Sunday ramble and another old map of Ramsgate.

Click on the map above to enlarge it then click on it again to enlarge it even more.

I suppose the results of the general election are fairly high in most people’s minds at the moment, so a few thoughts on that first.

I have been an advocate of electoral reform for some time, although what shape that reform should take is something I am not certain about.

Had the election taken place with proportional representation and people voted roughly the same way, we would now be being governed by a Labour, Lib Dem coalition, or at least cooperation, of some sort I would imagine.

Is that the will of the people? Well I don’t know the answer to that one.

It does look as though, at the moment, if the Lib Dems get into bed with either of the two major parties, it will be to make a short term government, members of which are likely to have made themselves unpopular, by the time we get another election, probably in less than a years time.

Certainly at the moment it does look as though, with Europe coming unstitched economically, we are in for interesting times.

I terms of local issues, I have already forewarned our new incumbent, here it Thanet South, that I will be sending her a multitude of problems and have had a positive response.

Pleasurama is still not going anywhere much, I am pretty sure that pile boring should be well underway at the moment as I was assured by TDC planning on the 13th of November last year, that this would start early this year.

Perhaps the developer is waiting like me, for some sort of written report on condition of the cliff façade from TDC, perhaps they haven’t yet had one done and I suppose they would require some sort of reassurance that it won’t collapse on them before they start work.

My complaint about this to the local government ombudsman is coming to fruition and one aspect of this surprised me; the following is a quote from their latest letter to me.

“The Local Government Act 1974 says that the Ombudsman shall not investigate a complaint that concerns something that affects all or most of the inhabitants of the area of the Council involved. It seems to me that the situation you describe affects most Ramsgate residents to some degree.”

As when I complained about the flood risk implications, they acted on this and this produced the EA letter at http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/ea/ it raises some interesting thoughts, not the least of which, is did they act outside of the act last time?

I am putting together information about Ramsgate gasworks at http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/gas/ this is in the early stages and any help on this one would be appreciated. I have just received the land registry documents for the site and have discovered that it is still owned by two different gas companies.

That’s enough about public safety issues here for one day, so on to other things.

I am hopeful that the council will be granting security of tenure for the maritime museum, before the Operation Dynamo commemorations, so that the museum will be able to be open for them and The Sundowner take part. The promise from the council to grant a 25 year lease, in the week before lasts Isle of Thanet Gazette was encouraging, but I haven’t heard any more yet.

Update I have just noticed a sign on the maritime museum saying that it and the steam tug Cervia will be open for the two days of the Operation Dynamo commemorations.

I have had a positive response from the council that the café on the end of Ramsgate’s East Pier will soon be back on the market and hopefully open again.

I may ramble on some more, depending on how the day pans out.

The General Election and Thanet South Constituency Video of the two Main Candidates reactions to the result.

First my congratulations to Laura Sandys and commiserations to Steve Ladyman and the other candidates who lost.

The local implications here in Thanet South would suggest that we are likely to have a Conservative MP for some time to come, a majority of 7,617 is not something that would be easily overturned.

I can honestly say that in my dealings with Laura I have found her to be responsive and helpful and I am hoping that as a Conservative MP living in Ramsgate she will be influential in furthering Ramsgate’s case at all levels of government.






Many thanks to Your Thanet for the videos.

Here's the results footage, and speeches, from last nights count for Thanet South



Here's the results footage, and speeches, from last night’s count for Thanet North

Betting on the general election in South Thanet and some pictures of Ramsgate with some comments on them.

One of the aspects of press coverage about the election that interested me this week was the Daily Mirror’s guide to tactical voting, see http://videos.icnetwork.co.uk/m4/Tactical%20voting%20guide.pdf with so many people talking not so much about who the want to win the election, as who they don’t, I was surprised that Thanet south didn’t figure in this guide.

The betting odds see http://sports.williamhill.com/bet/EN/betting/g/136946/Constituency-Seat-Winner.html have the Conservatives as odds on favourites.

Talking to local people this doesn’t seem to be the case so at 7/1 a bet on Steve Ladyman may be quite a good price, or perhaps a flutter on the Lib Dems at 100/1.

Once again I am reminding people of the BBC poll indicator (click on the poll and it shows the result) at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8609989.stm as I look at it every day it’s handy to have the link near the top of the blog.

On to today’s pictures of Ramsgate see http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/510/id4.htm AMCO Express another small supermarket is to open in Queen Street, something I find interesting, one wonders if Tesco were wise to pull out when they did. The centre of the town was too busy to take photographs today.

The council seem to have got rid of all of the large unnecessary and unsightly road signs in the harbour area apart from one, I wonder if they just missed it.

The town council still haven’t appeared in The Custom House.

The roof drainage pipe is still being laid from the Pleasurama site to the harbour, I gather they keep encountering problems.

Where the trees were planted on Harbour Parade has been paved over, so presumably there will be no more trees going there.

Work still hasn’t started on the Pleasurama development, despite assurances from the council that it would start in January.

The Maritime Museum is still closed, let’s hope there is some progress on this before the Operation Dynamo commemorations and it would be a great shame if it wasn’t open then.

Thanet south general election candidate starts blog.

Peter Bucklitsch the Liberal Democrat candidate has started a blog see http://petersouththanet-libdem2010.blogspot.com/ there is no comment moderation set, although it has got irritating word verification.

He had also pointed me to his website http://souththanet-libdems.org.uk/ it is all a bit in an early days state as the two sites don’t seem to be linked, but does seem to be a movement by a local candidate to engage in open debate on the internet.

Incidentally blogger seems to be playing up a bit this morning with comments taking a while to appear, delete and feed, so don’t be surprised if your comments don’t appear immediately.

The General Election in Thanet South on the internet and other Sunday ramblings.

The way the local politicians here are handling internet use in what is likely to be a closely fought seat is something that I find most interesting.

Putting up their press releases on http://thanetpress.blogspot.com/ is a continual reminder to me, today I noticed that Steve Ladyman is once again ahead of the game in that he has hosted his first video on youtube

I have embedded it below.




In the past he has just put his videos up on his own website http://www.stephenladyman.info/ this has one advantage from a politicians point of view, which is that no one can tell how many people have watched it, a bit cynical of me perhaps, but it wouldn’t look good for any politician if hardly anyone watched it as was the case with The Turner Contemporary’s videos.

Conversely this has the great disadvantage that people can’t embed the video in other websites, so far fewer people are likely to watch the videos.

On the whole Steve’s website is a pretty slick affair IT wise the only thing that I have noticed technically wrong with it, is that not all of his press releases feed properly.

Frankly the only big blunder on it is the link that says, “we want to hear from you” off you go to comment and then you find you can only do so if you are a member of The Labour Party, bit tough if you are just one of his constituents, and PR wise not so good.

Laura Sandys the Conservative Party candidates website is not so good http://www.voteforlaura.org.uk/ as it often has technical problems, at the moment there is a lot of HTML visible on the home page.

The video embedded there dates from February (Labours Death Tax) and not even Members of the Conservative Party can comment there.

Peter Bucklitsch The Liberal Democrat candidate’s only web presence seems to be 6 paragraphs on the party’s site http://www.libdems.org.uk/parliamentary_candidates_detail.aspx?name=Peter_Bucklitsch&pPK=5f985397-2dd8-44d7-aec8-9e5189577fb6 since is says that he works in computing, it rather suggests that he is only contesting the seat, in word and is neither trying to win it or expecting to get very far.

As for Trevor Shonk the UKIP candidates web presence at http://www.ukipthanet.co.uk/ from an internet point of view, it as though he is actively trying to lose. It’s worth having a look at just to see how not to do it, is closest to one of those blogs that are coverd with advertising and where only one comment has been made since 2008. if it tells you anything about their candidate I couldn’t find it.

The BBC website has a page where you can click on the latest polls and see what the result of the election would be if people voted that way see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8609989.stm

Apart from all of the poles for ages predicting a hung parliament, something that seems increasingly more likely, it highlights how ridiculous our current, first past the post, electoral system is.

What the technical explanations are I haven’t really looked into, but very roughly if Labour gets about 28% of the vote they just get the most seats, if the Conservatives get about 30% of the vote they just get the most seats and if the Lib Dems get 40% of the vote they just get the most seats.

From where I am sitting the system looks to have been rigged for benefit the main parties, if I behaved like this in business the trading standards people would be down on me like a ton of bricks.

There are several humorous election videos on the internet, below is an example.




The picture is of the tram accident is when a tram jumped the rails on Madeira Walk in 1905. I believe the building in the background with the advertisements on it is probably the old Queens Head one of the last of the buildings to be demolished on Harbour Parade to make way for the Customs House new Kings Head etc.

As I have said before I am still undecided about which way I will vote, here in Thanet South the only two candidates who appear to have a chance of getting elected are Steve and Laura and both of them have always responded courteously and helpfully to me.

I believe either would make a reasonably good MP from my point of view as constituent.

This rather leaves the decision a national one and because of the way the election is being fought, increasingly a battle between the leaders.

Previously the main two have been telling us that if the other party gets elected economic disaster will ensue, I have to say that I am inclined to believe both of them on this point.

Now they are saying that a hung parliament will result in economic disaster and once again I am inclined to believe them.

So it really is about a choice between the lesser of three evils from my point of view, I was talking to a someone who has been involved in politics much more deeply than I ever have the other day and he said that he intended to spoil his ballot paper.

I still take the stance that I will vote as I see it as my civic duty, however in a way the third option now of course is that voting Lib Dem even in a seat where they don’t stand a chance of the candidate getting elected, could help to cause a situation where they get the highest percentage of the vote, but don’t get elected.

I wonder if this could cause a situation where Nick Clegg became leader of a coalition, it is as they say an interesting point, I am certainly not that keen on having a hung parliament where the leader expects this to result in economic ruin.

If all went well at TDCIT the webcast of last Thursday’s council meeting should be available tomorrow, it’s always good to see our democracy in action.

I may well ramble on as the day progresses.

Thanet General Election in Thanet internet update.

With the general election looming I thought I would check our candidates web presence. If anyone spots anything I missed please let me know.

With the internet supposedly a major factor in this election some of the candidates failure to grapple with it at all is pretty incredible.

Thanet North

Roger Gale Conservative, last MP.

Website http://www.rogergale.com/

Ability to comment; none.

Michael Britton Labour

Website; none.

Presence on party site; none.

Laura Murphy, Liberal Democrat

Website; none.

Presence on party site http://www.libdems.org.uk/people_detail.aspx?name=Laura_Murphy&pPK=849cebcc-6334-431d-b9a7-65c8a0bff0a0

Rosamund Parker UKIP

Website but without any content about candidate; http://www.rosamundparker.co.uk/

Ability to comment http://www.rosamundparker.co.uk/?page_id=2

Jim Dent English Democrats

Website; none.

Presence on party site; none.

Thanet South

Stephen Ladyman Labour, last MP

Website http://www.stephenladyman.info/

Ability to comment http://www.stephenladyman.info/ft_have_your_say_f10d7a59-ba0e-2054-e1a5-a819cdee611a (Only members of The Labour Party can comment here, so no one has for about a year.)

Facebook http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=390010120438

Laura Sandys Conservative

Website http://www.voteforlaura.org.uk/

Ability to comment; none.

Tim Garbutt Independent (I am not sure he is a registered candidate yet)

Website and ability to comment http://lovekentloveramsgate.blogspot.com/

Trevor Shonk UKIP

Website; none.

Presence on party site; none.

Peter Bucklitsch Liberal Democrat

Website; none.

Presence on party site http://www.libdems.org.uk/parliamentary_candidates_detail.aspx?name=Peter_Bucklitsch&pPK=5f985397-2dd8-44d7-aec8-9e5189577fb6

The polls are swinging about a bit, but have been predicting a hung parliament for some time see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8609989.stm



Oh I also meant to mention that both Laura and Steve have feeds on their sites and both have got them slightly wrongly organised so only some of their new information actually feeds.

As a floating voter my estimation of the different parties goes up and down like a yoyo, the following from today is an example not a final judgment.

Labour up as Brown admits mistake.

Conservatives down as I am pretty sure they would have been leaning on Labour at the time for more deregulation of the banks, not less, so a silly one to lay into Brown about.

Lib Dems down for stupid mistake over tax threshold in manifesto.

North and South Thanet constituency boundary changes

The map above shows the constituency boundaries at the last general election.
The map above shows the new constituency boundaries that will be used for the forthcoming general election.

Sorry the maps are a bit fuzzy they were the best I could find, if anyone comes across anything clearer could they send them to me and I will replace these ones.

I know this is a bit of an odd post, but as one of the youf of today asked me what the boundary changes were and I realised that I didn’t know I thought others could be in the same boat.

A major point with these boundary changes is that had they happened before the last general election, and had people voted the same way as they did then, both Thanet constituencies would have returned Conservatives.

As far as thoughts on the general election go having heard most of the major players warning us that if their opposition is elected we are in for an economic disaster I have to say this is an occasion where I find myself beginning to believe politicians.

None of them really seem to have much to say about what worries so many of us which is that our towns are becoming much more unpleasant to live in, from dangerous dogs to groups of rowdy drunks.

At the moment all of the latest polls are predicting a Conservative majority over Labour but none are predicting an outright majority see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8609989.stm

Here is the link to this mornings pictures of Ramsgate http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/410/id10.htm