/elections-and-voting/district-election-2015/district-election-2015/

Trying to find out what the candidates and parties plan to do at TDC, if they get elected, is much more difficult, I have tried Tweeting the three main parties to see if they have a manifesto for the council election, this was yeasterday and none of them have replied yet.

Michael Child @michaelbookshop · 23h23 hours ago

@Bluethanet do you have a TDC Manifesto i.e. what Conservative councillors will do if elected

0 retweets0 favorites

Michael Child @michaelbookshop · 23h23 hours ago

@ThanetLab do you have a Labour TDC manifesto i.e. what Labour councillors aim to do

0 retweets0 favorites

Michael Child @michaelbookshop · 23h23 hours ago

@ukip_sththanet do you have a UKIP TDC manifesto i.e. what ukip councillors would do?

I bumped into one of the UKIP council candidates today and asked them if there was a UKIP TDC manifesto, their answer was that they would let me have one, when one gets written.

I didn’t have much time, but I did put the Manston cpo question to the UKIP candidate, what I said was. “While I supported saving Manston Airport as a regional passenger and freight airport that we could fly from, I am totally against the plans for the council to cpo the airport site for an airfreight only hub. Also that I thought being very close to the runway and directly on the flight approach route of an airfreight hub would be disastrous for tourism in Ramsgate.”

I have to admit that I was fairly surprised when the UKIP candidate agreed with me, so I may be voting UKIP after all.

Manston, the wind blows the other way with Roger’s Retraction, Ramsgate Society vanish from Harbour Street, the election candidates are published online and another ramble.

First here is today’s Manston press release from Sir Roger Gale:

PRESS RELEASE                                                                                     10 April, 2015.

Manston Airport – Search & Rescue Can Come Home -  Roger Gale

The way is clear for Search & Rescue to return to a re-opened Manston Airport.  That is the real significance of the announcement made yesterday by the minister of state for Aviation, John Hayes, during his visit to Thanet yesterday, says North Thanet`s Roger Gale.

“It is a pity that the real issue was buried under a synthetic and media-generated political “row” says Gale.

“The Minister responsible for the Coastguard Service has approved a one-year contract for Bristows to operate from Lydd while discussions relating to the future of Manston continue. He has made it plain that during that time there will be no capital investment in new SAR facilities, paving the way for a swift return to the preferred operating base, Manston, as soon as the airport is once again operational.  That speaks volumes. It demonstrates the faith that a significant and reputable company, Bristows, has in Manston and it states very clearly the importance that the Prime Minister and the Transport Department have placed upon Manston as a strategic national asset – because this move has the full backing of Number 10. This is part of a process that those of us who really support Manston have been engaged in for months and it has nothing to do with the General or council Elections at all. “

Commenting on the status of the RiverOak indemnity package Roger Gale has added:

“The Minister made it plain that, based upon the indications that he has received and the contents of a letter sent to him by the Chief Executive of RiverOak, Steve DeNardo, yesterday, he is confident in saying, with the full weight of Ministerial Office, that he is satisfied that there will be no risk to the Thanet Council taxpayers in proceeding to a Compulsory Purchase Order.

I have a copy of that letter in front of me and in it Mr. DeNardo says:

“We instructed our solicitors, Wragge, Lawrence Graham, to draft an indemnity agreement between Thanet District Council and RiverOak to cover all the Council`s risks. This was because we recognised that for both financial and political reasons it would be impossible for Thanet to carry any risk, however small and however remote. I can confirm that the indemnity agreement as drafted does meet those requirements.

RiverOak is a US registered company but prior to the signing of the indemnity agreement we will create a UK based and registered company, to be known as RiverOak Aviation, to go through the CPO process and take ownership of the airport if awarded. The same company will also hold all the appropriate CAA licenses.

In support of the CPO process RiverOak accept total responsibility for making the business case for the airport to the CPO inspector. In doing so we recognise that if we are unable to satisfy the Inspector as to the viability of our business plan we will lose the CPO and a significant amount of our own capital but it will have been done at no cost to Thanet.

To this end we are prepared to deposit up to £2,000,000 into a designated escrow account in the UK simultaneous upon the mutual signing of an indemnity agreement between RiverOak and Thanet District Council”

That is the basis upon which the Minister of State has felt it possible to say that there will be no risk to Thanet. I do not believe that the situation could now be clearer.

I have made it plain to the Leader of Thanet District Council that if she and her administration now proceed to instigate the CPO procedure then they will do so with the full and non-partisan backing that I have offered to date and to that end I am prepared to put my own political reputation on the line.

Further, the Leader of the Conservative Group on Thanet District Council, Bob Bayford, has indicated that on an equally non-partisan basis the Conservative Group will back the controlling Group and will share equal political responsibility for the decision.  I do not think that we can offer more and I hope and expect that reservations will be set to one side and that, on the basis of the Minister of State`s assurances, the process will now be allowed to immediately commence”.

With Manston Airport being 700 acres, the £2m  at less than £3,000 an acre sounds a bit on the low side.

Something like Dr Evil

Anyway the whole airport issue is moving into the realms of the surreal, so there really isn’t much more I can say.

I have just come back from Harbour Street where I went to check if The Ramsgate Society Shop wanted stock of any more local books, here is a picture of their shop today.   

Another bit of local news is that the names of the Thanet parliamentary candidates is now published online at http://thanet.gov.uk/your-services/elections-and-voting/parliamentary-election-2015/south-thanet/

The TDC list of councillor candidates has now gone up at http://thanet.gov.uk/your-services/elections-and-voting/district-election-2015/district-election-2015/

And the list of candidates for parish and town councillors at http://thanet.gov.uk/your-services/elections-and-voting/parish-elections-2015/contested-elections-of-parish-councillors/

The only thing of note is that neither Labour or the conservatives put up candidates for all of the TDC seats roughly 56 seats 52 Conservative and 53 Labour candidates.  

Sorry I did mean to get more of a ramble up but was too busy, I will have a go now and see what comes up.

On the bookshop front here in Ramsgate, I think this is the first week that all of the books going out on the selves in the bookshop got photographed and posted online, see http://michaelsbookshop.blogspot.co.uk/

We will do our best to keep this up as judging from the webstats people seem to like this.

We have now got a whole month of taking credit card payments in the shop using PayPal and a Paypal card reader, there haven’t been any snags, we have managed to take card paid telephone orders OK and foreigners cards that don’t have chips.

As you don’t have to pay rental for the card machine which we bought outright for £70 or any of the other fees, like the pone call, software charge, money laundering compliance charge and anything else the bank can think of, we seem to be saving around £25 per month.

Nearly all the in shop transactions are coming in at 2.75% and no other charges.

There is a rumour going round that Al Murray is going to open a shop in Ramsgate, I have been keeping an eye on the other political shops in the town, I am yet to see a customer in the UKIP shop, I have very occasionally seen one in the Labour shop, however the Reality Party Café “Evolution” seems to always have customers.

I guess there is a lesson to be learnt here     

Thanet EU election results.

I guess the diagrams say it all really 

MEPs elected in South East:

1. Nigel Farage (UKIP)

2. Daniel Hannan (Con)

3. Janice Atkinson (UKIP)

4. Nirj Deva (Con)

5. Anneliese Dodds (Lab)

6. Diane James (UKIP)

7. Richard Ashworth (Con)

8. Keith Taylor (Green)

9. Catherine Bearder (Lib Dem)

10. Ray Finch (UKIP)

The votes cast for the main parties in the South East were:

UKIP: 751,439

Conservatives: 723,571

Labour: 342,775

Liberal Democrats: 187,876

Green Party: 211,706

European elections and the Thanet factor.

I expect I am being naïve here but for the most part I would like to have a MEP who is Thanet based and would get our deprived area some of the huge pot on EC funding in terms of grants spent locally.  

The only candidate I can find who lives in Thanet is Conservative Julie Marson, so at the moment that is the way I am considering voting, is it a one horse election?

The snag here is in the numbers down the right hand side, I am pretty sure, but not certain that the number 7 next to her name means that with the pr system the other 6 Conservative candidates with lower numbers would have to get in first. 

Here is the list of candidates from the bbc website at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-27051068 so I assume that it is accurate.

South East - 10 MEPs
Party	Candidate/s	Party list order
An Independence From Europe	Laurence Stassen Joyce Nattrass Paul Godfrey Alan Sheath Ken Holtom Mark Henry Keith Vernon Michaelina Argy Seana Connolly Dorothy Sheath	1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
British National Party	John Robinson Gavin Miller Eric Elliott John Moore Alwyn Deacon Anthony Bamber Brenda Waterhouse Mark Jones Jack Renshaw Yvonne Deacon	1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Christian Peoples Alliance	Norman Burnett Suzanne Fernandes Flora Amar Rev Anthony Dorothy Mugara Kayode Shedowo Bridget Oyekan Nnenna St Luce Chikka Roja	1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Conservative	Dan Hannan Nirj Deva Richard Ashworth Marta Andreasen Richard Robinson Graham Knight Julie Marson George Jeffrey Rory Love Adrian Pepper	1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
English Democrats	Steve Uncles Julia Gasper Amanda Hopwood Simone Clark Steve Clegg Milly Uncles Mike Russell Mike Tibby Doreen Dye William James	1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Green Party	Keith Taylor Alexandra Phillips Derek Wall Jason Kitcat Miriam Kennet Beverly Golden Jonathan Essex Jonathan Kent Stuart Jeffrey Ray Cunningham	1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
The Harmony Party	Terry Leach Raymond Crick	1 2
Labour Party	Anneliese Dodds John Howarth Emily Westley James Swindlehurst Farah Nazeer James Watkins Maggie Hughes Christopher Clark Karen Landles Tracey Hill	1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Liberal Democrats	Catherine Bearder Anthony Hook Dinti Batstone Giles Goodall Ian Bearder Allison Moss Steven Sollitt Bruce Tennent John Vincent Alan Bullion	1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Liberty GB	Paul Weston Enza Ferreri Jack Buckby	1 2 3
The Peace Party	John Morris Jim Duggan Julie Roxburgh Jeff Bolam Geoff Pay David Brown Keith Scott Imdad Hussain Munim Choudhury Charles Wilkinson	1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
The Roman Party	Jean-Louis Pascual	1
Socialist Party of Great Britain	Dave Chesham Rob Cox Les Courtney Sean Deagan Max Hess Claudia Hogg-Blake Danny Lambert Andy Matthews Howard Pilott Mike Young	1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
UKIP	Nigel Farage Janice Atkinson Diane James Ray Finch Donna Edmunds Patricia Culligan Nigel Jones Alan Stevens Simon Strutt Barry Cooper	1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
YOURvoice	Julian James Rachel Ling Fulvia James	1 2 3

I will add to this post if I have any more ideas and would appreciate any comment suggesting ways that it could be better to vote, for people living in Thanet.