BERTIE IS INDISPOSED

Bertie sends his apologies but he regrets he must remain at the disposal of his medics at QEQM and will not be blogging  until further notice.

RESULTS IN THANET FOR 6th MAY 2010 - NO CHANGE?

My congratulations to Roger Gale's team in NTCA for having his circular through my door by 1400 today!

Roger will have my support this year, yet again, simply because I believe he has been a jolly good MP for North Thanet and because Dane Valley Ward is still in his constituency. I have not been entirely happy with his view on China Gateway and his past support of the 'Ezekielites' but that is now history. His Labour opposition is so low key as to be derisory and I have yet to see what the Lib Dems have in mind. I think that it is a safe prediction to make that Roger will be returned by the electorate to Westminster on 6th May.

Steve Ladyman over at Thanet South is in an interesting position. Boundary changes have meant that he  has lost Sholden to Dover and Minster and Monkton to Roger Gale in N. Thanet but now has Cliftonville West and Cliftonville East in South Thanet. There are many in these wards who have never bothered to get out and vote Labour as they have taken the view that Roger Gale was un-assailable; that might well now change. It is also interesting that Steve Ladyman has been working for 2 years (post Transport Minister) as a very good constituency MP and gaining a great deal of respect locally as a good Thanet MP, as has Roger Gale on the north side.

Whilst Laura Sandys, has been working hard as prospective parliamentary candidate for Thanet South for a long time, she is still perceived as a Cameron 'choice' parachuted into to mix it with the locals and quite frankly has not made the impact that she would have hoped for. She has also to face the 'Ezekilite' factor in Thanet South and in Cliftonville that last month's change of Leader might perhaps have been too late to alter perceptions. For too long, Conservative TDC has been perceived dimly by its electorate and many might now avoid voting for Laura as a simple protest against their Conservative Council. There is no doubt that the Thanet electorate does its own thing and perhaps that is healthy.

After a rapid analysis in the 'Strife' Office, the collective view is that Thanet will still have the same faces as our MPs after 6th May and that perhaps that is no bad thing.

If the rest of the country decide that Brown et al are worth another 5 years then heaven help us but that is what democracy is all about, isn't it?

HAPPY EASTER

A Happy Easter and a thought that whilst too many religious singers of the Christian song have been revealed to be criminal abusers, it doesn't diminish the 'song'.

As Dave Allan used to say " May your God go with you".

AGNUS DEI, QUI TOLLIS PECCATA MUNDI