Below is Mike Harrison's opinion, published in the Newington Blog, in full, on the Thanet Times's headline about the Ramsgate Town Council.

Tuesday, 30 September 2008 

Ramsgate Council or G.O.D's dream

So at last its official, the expected cost of a Ramsgate Council is anticipated to be up to half a million within three years, I suspect that that figure will be reached a lot sooner than that. G.O.D. and his little band of sycophants have completely overlooked several factors in their calculations, for example they still seem to think that Ramsgate Council will be based in a building provided by TDC this is not the case and they will have to stand on their own two feet from day one. I also notice that there are still no firm plans on exactly what they propose to do other than "Ramsgate could not get worse"
Along with others Town centre Councillor Peter Cambell has warned of the possible consequences of a Town Council he said " There is no cap on the precept that Parish and Town Councils can charge their residents."
I have been warning ever since this was first raised that this could mean that the Town Council could raise the Council Tax for Ramsgate as much as they wanted to fund the madcap schemes that they are no doubt hatching. Of course at no time has G.O.D. ever mentioned the bulk of Ramsgate ie Newington, Northwood, Dumpton, Nethercourt and all the other parts of Ramsgate, what are his plans for lets say Ellington Park? what are his proposals for street cleaning in Newington, how do his plans fit in with TDC's warden scheme? What ideas for maintaining Ramsgates cemetaries? As usual we have nothing of substance from Ramsgate First only vague statements about how Ramsgate has been let down, if only he had got off his bum and attended a few Council meetings he would know that all Ramsgates Councillors are vociferous in their defence of Ramsgate and unrelenting in trying to obtain a better deal for the Town.

GO'D's Comment.

If Mike Harrison has still got a copy of Ramsgate First's petition leaflet, that was distributed before the Petition was raised, he'd see that we told the people of Ramsgate, up front, Warts and All, about the likely cost of a Ramsgate Town Council. We said that it would cost each Ramsgate rate payer an extra £24 per annum in addition to the £8 they were already paying for the Charter Trustees' Dining Club. That figure would raise £480,000 per annum.

 And still the good people of Ramsgate, who Mike seems to think are fools, signed the Petition.

You see Mike we told and published the truth and can prove it which is more than most so-called caring, sharing, trough-swilling politicians do.

Secondly we never expected that Thanet District Council would give the Town Council a home. That is in your fevered imagination. However, the people of Ramsgate will be interested to learn from your keyboard that buildings that they once owned, ie Albion House, will be withheld from their own new Town Council out of spite and sold on instead to whatever dodgy property developer they can find next.

But what really saddens me about your rant, apart from the inventions and distortions, is your claim that Ramsgate councillors fight for Ramsgate. If they did, if they ever did, then the people of Ramsgate never spotted it in any meaningful way. That's why they supported our Petition and that's why they went on to vote for a Ramsgate Town Council in the subsequent Referendum, which we in Ramsgate First and no-one else, secured for them.

Thanks to Ramsgate First, and not you, the people of Ramsgate were finally consulted about the kind of future they wanted for their town.

What is even more interesting is that you despise the very democratic tools that your national party, through the Labour Government, wants our people to have. The 1997 Act and the 2007 Act have enhanced and encouraged the right of people to have their own parish and town councils. There are moves afoot, according to the KALC, to parish the whole of London.

And as for Town Council's Precepts being uncapped (A Margaret Thatcher tool you clearly approve of) you are perfectly correct.

What a pity we couldn't have capped that spendthrift, incompetent Gordon Brown and his Labour Government that has led our people into the worst recession in 70 years. We don't need lessons in fiscal probity from Labour. Not while millions of low to middle income families are suffering Fuel Poverty. Not while we see, under a Labour government, the return of Rachmanism. (You can look Peter Rachman up in Wikipedia.)

Ramsgate now has its own Town Council and at last we can address the failures, stupidities and incompetences of the last 35 years under the misrule of both Labour and the Tories.

Gerry O'Donnell