Why I Won't Be Voting Lib Dem In Today's Dane Valley By-Election

Well, the short answer is because I don't live there, thank heavens! But ordinarily, of course, I have a yellow streak a mile wide, and would be gung-ho for Bill Furness to get elected, despite his proposer being the chippy fat man from Margate. But no, I'm (virtually, of course) supporting Labour.

So why the change to Hart? First I would like to scotch the rumour that I'm supporting lovely Labourette Sandra Hart, wife of the equally lovely Labour leader Clive Hart, merely so's I can make Hart to Hart hay about 'Max', 'Freeway' and 'big hair' should she get elected. Noooooo. Not me.


Er, yes, well. Ahem. Seriously though, by all accounts, Birchington Bill is a thoroughly nice cove. But the point is, he lives in Birchington. Not Dane Valley. Surely the electors have had enough of absentee representatives after the last incumbent, Panama Steve Broadhurst, was discovered to have spent the majority of his time 5,000 miles away in central America? Plus Lib Dems in Thanet are about as common as hen's teeth, so in my view the only chance of deposing the current Thanet Reich lies with Labour.

Remember, this is a local election on local issues, so we should be putting aside the fact that Old One Eye has f*cked up the country royally, and concentrating on the fact that the Tories round here have f*cked up Fannit locally.

Meanwhile a bird tells me that another Dane Valley Tory, the alleged cat-killing Mayor of Margate, will be up before the beak today somewhere out west. Perhaps someone will tweet the result of that particular contest later in the day!

Update: Margate Mayor Edwin Watt-Ruffell and his co-defendant, wife Alexandra Watt-Ruffell, have entered a plea of not guilty to causing unnecessary suffering to a kitten in their care. The pair did not appear for the hearing at Sittingbourne court this morning. A trial date has been set for next year. Click here for more.

A Statement From Mr Richard Eastcliff

For years I've been banging on about the parlous state of our island nation. The time for banging has now ended, and the time for action has begun. Egged on by my small but influential band of supporters, I've been persuaded to stand up and have my votes counted.

As of today, I will be out on the streets campaigning for my new party, Eastcliff Richard First. My aim will be to represent myself at both the local and national level, with a view to earning a terrific salary and shed loads of expenses your trust and support. Organising and funding a new party will not be easy. This is not a job for a novice. Which is why I have entrusted the important job of Treasurer to my long-standing associate and accountant, Cyril.

If you believe in a fair society, a society that treats all millionaires as equals, I urge you to rally to my cause. Please send your donations to:

Eastcliff Richard First
PO Box 99
Dutch Antilles

Please make cheques payable to Campaign And Support Holdings or C.A.S.H. (Please note: minimum donation from local developers £25,000).

MP Plea

Just in case anyone thought I was less than even-handed banging on about the Blue Rinsers during the local elections, here's a little treat you may have missed. It's our local Labour MP, Dr Steve Ladychap, putting in a last minute plea on 2 May, the day before the election, for everyone to vote Tony.

Unfortunately for Dr Ladychap, when I spotted this earlier today, more than two weeks after the votes were counted, only 14 people had viewed it. That's substantially less than half the number of candidates that Labour actually put up in Thanet.

He's also clearly in need of some media training, and where better to get it than from yours truly? After all, look what I did for Bignews Tony.

Watch Ladyboy video.

Tories Gain An Extra Seat

As if I didn't open enough veins last week, now I find the blue rinsers with an even larger majority, according to today's Gazunder.

In the paper's double page spread headlined: 'Meet the people who are representing you' there are 34 Conservative councillors, one more than the official tally of 33. Who is the mysterious extra Tory? Step forward Dennis Payne, who polled 432 votes to take the, er, non-existent third seat in Westbrook, according to the crack team at the Gazunder Building.

Meanwhile the paper also credits Grey Party candidate Jane Burgess with another mysterious non-existent third seat in Bradstowe ward. And poor old Ramsgate Firster Mike Taylor's seat in Central Harbour has disappeared altogether.

Oh well, not for nothing does the Gazunder sport a true blue masthead!

Sandy's Election Diary

Top politician Sandy Beach gives the Isle of Thanet Gazunder his exclusive insight into last week's election tussle.

Some tossers said we couldn't get elected for another four years. Yeah right. F*cking tossers. Tossers the lot of them. In yer face. In yer face. Do you wantsum? Do you wantsum? Geddit?!!?! F*cking tossers.

That's enough insight - Ed.

Thanet Goes Down The Gurgler

That's that, then. It's Blue Rinsers 33 seats, Labour 19, Independents 3, and Ramsgate First 1. If I were to clutch at straws, I suppose at least it gives us a bit of continuity. Continuity of incompetence and foul mouthed abuse, that is.

I see my arch nemesis, Dr Biggles, has polled the highest number of votes in Westgate-on-Sea. Congratulations Councillor Dr Biggles. Or would that be Dr Councillor Biggles? Protocol was never my forté.

I wonder if it's too late to have the stitches removed from that vein?

Car Crushing Councillor Rides Again!

I see our local car crushing, caff crushing, graffiti removing Councillor Dave Green has got back in. Congratulations DG!

Not only that, but my good chum (he waved at me from a carnival float once) Steve Ward the Mayor of Ramsgate is past the post!

Maybe I'll see about getting one of those veins stitched back up.

Not A Turnout For The Books

Woe, woe and thrice woe! According to the Uranians the turnout here on Ramsgate's East Cliff was a mere 28.9%, although this was not quite as baleful as on Ted's patch over in Dane Valley, where barely a quarter of the electorate could muster the energy to drag their Nikeed plates over to a polling station.

You can follow all the, er, excitement as the results come in here. I'm off to open the other vein.

Out For The Count

It's quiet. Too quiet. I suppose anyone who's anyone has pootled along to the jolly old Winter Gardens to watch the ballot papers being counted.

Judging by the rest of the country, it looks like we're in for another four years of Sandy and Co. I'm off to open a vein.

Poll Dance

Call me old fashioned, but I do like a good vote once in a while.

This is how I see it. I give the state squillions every year in tax. Four or five years pass. No annual general meetings, no shareholders' reports, no consultations, nothing. That's it. Then a bit of paper with some names on arrives, and I get to put an 'X' next to one of them.

If I walked into Harvey Nics once a year and wrote them a cheque for £100,000, and they said: 'That's great. We'll send you some stuff. And in a few years we'll hold a vote for the bloke who chooses it for you.' Well, I wouldn't be too impressed, would I?

But hey, that's democracy! So here I am, about to toddle down to the East Cliff's luxury, 12 star Comfort Inn, and perform my democratic duty. What are the choices?

Conservatives: The current incumbents here on the Ile de Thanet, but not for me I'm afraid, as I lived through the mad cow years. Yes, they've had a makeover, but can a cow really change its spots? And they've hardly been on a smarm offensive locally over the past few weeks. I'll admit some things have improved, but they've made a hash of the Pleasurama site, Dreamland, West Cliff Hall, the Theatre Royal, Ramsgate Library, our crumbling East Cliff, the list goes on.

Labour: I also lived through the lying Prime Minister years, so again not my favourites. Although locally they've done a pretty good job, with Councillor Green crushing cars and eyesore caffs, removing graffiti, erecting new lamp posts and improving road safety like some kind of crusading superhero.

Ramsgate First: I find myself mysteriously attracted to our chief teeny-tiny councillor, Gerry O'Donnell. Why? Well so much of the council tax we pay here in the Millionaires' Playground seems to end up subsidising the Tory heartlands in the north of the island. We're not, as Mr O'Donnell puts it, getting our 'fair share'. But then is an organisation with no obvious links to any of the mainstream parties ever going to get its voice heard? And then there's the ever-so-faint whiff of UKIP to consider.

Of course, as regular readers will know, I'm a self-confessed Minger and would ordinarily vote for the Invisiberals. But they're not standing here on the East Cliff, and they've only put up three candidates on the entire island. Still, they're known to have a yellow streak, perhaps they're running scared of the rather combative style of local politics around here.

Ramsgate First First, Labour Second, Tories Third

No, not a prediction of the local election result by my clairvoyant showbiz pal Mystic Meg, but the order in which their campaign leaflets have plopped through my letterbox.

Curiously I've yet to hear from the Mingers. Maybe that's because they've given up the ghost round here. Or maybe they're conducting an invisible campaign, in line with their policy of electing an invisible leader.

Ball Trouble

Good lord! According to the front page of yesterday's Isle of Thanet Gazunder, our glorious Tory council leader almost came to blows with the Labour Mayor of Margate at a black tie ball last weekend.

As the less than civil civic occasion was drawing to a close at Margate's Winter Gardens, the mayor is said to have approached our Sandy at the bar, only to be met by a tirade of abuse. The top Tory and former pugilist is alleged to have called the mayor a 'f*cking tosser', and said to another Labour councillor who attempted to intervene: 'Come on, just put your face in mine.'

In his defence, Sandy claims he was 'set up' and had snapped after enduring months of racist comments from the mayor.

Whatever the truth behind the story, we all know that the level of debate from the Conservatives here on Kent's Ramsgate Peninsula is sometimes less than parliamentarian. I myself have been called a 'left wing c*nt' and 'middle class pratt' by the blue rinsers, so personally I'd say the mayor got off lightly.

Sandy: 'F*cking tosser'

New Kids On The Block

by Gazunder Political Editor Gerry Mander

With only eight weeks left to polling day, the island is in the grip of local election fever! And with everything to play for, a host of eager, first time candidates are pounding the doorsteps looking for your vote.

But who are the Wantsum wannabes, and what do they stand for? We've been to meet Thanet's election hopefuls...


President Jacques Chirac, 74 (UKIP, Ramsgate). A surprising choice for UKIP, but Jacques doesn't see being French as a barrier to being elected on an anti-European ticket. 'I am retiring from ze day job in April, and I need ze new challenge,' he told the Gazunder. 'Ramsgate is very close to France, I can be in my constituency at ze drop of ze chapeau.' And Jacques is promising to bring a taste of the continent to Thanet if he's elected. 'I will 'ave a stall in ze French market selling ze pigs testicles. I 'ave ze stripey T shirt and everyzing!'


Bill Watney, 34 (LIBDEM, Broadstairs). Bill makes no bones about the love of his life - beer! 'It's chuffing lovely it is, magic, bloody magic. Bloody lovely,' he quipped. 'I love it, I really love it. Me? Can't get enough of it mate.' Asked about his position on drunken yobbery in Broadstairs High Street at the weekends, Bill responded: 'Wankers the lot of them. I'd chuffing show them where to go. Soft as shite the lot of them. Wankers.'


Brittany Barker, 19 (LAB, Margate). As if being a single mum to 33 little 'uns wasn't enough of a challenge, Brittany's now set her beady eyes on the council chamber. 'I'm fed up with people putting us single mums down,' she says. And she's got another bone to pick with the powers that be. 'Public lighting. There just aren't enough lamp posts in Margate.'


Barry Nutter, 62 (BNP, Cliftonville). Barry's claim to fame is that he once ate an entire suite of dining room furniture. 'I used to go in for these wacky eating competitions,' he told the Gazunder. 'I've also done a sofa, three armchairs and a bicycle.' He set up the Barry Nutter Party last year to highlight the derelict buildings in Cliftonville. 'There's an empty B&B in Dalby Square I've got my eye on. It should go down a treat with some HP Sauce!'


Wing Commander Professor Sir Rodney Joystick OBE, 87 (CON, Westgate). Considered one of the Tory 'new bloods', Sir Rodney was knighted for work on hush-hush government projects during WW2. Since then he's pursued a career in advertising. 'I've been persuaded to stand by fellow members of the North Thanet Conservative Association,' he says. 'Most of them are a lot older than me, and they can't stand at all without the help of a Zimmer frame.' If elected, Sir Rodney has pledged to outlaw young people.

(That's enough candidates - Ed.)