Ask if you need help is what the blue sign said. This sign is located at the local waste disposal site (tip to you and I). It says to me that if you are need of help it is available but as a friend of mine discovered these things can not be taken for granted.

A friend of the family (let us call him John to protect him) often uses a stick to walk having the full use of his left arm and right leg following a road accident in which he was almost killed. John, being a decent sort of person, went along with an elderly gentleman to take some old carpets to be disposed of. The gentleman in question is less able due to the passage of time than John, needing a stick to even walk and then is limited as to how far he can go.

These two disabled guys were in a van that was just slightly too tall to fit under the barrier. John saw the blue sign and asked for help.

I would not call what happened help.

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» Continue Reading: At the tip: Ask if you need help?

Changes in the law could mean that Thanet has a Mayor before the end of 2009. Claiming The state should be a platform under people’s feet, not a weight holding them down a government White Paper (p.13 "Communities in Control: Real People, Real Power" (9th July 2008)) from the Secretary of State for Communities (Hazel Blears MP) calls for a number of changes including incentives for voting and consultation on ways to make it easier to have a directly elected mayor.

So does this mean that a directly elected mayor is likely within the next year?

It has already been suggested and debated that Thanet could be better off with an elected mayor rather than a cabinet "leader". The government position on the subject of elected mayors is that they are the "way forward" and despite Thanet District Council being run by the "other party" they may soon face a change. The force of this change comes from the fact that the government is very keen to see more people vote and with only about 30% of Thanet's population currently voting there are far more unknown votes around here than "known".

In short the swing vote could become the majority.

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» Continue Reading: Could Thanet have a directly elected mayor within a year?

I'm not really one for "clubbing" and so might not have noticed that Rainy's (Ramsgate) and DV8 (Margate) had closed but for the fact that I happened to glance at a copy of the Adscene.

The blame for these closures is being placed on the Credit Crunch but also on changes in smoking laws and late licenses. Admittedly these are clubs that catered to a tighter niche than one of Frank's usual venues but is this the sign of a bigger "nothing to do" that a crashing economy brings?

I'm opening the floor to all comers as I invite you to speculate on the broader impact of such events on our lives over the next few years.

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» Continue Reading: Night Clubs Closing - Have Your Say

This post is in largely in answer to Rick's comment's yesterday and the day before (18:08:47 and 07:38:02) on the post Will the poor pay for Thanet budget deficit? It is not an attack but a considered answer to some held-to-be-true myths about poverty in Thanet. Some of this conversation might have taken place on rick's blog had he enabled OpenID authentication.

Background: The article "Will the poor pay for Thanet budget deficit?" addresses some facts released by Cllr David Green and adds information privately reported to me. The conclusion is that the Council Tax Benefit section may be working to hard to reduce costs by removing claimants by hook or by crook. In his first comment (18:08:47) Rick brings up the common myth that the poor are actually all cheats and goes on to expose us to the even more common myth that the poor are poor through their own fault. You may wish to read these first.

Reply: Rick, the question at hand is not how well or badly the private sector spends public money nor how deserving they are of that money. I have no doubt your own investigations have been as colorful as they have been shocking to you and I appreciate that you are driven by your own passion for justice.

That is a most admirable thing and something that the world may even need more of. However we are looking at the need of those the country as a whole chooses to demonise rather than address. We that have jobs may feel bad that there are those that do not work for their money. Mrs Gates does not work for her money - her husband Bill Gates is, through a series or luck breaks, one of the richest men in the world but, unless we are quite the "hard core" communist, we do not begrudge Mr and Mrs Gates their wealth.

We do not begrudge them because we would like to be like that but we are willing to accept blindly whatever tosh is spouted about those worse off than ourselves because we feel they should be like us.

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» Continue Reading: Myths of Thanet's Poverty

I have said before that the way the council currently treats benefit claiments indicates a hole in the budget and now Labour Party blogger David Green has as good as said so.

According to the national average 21% of children in the UK are from families with out of work benefits. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation (link) lists 12 wards where the percentage of children on benefits is at least twice the national average and Thanet figures twice on that list! Just under half of all children in parts of Thanet are likewise considered poor. 42.4% of kids in Newington and 42.1% of kids in Dane Valley suffer hardship.

The BBC (from whence come these figures) quotes Steve Ladyman being very upbeat about the prospects of lifting all Children out of poverty. I do not share his optimism and I will try to show you what I am so worried about.

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» Continue Reading: Will the poor pay for Thanet budget deficit?

Yesterday my sister (previous mentioned here), my daughter and I popped along to he Turner Contemporary Project Space to look at the art there. My sister needed to take in a contemporary exhibit in order to write an essay for here art cause and I fancied getting out a bit more (I'm well known for being a bit shy and withdrawn in real life). The art was good the exit was not.

Shortly before we left a small gang of youths entered and were clearly both interested and baffled by the exhibit and the tiny staff failed to engage with the boys in a way that opened the art up to them and they left. My little girl (4 years old), my sister and me were treated to a peppering of stones by the lads who clearly recognised us from seeing us in the exhibit.

On reflection this was simply a reaction to cover the embarrassment of a cultural blockage that divides so many from the world of art. Were it not for some early and fanciful A level choices in my life I too might have found this exhibit incomprehensible. This review, therefore, is written in the hope that it will open things up for those of us in Thanet that might not otherwise understand or be able to get something out of contemporary art.

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» Continue Reading: On the Threshold of a Dream