Kent MPs make highest ever expenses claims during Covid – 2020/21
In 2020/21 all 17 Kent MPs between them billed for expenses such as office costs, staffing, accommodation, and travel, just over £3 million pounds. This does not include [...]
Damian Collins
Sandbanks – New Romney: Are local Tories ‘in hock’ to developers via their donations?
Sandbanks planning application was successful at last night’s Planning Committee. However, it’s clear the closeness of the developer Leo Griggs with members of [...]
Otterpool Park Update: Council rename Otterpool – Tebbit Town – as everyone will be on their bike
Folkestone & Hythe District Council last night voted unanimously to change the name of the £2.9 billion Otterpool Park Garden Town to – Tebbit Town – as [...]
Napier Barracks Fire Incident.
Updated 30th Jan @19:10 Obviously, those who perpetrated the fire at Napier Barracks, Folkestone endangered the lives of those on the site at the time, which is unacceptable. [...]
Kent MPs Expenses 2019/20
All Kent MPs claimed £2,810,392 worth of expenses in 2019/20. Their expenses does not include their salary which in 2019/20 was £79,468. Expenses cover such as office [...]
“Fake news” or “No news” – the twin threats to democracy.
I love local newspapers. My very first paid job was as a trainee reporter on a Manchester-based local newspaper that, sadly, wasn’t the great Manchester Evening News. [...]
Revealed: Michael Stainer Owes The Taxman £1.1 million
When Michael Stainer, Doris Stainer and Robert Richardson were arrested in July 2015, they were held in custody for approximately nine hours. Stainer described the dawn raid [...]
Damian Collins Dodgy Donation for his December 2019 General Election Campaign
Damian Collins MP for Folkestone & Hythe (pictured) received a dodgy donation for his Dec 2019 General Election Campaign, from a company which does NOT exist. And when it [...]
The Grand Escape — or Stainer’s Surrender?
What links the two pictures below? In a word “debt” On the left is a picture of the Marshalsea, immortalised in Dickens’s “Little Dorrit”. It housed a variety of [...]
Would You Stand By This Man?
A year ago, we called Michael Stainer A Grand Fantasist and a Grand Failure. Now, as yet another legal defeat batters the sinking Michael Stainer empire, is it time to call [...]
A highly incompetent and slovenly MP?
Recently the Daily Telegraph (paywall) ran a story about hundreds of MPs having their official credit cards suspended by the expenses watchdog, IPSA. Among the list of [...]
Folkestone: A step too far?
Love or loathe it, the Arch in Folkestone at the town end of the Leas has caused controversy from the moment it was born. For those of you who do not remember the arch [...]
Happy New Year to you all.
First we must congratulate Cllr Rory Cassian Love for his award of an OBE. He was first elected in 1987 and stood in the Folkestone Harvey Ward. He came third in the vote [...]
Defending the public interest
The Public Interest needs defending. But who does it need defending from? Folkestone & Hythe District Council and Councillor Russell Tillson, that’s who. In the [...]
GP Patient numbers up by a 1,000
In Sept 2017 seven of eight practices in Folkestone applied for permission to close their patient lists on the basis that they were “unable to take on more patients [...]
Breaking News: Who is in charge at the Grand?
Following the shock new of the bankruptcies of Michael and Doris Stainer and the liquidation of more of their companies, just who is running the day-to-day activities at the [...]
Betrayed by East Kent Housing
Arthur is 86. He has served in our armed forces and has been betrayed by one of his ward Cllrs, by Cllr Alan Ewart- James Cabinet member for Housing (pictured below left), by [...]
Kent MP Costs For 2017/18
All Kent MP’s have cost the UK Taxpayer the sum of £2,697,412, for the financial year 2017/18. (All information is drawn from IPSA’s website.). This is a 3.85% increase [...]
The Long Read: Tenants & Section 21 Eviction Notices
Section 21 of the Housing Act 1988, also known as “no fault” evictions, have risen to prominence and controversy in recent years as the legal method for landlords [...]
The Long Read: To divest or not to divest, that is the question
Amazon, Facebook, Taylor Wimpey, BAE Systems, Royal Dutch Shell and Rio Tinto are just some of the companies the £6 billion pound Kent Pension Fund (KPF), administered by [...]
Council ‘actively considers’ Geological Disposal Facility
On April 11th 2018 we brought you the blog post titled Here we go again: Another nuclear burial ground? On the 26th June 2018, Folkestone & Hythe District (F&HDC) [...]
Otterpool Park update
It’s always good to make things clear at the very beginning. Folkestone & Hythe District Council (FHDC) in relation to Otterpool Park are one of the developers [...]
Free Course – Interrogating data.
Data matters. Data – Facebook data – so it is claimed may well have influenced the Brexit Vote and is currently being investigated by our own MP, Damian Collins [...]
Kent MP Expenses & Allowances
The most expensive MP in Kent for the first ten months of the financial year April 2017 – Jan 2018 is Charlie Elphicke MP of Dover. In second place is our own Damian [...]
What can you buy for a £1
What can you buy for a pound? Breakfast cereals, shaving foam, fatballs, assorted perennial bulbs and much much more. But could you buy a school, a whole school for £1? Well [...]