Jane Wenham-Jones's Blog, page 10

Plain Jane 100415: Plain Jane meets the Tories and Manston Airport Independent Party

I interview the Tory hopefuls by adopting police tactics. Sir Roger Gale has been in politics for half a century and the MP for Thanet North for 32 years. He is unlikely to be fazed by anything I can throw at him, and I don’t want newbie Craig Mackinlay ��� candidate for Thanet South ��� cribbing the answers. So I separate to interrogate and roll up early to Gale Towers ��� a charming farmhouse-style affair with open fireplaces and assorted dogs ��� where I am made tea by the smiley, hospitable Suzy. Roger Gale is a BOGOF candidate (Buy one get one free) ��� vote for him and his energetic wife is thrown in. He encourages Suzy to join us for the interview. She interjects to correct him on the exact number of votes that held a marginal seat in 1982 and, amusingly, flicks through a magazine during a particularly long anecdote. But she works alongside Roger on the day-to-day. “Suzy and I spend huge amounts of time just dealing with constituency stuff that you never hear about or read about,” Roger tells me. “It’s all private and that’s how it should be. It’s like being a doctor.” It also sounds like a lot of hard work. “Did she secretly wish he’d retired instead of standing again? “Absolutely not,” Suzy retorts. “If anything, I was the one shovelling him along. . .” I follow on with the obvious. But is it time, as other candidates have suggested, after all these decades, for a change in North Thanet? Sir Rog is characteristically unruffled. “It is the obvious chant for anyone who isn’t a member of parliament to say we need a change. . . ” And when I quote his words at a recent hustings, he is unapologetic. “I’m not going to say I’m suddenly going to be someone different, someone new and exciting. Of course they are going to get ‘more of the same’ because I’ve done the job ��� and am going to do the job ��� in the way that I believe that it needs to be done.” So what does need to happen to Thanet in the next five years? “Obviously Manston is a key issue. People say ‘he’s only interested in Manston because of the election’. No, I’ve been promoting Manston for more than 20 years.” As a Manston supporter myself, I know this to be true and we fall into a long discussion about the various options, upon which Roger is more realistic than I am. I just want to have a plane to jump on. “Passengers!” I cry. Roger attempts to manage my expectations. “In order to get the bedrock right, you’ve got to have the cornerstones. The cornerstone would be freight. Once you’ve got the business up and running on a sound financial footing then yes, RiverOak wants passengers, I want passengers. “What about night flights?” I ask wearily, as I feel I must. “We don’t need night flights.” Manston is “the most important thing bar none” but Roger is also enthusiastic about other projects. He speaks warmly about the regeneration that is going on in Margate, believes now in the new Dreamland project although would like to see more of it undercover: “Boys need boys’ toys to play with so you want the dodgems undercover so that when they’ve done their conferencing, they can thrash into each other”, and has ideas for a new hotel, a lifeboat centre and an ambitious overhaul of the Winter Gardens complete with “indoor beach”. Craig has pitched up by now, with party supporter Chris Brannigan, and as we prepare to swap seats, I finish on the possible threat from Ukip. Nationally, Roger says, he fears them splitting the Tory vote and letting “the Milliband government in through the back door”, but locally feels Nigel Farage may be in for “an unpleasant shock”. One thing is clear: “I don’t want to be re-elected with the support of anyone who thinks Ukip because I see 1930s Europe,” he says. “I hear the march of boots and I don’t like it.” He and Suzy disappear, and with those words still hanging in the air, I turn a beady eye on Craig, who was a founding Ukip member. “Nice to see you,” he says. “I am the uncharismatic Craig Mackinlay.” He is referring to a previous Gazette piece in which I summed up the various contenders for South Thanet. “The word I used was ‘unappealing’, I tell him. He laughs loudly and warily and I quiz him on his political past. “It was a very different Ukip in those days,” he counters. “Tell me,” I say. Adding, when he protests that he doesn’t want to “spend the whole interview talking about Ukip”, that otherwise people will see him and Farage as one and the same. This galvanises Mr Mackinlay into a full and detailed explanation, which, in fairness to himself, he should probably repeat more often. Ukip was founded in 1991 in a pub in Covent Garden and Craig was one of six members, his motivation being soaring interest rates ��� he is a chartered accountant by trade ��� the effects of the exchange rate mechanism and the cost of the EU. “It had an academic base to it.” Immigration “wasn’t even on the agenda.” He became leader in the late 90s but by 2005 was “getting towards the end of my tether”. Ukip was starting to attract “some odd characters” and two of the MEPs were arrested for fraud. Meanwhile, the Conservatives were talking about the EU again. “It was time to come home. I never changed. I stayed in exactly the same spot in my view.” So what is the Mackinlay take on immigration? He welcomes the new rules on benefits but has no objection to anyone coming here to work. His wife is Hungarian and her doctor brother is with the NHS. I thus unpin him from the floor and we take respite in the flapjacks Suzy has left us (excellent) before moving on. If elected, what will Craig do for Thanet? His years as both a councillor and a magistrate, as well as on the Kent Police Authority (he was up against Ann Barnes as for the position of Police Commissioner), he says, “gives you an insight into the real world, the gritty end. . . “Forget the politics, I know what this world is all about.” That’s as maybe, but I suggest that it must be daunting to follow Laura Sandys, of whom everyone speaks so highly. He does too. “She has been a wonder worker that crosses the political divide and I see myself exactly the same.” Even though he is more right-wing? “I think that people who do the right thing should be supported. The Conservatives are the right party to create a great economy and without a great economy you can’t pay for all the things that we want. I see a good economy as the main driver of everybody’s lifestyle. So is that right wing or left wing?” We have a spirited exchange over what constitutes poverty and get back to Thanet. Craig is pro-Manston too ��� he once tried to set up a “Malaga Airlines” flying out of it ��� and thinks Ramsgate Marina and Harbour “one of the biggest assets we’re not using properly,” predicting it could create 500 jobs. He likes the new businesses in Military Road and sees high speed rail as having the “potential to transform”. He is driven, he says, by the idea of “making Britain better”. The Ukip MEPs have cost ��84 million in their 16 years, he tells me. “And what have they done? Beyond living a fantastic lifestyle?” After meetings in Brussels, the stories go, “Ukip are first up to a bar for the champagne, thank you very much, but have they done any of these things that they now say they want to achieve? Not one. They haven’t achieved anything. . . ” “I’ve got a history of public service,” says Craig Mackinlay. “I’m the real candidate with real experiences, who is a real person. . .” Verdict: Something old, something new, something blue��� Also standing: Name: Ruth Bailey Party: Manston Airport Independent Party Age 57 No of years in politics: Four months or so!! What’s the most important thing you would do for Thanet? Revitalise Thanet through the re-opening of Manston airport. Impose a compulsory purchase order on the current owner, securely underwritten by a company that will offer high end jobs, training and apprenticeships and put Thanet on the map. The big dream:

A thriving Manston airport and fully operating port/marina in Ramsgate.
Flourishing tourism, protection of our green spaces, affordable new homes and regenerated High Streets, with derelict properties compulsory purchased or legally enforced to improve.
One hour’s free parking in our town, reasonable business rates and more��community centres.

Next week: Mike Pearce on the Election Flipside���

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You can read the original article at:��http://www.thanetgazette.co.uk/Plain-Jane-meets-Tories-Manston-Airport/story-26308450-detail/story.html

Follow The Thanet Gazette on:��@ThanetGazette on Twitter��|��thanetgroup on Facebook

Filed under: articles, interview, Isle of Thanet Gazette, non-fiction, Plain Jane Tagged: Belgian Bar, Broadstairs, Chicago, Chris Clarke, Conservative, Councillor, Councillor Ian Driver, Craig Mackinlay, Daily Express, Edward Targett, Frances Rehal, Giles, Green candidate, green party, Ian Driver, Independent, Jane Wenham-Jones, Labour, Labour councillor, Malaga Airlines, Margate, NHS, Nigel Farage, Plain Jane, Ramsgate, Ramsgate Harbour, Robin Hood, Ruth Bailey, South East England, South Thanet, Southwark, Sure Start, Thanet, thanet district council, Thanet South, Trident, UKIP, Will Scobie, Zita Wiltshire

Plain Jane 030415: Plain Jane meets the Labour and United Thanet candidates

Continuing our series in which Jane Wenham-Jones meets the candidates, this week: Labour���

THERE is a framed cartoon by Giles on my writing-room wall that my grandmother cut out of the Daily Express in 1980.

The intervening years have turned the newsprint brown, but it still clearly shows a teenager propped up on her bed amidst detritus and chaos, perusing an article entitled “MPs at 18″.

Her mother stands just inside the door with mop, vacuum cleaner and a long-suffering expression. “First thing she’s going to do when she’s an MP,” the caption reads, “is straighten up the whole world.”

I saw the joke, but was still convinced I had the answers. Along with the duffle coat, the badges, and the marching shoes. In grouchy middle-age of course, I have come to view anyone under 30 as a mere whippersnapper, and have made my share of the jokes about South Thanet’s Labour candidate’s recent progression from short trousers.

They have probably been unfair. At the only hustings I have been to ��� the��memory��of which still brings me out in hives ��� the 25 year-old Will Scobie acquitted himself well, proving to be better informed, more eloquent and (mercifully) more engaging than several of the older panellists.

So I set forth to meet him and his opposite number in North Thanet, Labour candidate Frances Rehal, with an open mind. We gather in The Arch, the fab new bar set into the cliff opposite Ramsgate Harbour, where I get confused and kiss Chris Clarke, the press officer (he looks startled) before Will appears behind him.

Young Scobie does look very youthful indeed, but he’s been a local councillor for the past four years, and is firm and clear on what needs to be done, saying: “For the first time in 20 years, we finally have people coming to��invest��in Thanet. What Frances and I can do to help to push that is about banging the drum for the area, making it clear that Thanet is a beautiful place to live and work.”

At 60, Frances Rehal has not been in politics before but has a lot of experience she feels will be relevant. She’s been a��health��visitor, a manager in the NHS with responsibility for child protection, and was the director of the first Sure Start programme in Kent.

“Thanet needs jobs,” she tells me. “High-skilled jobs.” She is concerned with how we can help those currently in school “who perhaps aren’t the highest achievers”, and when Will starts banging his drum for the proposed Parkway station and reduced journey times to London ��� “if we can get it down to 56 minutes, it will transform the area” ��� it is the young she is thinking of. “If I were elected”, she tells me, “I would see how we could get reduced fares. You need to have a pretty high level of skill to get a job in London that pays enough to commute.”

Will has worked as a “transfer manager” in a local language school and chimes in to remind us that good connections with the capital will lead to a lot more foreign students coming our way, which is “big money at the moment”.

Will has toiled in a working men’s club too, which he loved because “I love talking to people and there was always football on”, but it also taught him about working long hours for little financial reward and being forced to rely on tax��credits. “We’re a low-wage blackspot here”, he says sombrely. “Labour’s big push is to make sure we can transform that.”

Frances is also earnest on this issue, proposing “a process where people are upskilled as they get older”. Will is right there with her, saying: “One in four people leaving school in Thanet aren’t able to find a job. My vision of the welfare state is for it to be a hand up, not a hand out.”

There is nothing here that anyone with a heart could possibly decry, but how confident would they be that, in practice, they could��make a difference?��I tell them that Nigel Farage claimed he’d be a good MP for Thanet because he had “a powerful voice”. Did they think they could say the same?

“He would be an embarrassment for the area,” says Will immediately. “What has he done as an MEP?” enquires Frances. When I push the point, Frances is keen to remind me about her past experience at Sure Start, saying she ” laboured at many national conferences”, but Will is our man for the soundbite.

“We have a record of delivery,” he declares. He regales me with the tale of his one-man fight against the easyJet slogan “We’d rather be in Malaga than Margate”, saying: “I saw this and started a social media campaign, which within six hours had got them to withdraw that. I then spent the next three days going on TV talking about Thanet and all the wonderful things that were happening locally. I took something that could have been a disaster locally and turned it into something good.” The reason he could do this, he emphasises, is because “I’m based here in Thanet, I’m responsive and I know the area”. In this, he highlights the difference between himself and the Ukip and Tory candidates for South Thanet ��� “they don’t have local links”.

“So you’re saying, you’re both hands-on,” I suggest helpfully.

“We’re hands-on,” agrees Frances. “We’ve been encouraging people to come together, to create a new Thanet. It’s the responsibility of those of us in public services, including politicians, to identify common issues.”

Will is adamant that he would continue what he’s been doing throughout his time on the council: “Volunteering on Christmas Day to feed the homeless, picking up dog poo in Cliftonville���” ( I am grateful for this ��� someone sure needs to do it ��� could he extend his remit to Ramsgate too?) He is not deterred by my asides, adding: “It’s not always about speeches, and nice media interviews. It’s hard graft most of the time, and that is what you’ll get from me.”

Verdict: Thin on laughs. Big on social responsibility.

 

 

Also standing: Party for a United Thanet.

Name: Grahame Birchall (South Thanet)

Age: “Late middle”

Political experience: Previously been a Labour councillor for Whitstable. Also stood as an Independent and Conservative.

What’s the most important thing you would do for Thanet?

Get rid of TDC and take Thanet out of KCC. Once this is done, I will stand down and allow ‘normal politics’ to resume by way of a by-election.

iPUT is a political party that is not interested in exercising power, only in acting as a catalyst to rapid change.

The big dream:

For the people of Thanet to be set free from KCC and such a malign, unaccountable and secretive system of government.

To turn Thanet into the Riviera of the South East, the European destination of choice.

Name: Cemanthe McKenzie (North Thanet)

Age 34

No of years in politics: None

What’s the most important thing you would do for Thanet?

Create a Unitary Authority for the isle of Thanet. An elected leader would head a hybrid system which involves community groups, town parishes and localised councils.

The big dream:

The majority vote! Which will indicate a vote of no confidence by the people of Thanet in their structure of local government.

Other contenders

Thanet North: Piers Wauchope, Ukip, Roger Gale, Tory, George Cunningham, Lib Dem, Ed Targett, Green,

Thanet South: Craig Mackinlay, Tory, Nigel Farage, Ukip, Russ Timpson, Lib Dem, Al Murray, FUKP, Ian Driver, Green, Ruth Bailey, Manston Airport Independent, Nigel Askew, Reality Party, Tim Garbutt, Independent, Graham Birchall, Independence Party for a United Thanet, Prophet Zebadiah Abu-Obadiah, Al-Zebabist Nation of OOOG

Watch out for Mike on the Election Flipside ��� coming soon!

***

Read more:��http://www.thanetgazette.co.uk/Plain-Jane-meets-Labour-candidates/story-26272508-detail/story.html#ixzz3WGwzqXWP

Follow us:��@ThanetGazette on Twitter��|��thanetgroup on Facebook

Filed under: articles, Isle of Thanet Gazette, non-fiction, Plain Jane Tagged: Belgian Bar, Broadstairs, Chicago, Chris Clarke, Conservative, Councillor, Councillor Ian Driver, Daily Express, Edward Targett, Frances Rehal, Giles, Green candidate, green party, Ian Driver, Independent, Jane Wenham-Jones, Labour, Labour councillor, Margate, NHS, Nigel Farage, Plain Jane, Ramsgate, Ramsgate Harbour, Robin Hood, South East England, South Thanet, Southwark, Sure Start, Thanet, thanet district council, Thanet South, Trident, UKIP, Will Scobie, Zita Wiltshire

Plain Jane 270315: Meet the candidates for the Green Party

Continuing our series in which Jane Wenham-Jones meets the candidates, this week: the Greens���

I was initially invited to visit the Green candidate for Thanet South�� at his Broadstairs home ��� an arrangement I jumped at, to check if it featured�� sacks of mung beans and a composting toilet. In the event, we meet in the Belgian Bar in Ramsgate, which boasts�� neither. It is a testament to Councillor Ian Driver���s capacity for forgiveness or the thickness of his hide that he wants to meet me at all. I have been less than complimentary on these pages in the past. But his smile is wide when I arrive, so I cut straight to the nub of my doubts.

He tends to party hop, doesn���t he?

���Not really, no,��� he says. �����I���ve gone Labour, Independent, Green.��� He cites other council movers.�� ���Zita Wiltshire���s gone Conservative, Independent, UKIP…��� ��I wouldn���t hold her ��up as a shining example, I tell him. ��He guffaws. ���Perhaps not������

He needed to find an organisation he was happy with. ���I tried being Independent but I kept on arguing with myself.��� He pauses for another chuckle ��� this is clearly a well-worn joke ��� but admits it was ���really tough���.�� He���s always been sympathetic to the Green Party and Labour do not have a good record on ���the environmental thing.����� Is that why he left them? I enquire, preparing myself for a worthy speech about greenhouse gases. His answer is somewhat more colourful and I have not been permitted to quote it. ��But I like a man who speaks his mind, and you get plenty of that from Mr Driver. ���The Thanet Labour group is a bit like you���d expect 1930s Chicago politics to be��� .they are self-opinionated and they won���t take criticism.��� (This is the short version.) Nationally, you couldn���t ���slip a cigarette paper between them and the Tories���. Labour is full of people who ���don���t really know what the world is about���. The 58-year-old thinks he does.

Photo by Ryan Howard of the Belgian Bar

He was a Labour councillor in Southwark before he moved to Thanet in 2007 and was previously ���very active��� in the Trade Union movement. He bemoans the lack of ���ordinary men and women��� in politics today ��� it is the one area he agrees with Nigel Farage on. ���There is a political class that is out of touch and serves its own self-interest.��� He is angry about hypocrisy and can still get heated about the expenses scandal: ������snouts in the trough. It stinks!��� Again he defends Farage. ���At least when something goes wrong with his party,�� he kicks their arses���.�� I enjoy a further diatribe on the state of Thanet District Council before bringing him back to the matter in hand.�� What will he, personally, do for Thanet if he is elected? He is honest enough to acknowledge that there isn���t much chance of this but standing helps to ���raise the profile of the Green Party���, and he is up for the council again too where he hopes there will be a shake up. ���There is an opportunity now to get new blood in that will do things in a different way.���

So what needs to be done?

���Regeneration is the big one.����� He would ���throw open��� the Regeneration board, Invest in Thanet, empowering��local people and tapping into the creative, artistic groups here, as well as the business-minded. ���We���ve got quite an entrepreneurial community developing ‘despite the council���”. He doesn���t want Manston to be an airport but ��a mix of housing and business park. His dream is to see Ramsgate develop a new modern marina and is vocal on how much the port costs compared to how much it is utilised. ���Pound for pound it could create more jobs and business opportunities than anything else, and bring in more visitors������

I realise we���ve not mentioned traditional ���Green��� issues much at all. ���Housing!��� he says. We need 2000 more homes in Thanet.�� All new-builds ��should be environmentally friendly with solar panels, rain water re-use, treble glazing, massive insulation. Thanet has the highest level of fuel poverty in South East England. Over-65s are dying because they can���t keep warm������

I agree this is appalling but how will improvements be paid for?

By an end to Trident, he tells me.

���Affordable social housing ��� that���s what I���m passionate about.���

There is no denying his fervour. He seems genuinely upset and angry that there are people sleeping rough in Thanet and that Carers are denied a proper wage.

���You shouldn���t be in politics if you���re not passionate,��� he says. ���You shouldn���t be in politics if you don���t care������

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OVER IN NORTH THANET��Ian���s counterpart Edward Targett also has a vision.��The Green candidate says he will donate ��1000 of his MP���s salary each month to local causes, if he is elected. The 32-year old has been working long hours at his day job as an editor ��� ��motorcycling to and from the city from his home in Margate (he’d ride�� a push bike if it wouldn’t take so long and use the train if he could afford it) –��so we converse by email. He has no��political experience but enthusiasm in spadeloads and a clear plan for what he would����do if elected. ���I’d work ferociously hard to create quality jobs, make sure services are properly funded and regeneration money is handled transparently and allocated democratically.��� ��As well as giving to charities and ��sports clubs he would want to ���bring empty buildings back into use and plant thousands of trees���.

So what���s his big dream? �����Plenty of secure employment that pays the living wage, thriving and well maintained High Streets with affordable business rates, cheap, clean and efficient public transport; an egalitarian society with free access to education and higher education for all.��� It all sounds wonderful but he hasn���t finished yet.

���Public services in public hands, not asset-stripping with nationalised losses but privatised profits. World-leading engineering and energy independence, reducing pollution, creating jobs and combating climate change. Flourishing, protected wildlife and green spaces. Robust, representative democracy, with civil liberties protected and the powerful held accountable.���

Phew. How is he going to pay for it?

He types back straight away: A ‘Robin Hood’ tax on financial transactions, along with a wealth tax on the richest 1%. I���d also crack down on large-scale corporate tax evasion.

VERDICT: Commitment shines from the Green Candidates. Everyone needs a dream.

Watch out for Mike on the Election Flipside – coming soon!

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Plain Jane meets the Liberal Democrats

I AM looking forward to meeting South Thanet’s Russ Timpson for two reasons. Firstly, the man has a sense of humour (not always a given in political circles) ��� when I wrote a column expressing my view that the Liberal Democrats didn’t have much chance of getting in, he sent an e-mail with the subject “Hope in Hell”.

And secondly, he used to be a fireman. I do like a man in uniform. Sadly, he is wearing sporty casuals when we meet at the Albion Hotel in Broadstairs, although in compensation, there is a slight suggestion of Daniel Craig about him. After we have run through the problems for the young ��� they feel disenfranchised and will never be able to afford to buy a house in the way we could ��� and the need, more then ever before, for everybody in Thanet to get out and vote, I tell him he is taller and more impressive than he appeared at the recent hustings I went to (an event so dull and tedious I thought I might faint with boredom). He smiles. And I get down to business. If he is elected, what will he do for Thanet? He has, he tells me, got a ten-point plan. One of the plans has a sub-plan of another ten points. I am afraid I might start to feel light-headed again but actually this is the one about Manston, a subject close to my heart, so I perk up. Every day is a school day, as my esteemed colleague Mike Pearce is fond of saying (he will be back soon, if you’re fretting) and today I learn what happens to disused aircraft. In the old days they were dumped in the desert, which has now been proved to be “environmentally unsound” (there is depleted uranium in the rudder assemblies and engine bearings) but now they have to be properly recycled. And, Russ declares, although there are 11,000 wide-bodied aircraft coming to the end of their lives in the next three years, there isn’t a purpose-built facility in the world where an aircraft can fly in and be safely dismantled.

This is where Manston could come in. “It could be a massive business.” I am keener to get flights to Spain, I tell him. What about a weekly passenger service? He humours me. “Yes all right but the point is if I’ve got an aviation apprentice college, what better way to learn my trade as an apprentice than dismantling aircraft?” Russ fears if Manston isn’t utilised it will be built all over. We agree this is not good. “We don’t have enough water, roads, GPs, hospitals, schools��� It’s not sustainable.” I peer at other things on the list, trying to divert him from going through them one by one. “We’ve got to reopen Ramsgate Harbour,” he says. “We must have a new service to Oostende.” I like this. He talks about Thanet’s “fantastic coastline.” He wants to promote it as a tourist destination, and concentrate on its history. “This is the landing point of Christianity; Saint Augustine, the Romans. We’ve got Huguenots, the Vikings���. More recently we’ve got Dickens���” I can feel my concentration fading once more so I push him on through fracking and wages to high-speed rail. Here he has an excellent idea. A scheme where instead of only being able to buy a weekly, monthly or annual season you can buy twenty tickets at a discount and use them as it suits you throughout the year. This is clever and I would do it. “But what about a booze trolley?” I ask, expanding on the problems of running out of time to nip into M&S at St Pancras. He laughs. “A mini-bar next to each seat?”

He gets serious again to finish: Acknowledging that there are people who have already made their minds up, he still appeals to them to read the manifestos when they come out. “This is a job interview. Judge the individuals on their ability to represent Thanet. That’s all I’m asking.”

Verdict: Ordinary-bloke-type decent family guy with heart in right place and ideas aplenty. For more info see http://www.libdems. org.uk/russ_timpson

RUSS’S counterpart over in North Thanet, George Cunningham, is the Brussels and Europe Liberal Democrats vice-chair with a bio as long as your arm, which he urged me to familiarise myself with. “I’ve had an exciting life.” He certainly seems to have got about a bit. The multilingual ex Army officer ��� “58 years young, raring to go” ��� has been involved in politics since 1979 and walked across Africa. He was in Brussels when I met Russ, so we spoke on the phone. What was he going to do for Thanet? I enquired, talking rapidly, as I was calling his Belgian mobile (we hacks aren’t made of money.) George will “get the place back up on its feet after over 30 years of the current MP’s inability to improve Thanet’s position at the bottom of Kent’s deprivation league table.” He wants to see the area (don’t we all!) as “modern, self-confident, international, prosperous, punching above its weight in Kent and in Britain.”

When I enquired how he might achieve this, he provided a long ��� and approaching mind-numbingly detailed ��� explanation about European funding. And echoed his South Thanet colleague’s visions of high-speed rail and sea connections and a “fully restored” Manston airport.

“I have a wide experience of life. I am an achiever.”

His vision is to “interconnect” and upgrade Thanet to build on the potential for tourism. “People who vote for me vote for a more modern way for Thanet” Has he got a hope, considering how long the current incumbent, Roger Gale, has been in position? He has been at a recent hustings with Sir Roger, who apparently stated: “I’m going to give you more of the same”. George wants to give “much more than that”, he tells me. “I want to give Thanet an exciting future”

Verdict: Lots of European experience ��� seems to know his way round the block���

Watch out for Mike on the Election Flipside ��� coming soon!

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You can read the original article at:��http://www.thanetgazette.co.uk/Plain-Jane-meets-Liberal-Democrats/story-26200836-detail/story.html#ixzz3V90PQUAF

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Plain Jane 130315: Meet the Candidates

A friend of mine once sat next to Nigel Farage on a plane. “He was very charismatic,” she said, clearly charmed even though her politics couldn’t be more opposed.

Charismatic and charming are words I’ve heard more than once. “Don’t be snowed by the glamour,” says another chum, darkly, when I tell her I am off to interview the Ukip leader. We meet in a small upstairs room at the community centre in St Luke’s Avenue, Ramsgate, where one of his invitation-only meetings is being held. My last Gazette column, less than flattering about the TV documentary Meet The Ukippers, has been mentioned by three different kippers by the time he arrives. Nigel comes into the room straight-faced. But when I hold out my hand and tell him, truthfully, how pleased I am to meet him, he is wreathed in smiles. I have inadvertently worn tights in a Ukip shade of purple which also goes down well. He is amused when I tell him the descriptions that precede him. “I’m delighted,” he chuckles. “I’ve got to be good at something.” I begin with the easy questions. What is Nigel Farage going to bring to Thanet? “A powerful voice,” he says immediately. “If I say things on the national stage, that relate to Thanet, people will listen, people will hear���” When I’m emphatic on the need for a good constituency MP too, who will work on the problems in Thanet, he assures me he has had “masses of experience” in his 16 years as an MEP. Particularly “in working out what is a genuine cry for help and what is someone taking the mickey”. People want a champion, he agrees, “but a lot of filtering needs to go on.”

I am keen to discuss the help Thanet needs. Bearing in mind that Thanet has fewer immigrants here than many other parts of the country ��� well below the national average ��� wasn’t immigration being made a scapegoat by Ukip when Thanet’s areas of deprivation go back a long way? He agrees, citing: “The collapse of everything from Pfizer to the coal mines to whatever it is.” But denies that immigration is being blamed locally. “It’s a national issue. I’m not standing for TDC. I am standing for Westminster.” As he explains his thinking on this and other issues, he does not sound unreasonable. “Ukip has an ethical, sensible, balanced, approach to immigration,” he insists. “I’m not blaming anyone. If I was from Bucharest I’d come to Britain. You’d be bonkers not to.”

But can he genuinely believe what he says next? “Every attempt is made to try and paint Ukip to be racist, extremist, narrow zenophobic and it simply isn’t true.” We talk about the rants of Rozanne Duncan ��� now removed from the party ��� and his campaign manager Martyn Heale’s time in the National Front. Nigel Farage is smooth. Rozanne was “a Tory defector”; Martin did that 40 years ago. He still has the leader’s full support. “But there is an element,” I persist, “a racist element that are drawn to Ukip.”

“There is an element in the Conservative party and the Labour party,” he counters. “In all walks of life.” He refers again to media negativity. “In the same week that Rozanne Duncan said the things she did, a former Labour agent from Peterborough was jailed for paedophilia. Was it a national news story?”

Racism aside, I ask him how he felt seeing his “team” on the TV programme, in all their ineptitude. The Farage eyes narrow a little. That’s how fly-on-the-wall works, he tells me. It doesn’t necessarily show us at its best. But they were doing their best, he insisted. I tell him what my grandmother might have said to that. Sometimes your best isn’t good enough? His eyes narrow a little further. “We are a volunteer army. We are a people’s army.”

We move to safer topics. I put it to him that Thanet hasn’t done badly out of Europe ��� the EFL industry and the money for Ramsgate port. He disagrees ��� “It’s our money anyway” ��� before we bond over our belief in the possibilities for Manston ��� “a fantastic potential asset” that he is determined to fight for. If he gets in, “everything that can be done will be done to make it a success.” His other dream is for Thanet District Council to be put in “rather more professional and wordly hands”.

Now we’re smiling again, I tell him how much I have wanted to chair a hustings and inquire why he is determined to avoid them. “I have done a couple,” he says. But 90 per cent of the people who turn up are “already branded” and he is doing this his own way. The meetings he holds are for people who live in the ward and have to prove their identity when they arrive. “Very extreme leftist groups” are kept out. “Why should I allow some of these violent idiots to come along and disrupt the meeting and throw things at me?”

I relate the tale of the reasonable-sounding and studious-looking young chap who was thrown out of a Broadstairs meeting after Martyn Heale had deemed him unsuitable from something he’d said on Facebook. Mr Farage apparently knew nothing about it. “I can’t answer to that.”

“I’m going to fight a positive campaign,” he finishes, as he is borne off to fit in another interview before his meeting begins. “They can lob as many mills bombs as they want at me, I don’t care.”

Verdict: Nigel Farage knows how to charm and has charisma and an answer for most things. One might almost wish he were standing for a different party. I don’t think I was snowed by the glamour.

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Read the original article at:��http://www.thanetgazette.co.uk/Meet-candidates-Jane-Wenham-Jones-Nigel-Farage/story-26161010-detail/story.html

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Plain Jane 270215: Meet the Ukippers

���What a place to live!��� wrote a friend from the Cotswolds, who���d been watching, aghast, the documentary��Meet the Ukippers, aired last Sunday. I was at pains to explain that the curious collection of locals featured was really not a representative sample of the Thanet population, but I got the feeling she ��� along, I suspect, with many others ����� was not convinced.

What a shame. Only days before, Margate was in the news as the next big property hotspot; and there is increasing interest in the area as a weekend destination through enthusiasm for the Turner Contemporary, the prospect of the restored Dreamland, and the booming Old Town. So thank you district councillor Rozanne Duncan, for tracking down some dilapidated windows and telling the nation that parts of Cliftonville are ���a no-go area after dark���, and for your fanciful assertion that we poor, sensitive English�� people are disturbed by ���the constant noise of ��people speaking a foreign language.���

We will forgive the narrator���s appalling grammar since at least ��he confirmed, what those of us who ever go anywhere else can see for ourselves, that actually ���Thanet has less (sic) immigrants than the national average.���

Not that a little diversity should put anyone off ��visiting our fair Isle. What might ��was the strange collection of characters in this fly-on-the-wall (sometimes a rather shaky fly at that ��� who on earth was holding the camera when Trevor Shonk���s head was cut off?) look at the ��South Thanet UKIP�� group.

Leaving aside what one might feel about UKIP���s manifesto, can you imagine any of that motley crew attempting to run the country? Or even a bath?

Far be it from me to judge anyone by appearances�� – especially after Councillor Rozanne Duncan���s bizarre and hideous outburst about ���negroes��� ��� so I will refrain from suggesting a good scrub and a group haircut.

And simply say that�� what continues to leave me slack-jawed, is the bumbling ineptitude displayed and that anyone would be so dense as to say some of the things that were said when a camera is rolling. The barely intelligible campaign manager��Martyn Heale, chortling about�� the value of a bit of ���misinformation��� and airily dismissing his time in the National Front, as ���I was never a member of the Gestapo��� (oh, that���s all right then!) and then using the F word.

Someone with no experience at all of being a councilor being chosen as a candidate on the basis of�� an inane grin and the immortal ���I���m cheeky and I enjoy it and I want to do something.�����

And the then ���press officer��� (she has since had the good sense to jack it in) claiming amid nervous laughter, that she didn���t feel she could stop Rozanne Duncan���s diatribe ( why on earth not?). I regret there���s no room to go on. But��by the time you are reading this, many acres of newsprint and web pages will have dissected the programme and Rozanne Duncan, already thrown out of UKIP – horses and stable doors leap to mind – ��may well have resigned (1000 signatures asking her to, and counting). ��So I will jump to the big question remaining.

Nigel Farage is not stupid. Yet the programme began with his words:�����I couldn���t have a team anywhere in England who I feel more comfortable with than these people.��� ��Can he be serious? I would have thought there might have been just the tiniest ��� ahem ��� intelligence gap?

Did he watch that footage and feel proud of the way his ���team��� acquitted themselves? I was cringing behind several cushions and I���m nothing to do with it. I have invited Mr Farage to meet me for a drink so I can pose that question, and others.

He hasn���t replied yet but I am sure, him being a polite chap,�� he will. Watch this space. In the meantime, if you want to laugh in horror while simultaneously choking on disbelief, watch��Meet the Ukippers���

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You can read the original article here.

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Plain Jane 130215: Wearing bubble wrap and buying champagne

FRIDAY 13th. Time to don the bubble wrap and protective headgear, avoid ladders, leave plenty of time to catch the train, and for the chaps, unless you want to be wearing the hard hat for the entire weekend, write yourselves a large memo so you don’t forget what tomorrow is and can turn up with a card.

If you were thinking of getting me one ��� I live in hope ��� leave it till Monday when all things heart-shaped are half-price and they’re flogging the roses off cheap. I always appreciate a bargain.

You might think that someone who has spent a great deal of her writerly life dealing in romance in one form or other, would embrace the celebration of St Valentine with somewhat wider arms. You may imagine your average author of romantic fiction floating about the home in pink chiffon, exchanging Snugglebum messages with Coochie-face, preparing salmon delights and chocolate-coated strawberries to have with the champagne, while the deliveryman arrives bent beneath the weight of floral gifts.

You would be wrong. My theory is that we scribes make up romance for the same reason as so many millions read it. It’s in jolly short supply in real life. It would be fair to say that for about 20 years I generally received a card on Valentine’s Day and more often than not, a bouquet to boot. This was largely by dint of writing instructions in large felt tip in my husband’s diary mid-January and by teaching my son, as soon as he could speak, to repeat “Buy Mummy Flowers” whenever I gave him a Pavlovian shove through the door of his father’s study. Now my husband very sensibly leaves the country and I, apart from noticing the price of blooms has gone through the roof and you can get all sorts of “eat-in” bargains in the supermarket, (one small mercy at least ��� sitting in a restaurant, having to watch all those other couples slobbering over each other is enough to put anyone off their Nipples-of-Venus-to-share ) treat it as a day like any other. A quick straw poll among my friends suggests this is not unique ��� even when their partners are the other end of the sofa.

In novels, men may be tall, dark, handsome and capable of producing tickets for a romantic break in Paris without being asked but in reality, in my experience, they are more likely to shriek “How much?” and remind you that there’s an important league match that weekend and the only thing they’ll be holding close is the remote.

We read the books and the myth continues because we long to believe that our fictional heroes who have the florist on speed-dial and understand about candlelight and Belgian chocolate and the element of surprise, are out there somewhere. Even if the evidence to the contrary ��� “they double the price on Valentine’s Day/I can’t see what I’m eating/Won’t that make you fat?/You get it and put it on my credit card” ��� is overwhelming. I have always thought it might be generous to send a whole bunch of cards to those who will be least expecting them so that they ��� however old, ugly, malodorous and socially unacceptable ��� might feel loved and cherished and experience the frisson of excitement that comes from never quite being sure who would go to such trouble. (The only time someone did this to me, I kept the handwriting for years.) It’s not too late to hit the shops. Give someone a marvellous shock tomorrow. Show that kindness, romance and the spirit of surprise are not totally dead. But look both ways before you cross the road today ��� or you might be!

You can read the original article at��http://www.thanetgazette.co.uk/Plain-Jane-Wearing-bubble-wrap-buying-champagne/story-26021559-detail/story.html.
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Plain Jane 310115: Saving the NHS is down to US

WITH under 100 days to go until the general election, the big issue, pundits tell us, will be the future of the NHS. It will be safe in their hands, pulled back from the precipice, expanded, streamlined, reorganised, chucked-money-at ��� depending on who you pr��cis ��� while more GPs are trained, more appointments made available, a fleet of midwives conjured up and untold riches put into long-term care and mental health.

Sounds brilliant. And so simple one can only wonder how it’s taken so long. Crisis? What crisis?

The sad truth, as I see it, is that nobody in these anxious vote-gathering times will be brave enough to say what we all know deep down. That the NHS is wonderful, those who work in it heroic, and the fact that, whatever soundbites we’re fed about funding and reshaping, it may sink gently to its knees, is not really about politics but about you and me. It is, to put it bluntly, All Our Fault.

The NHS is overstretched because 64 per cent of us are overweight; 19 per cent still smoke (despite all those warnings tch tch) and 15 per cent ��� at a conservative estimate ��� drink far too much (leading to nearly 10million hospital visits in 2013). And if you’re not a podgy lush with a fag in her hand? Then I would hazard a guess you’re the worried well.

Pounding that treadmill, checking the labels, eschewing sugar and salt in your organic radish and broccoli shake, and back up at the doctor’s with that funny rash from the stress of it all. One could take the view that education is the answer.

More cookery in schools might teach the boys and girls that vegetables exist as well as Burger King. Posters of a pickled liver might keep them off the gin. But probably the best thing we could do as a nation, bearing in mind the cost of mental health treatment, is to teach our kids to calm down, cheer up, and stop sweating the small stuff.

While we all start looking on the bright side. A ciggie in your break might kill you but will also make you new friends ��� nothing like huddling together in a freezing doorway to foster camaraderie ��� and interaction with others boosts serotonin, the feel-good chemical which may save you from depression till you go.

A drink or two can protect against heart disease and give you respite from worry. (And has been single-handedly responsible for keeping the karaoke industry afloat.)

When you’re very old it is better to be slightly plump than as thin as a rake. And anxiety causes more health problems than e numbers. Some of us are luckier than we should be. Others aren’t. We all know of some lard-scoffing, scotch-swilling, 60-a-day chap who lived to his 90s. (And a clean-living, additive-free, gluten-avoiding vegan, who sadly did not.) As the fatalists are fond of reminding us ��� when you’re time’s up, it is. The Do Your Best and Then Don’t Worry Party could be a vote winner. Along with a concerted campaign to teach us to value the NHS; not abuse it.

Advertising slogans might include: “Accident and Emergency ��� the clue’s in the name”; “Doctors are for ill people” and “Do you really need that seventh doughnut? Give up your seats on the bus for those who need one���”

We can dream.

In the meantime, brace yourselves for more cries of restructuring, cash injections, training programmes and the promise of appointments for all. And know that the only hands the health service is really safe in, are ours���

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Read, and comment on, the original article at:��http://www.thanetgazette.co.uk/Plain-Jane-Saving-NHS/story-25948354-detail/story.html

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Chipping Norton Literary Festival novel critique event

Jane is now inviting your novel extracts for the chance of winning personal critique from top agent Carole Blake – see��Chipping Norton Literary Festival novel critique event. Deadline 20th March 2015.

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Plain Jane 160115: A look back at 2014

WELL, how���s yours been so far? My New Year greetings come late, after spending the opening hours of 2015 horizontal and groaning, in the clutches of the norovirus, barely able to sit up let alone write this column.

Since then, life has moved on dramatically and I feel I should begin by pausing for a moment to remember the recent hideous events in France before attempting to finish what I started two weeks ago. Traditionally, my first January offering has been a roundup of favourite shops, eateries and venues on the isle but since 2014 was more than usually fraught and manic and I hardly made it past the corner shop (Victory News ��� one useful little outlet worth a mention), I���m doing instead, key events and memorable moments. And hoping the coming 12 months may be a little less bumpy than their predecessors. Here, in no particular order, are my lows and lows of 2014���

Disappointment of the Year

Manston closing (don���t get me started); the NHS still being clogged up by people with nothing wrong with them except a desire to be seen TODAY about their possibly -infected middle toe instead of waiting till Wednesday.

Worst economy measure

Margarine instead of butter. A worrying number of breakfast venues on the isle have taken to using ���spread��� on their toast instead of the real thing.

Not so the Dalby caf�� in Cliftonville ��� still a reassuring constant in a changing world. They also know how to fry an egg. Another prerequisite.

Ridiculous news story of the year

Two contenders for this one.

The scary tidings that landmark Pierremont Hall may be closed because it will cost in the region of ��130,000 to rewire it and fit a new boiler. 130 grand? Is the trunking to be gold-plated? The boiler to be hand-carved and bejewelled and daubed with the blood of virgins? Come, electricians and plumbers of Thanet ��� unite! I���m sure one of you somewhere can do it for less than that. AND the revelation that sexist language ��� as used by men to describe women ��� is on the decline. All well and good until you see the words that have apparently dropped out of the language. ���Sexy��� and ���blonde��� have allegedly almost vanished along with ���stupid��� and ���daft���. Well excuse me for being both of the latter but am I the only one who thought ���sexy��� was equally valid as a description of both genders (Martin Shaw and Liam Neeson immediately spring to mind) and what is one supposed to say then about a female who is fair of head? Please save us from the sort of politically -correct nonsense that would render them ���non-brunette������.

Funeral of the Year

November saw the sad passing of Harry Lagan, local character and stalwart supporter of all things Thanet. Described by his wife Carol as ���irreplaceable���, Harry���s sad but uplifting funeral, featuring the Archers theme tune, oration by Geoffrey Boycott and a rendition of Internationale showed the same wit and irreverence that were the hallmarks of the man himself. RIP Harry. Broadstairs is a duller place without you.

Best new bar of the year

Not a low obviously, but it can���t be all doom. Again two nominees ��� and both in Ramsgate. The Town Bar at the new Albion House Hotel is looking rather fab and Miles is doing a sterling job at The Arch in the Arches. My son brings good reports of the Ravensgate Arms in King Street ��� I���ve not got there yet.

Worst prediction for 2015

Dyed armpit hair. Yes I am serious. Foretellers of the next hot trends inform us that this year will see women sporting luxurious underarm growth, coloured in a variety of fetching hues. As an early pioneer of multi-coloured tresses, you might think I���d approve. Not so. There���s only one place female hair looks good on display and that���s her head. Note to my male readers ��� you can add chests but not noses and ears.

Top lessons learned in 2014

Seven items on a list are more effective than ten (handy that!) I was reliably informed by a fellow scribe. And, it���s not as neurotic as I thought it was, to carry anti-bacterial hand gel. Stay well, use lots of soap and hot water, and I hope your new year is turning out to be a happy one.

Je suis Charlie

Je suis Ahmed

Je suis Juif

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