Minister, if I might suggest...

I was much amused to hear that the Cabinet Secretary, Gus O'Donnell - or Sir Gusset as I’ve heard him referred to in a rather typical schoolboy(ish) fashion on more than one occasion - has been whinging to the Public Administration Select Committee that the Freedom of Information Act is interfering with his ability to give advice to ministers.

One particular complaint, which he made in his usual roundabout fashion, was that he could not guarantee that the information would remain private if ministers were to speak "without fear or favor" when they disagreed with something.


Which is complete and utter nonsense of course.

Sir Gusset’s own death might interfere with his ability to give us the 'benefit of his wisdom' but it’s not something I would care to bet on. One thing I am fairly certain of is that nothing as trivial as a mere Act of Parliament is likely to.

It's not dead. It's just resting.

There is an old saying about 'speaking too soon' or as I once heard an American put it, "You just had to open your mouth, didn't ya!"

Well, I lost my broadband connection a few days after making that last post.

Annoying but not earth shattering. Losing the connection is not a particularly rare event as it is a BT line and with no competing services at my local exchange I'm stuck with whatever they choose to provide.

To make matters worse, if their equipment can hold what they interpret as a 'stable' connection at any speed above 0.6mpbs they won't even look at it as this is what they call the "Minimum Fault Threshold".

However all this pales in comparison to the absolute disgrace which is BT Internet's customer/technical support who claimed he couldn't see anything wrong and suggested.

"It's probably just a bit slow due to network congestion."

Even Eric Idle sounded more convincing than that in the now infamous Parrot Sketch.

In the end, it took nearly fifteen minutes for this idiot to satisfy himself that there was a fault and a further week for BT to 'fix' it.

Sort of...

The only real different is now they're claiming that because of something they had to do at the exchange - no explanation of what - they can't escalate the fault until fourteen days have passed.

It took them another three days on top to fix whatever they’d ‘fixed’ the first time round. So in total, I was without a usable internet connection for nearly a month.


And yes. I do have access to the internet at another location but I'd be a right bloody fool to post entries to this blog from there, wouldn't I?

Seconds Out, Round Two...

The person - or persons - who have been trying to break into my Doverwatch accounts are nothing if not persistent and while the Techo-Rabbi is fairly certain they've been unsuccessful, what they have succeeded in doing is temporarily stop me from posting while the attacks are 'in progress'.

So what you can expect for the forseeable future is a brief flurry of activity followed by a somewhat longer period of absolutely nothing while I wait for the resulting nonsense to stop.

At the moment, I'm still quite determined to out-wait these idiots. How long that will last I really could not say, but in the words of Arthur Dent as penned by the late Douglas Adams.

We'll see who rusts first, shall we?

Ivybank

Last week I received an email from the new deputy manager at Ivybank Residential Care Home which is reopening tomorrow under new ownership.

She didn't go into a great deal of detail but did mention that the premises have been extensively refurbished and redecorated, has new management, new staff, etc.

I understand that their recent open day was fairly well attended by the usual suspects. Social Services, local care managers, prospective clients... Well... Their younger relatives actually... All of whom were described as being suitable impressed by the premises and the staff.

Unfortunately none of the local councillors were able to attend which they naturally found a bit disappointing. With local elections later this week, I certainly wouldn't have missed the opportunity to 'show my support' for local business.


One thing I was slightly surprised to hear was that the new owner is keeping the existing name. As some of you may know, Ivybank was closed just before Christmas last year.

I don't have many details and what I do have certainly wouldn't help the new owner - mud sticks as the saying goes. Suffice it to say that the only connection with the previous regime is a single member of the night staff.

Needless to say, I wish them all the very best of British Luck.


By an interesting coincidence, the young lady who emailed me is the former accounts clerk from W.H.Smiths who seems to have 'landed on her feet' after the appalling way she was treated there.

After all the manager's assurances about being "fair", she was the only one to lose her job. While the abusive individual who brought her husband along to help 'browbeat' the manager didn't lose a single hour, despite having received a written warning last year for exactly the same thing, sans-husband.

Naturally, having now made a sort of 'personal' contact with her. I grabbed the opportunity to get her version of the events leading up to her 'departure'.

Or rather, I tried to...

She wasn't very forthcoming. In fact, I suspect she thought I was being just a little impertinent as she was quite blunt in telling me to 'Bugger Off!'

One thing is for certain. Unlike the previous owner and their 24 year old manager, this young lady won't compromise on important issues such as patient care. Or anything else for that matter...

Over Our Dead Bodies!

I was much amused to see Bob Goldfield's pathetic attempts to bribe DHB staff and their families fail so spectacularly.

With more than 97% of the Dover residents who turned out voting in favour of a 'People's Port' , it was as clear a message telling him where to stick his proposal as you can get.

As you would expect from someone with 'close ties' to the Tories, he's blaming the whole thing on his staff for "not getting DHB's message across to the public".

This is complete nonsense of course. The residents of Dover understand his proposal only too well which is why they voted so overwhelmingly for the alternative.

Naturally this hasn't stopped him from 'bending ears' and 'making promises' up in London, and while he might describe this as 'getting his message across' it still looks like plain old fashioned bribery to me.

Oh No! Not More Queer Science!

I'm constantly amazed by the extremes that Americans will go to in their desperation to prove that Homosexuality is a disease.

Everything from psychobabble about Faulty Parenting, Unsuitable Home Environment, Unisex Schooling, Masturbation...

To more 'medically' inclined explanations such as Mental Illness and Genetic Disorders have been cited as possible 'causes'.

Now a paper circulating within the medical community claims to have evidence that Homosexuality is linked to reduced Serotonin levels within the brain.

Apparently this particular paper is still undergoing 'peer-review' but it can't be a coincidence that another paper claiming similar findings in mice surfaced briefly in Nature magazine before 'disappearing' again.

One thing is certain. If there were any truth at all in this nonsense then there would be few, if any, Homosexuals of either gender using drugs such as Ecstacy which stimulate the release of Serotonin within the brain.

Decline and Fall

A business acquaintance was interviewing last week and in amongst the usual mixed bag of no-shows and timewasters - sent along by the employment service in order to fill their quota - was a woman who would have been suitable had she not refused to say why she was leaving her current job.

Normally that's a bad sign. In this case the woman insisted that she had done nothing wrong but had been ordered not to discuss the reason for her leaving with anyone including prospective employers.

In fact, she seemed more concerned about her employer finding out she had 'talked' than the effect it would have on her search for another job.

Rather odd to say the least.

Fortunately - to use that very american phrase - I know someone, who knows someone...

And it turns out that the poor woman was telling the truth. Staff at W.H.Smiths in Dover have been told by the manager - then later 'reminded' by the supervisor - not to discuss the subject of a recent staff meeting with anyone and were warned there would be 'consequences' for anyone who did.

And what is this great 'secret' which they are going to such lengths to protect?

Some of the staff at Dover are to be made redundant at the end of March.

Yes. That really is all there is to it.

Even the background seems fairly straightforward. A recent audit showed a shortfall of nearly £30,000 which is an awful lot for a small store like Dover. So head office have decreed that staffing levels have to be reduced by a minimum of 30 hours per week.

The manager has been conducting interviews to determine who will be made redundant with predictable consequences. Staff who got along fairly well for the most part are now desperately trying to stab each other in the back.

Worst of the lot was the one who stormed into the manager’s office with her husband on the day after her second interview. His angry demand to know if his wife was going to lose her job could be clearly heard in the staff room across the hall. He became quite abusive when she refused to discuss the matter with him.

All this would be quite bad enough by itself. However it seems that in the case of the accounts clerk, the interviews are nothing more than window dressing on a decision which has already been made.

I've mentioned the investigation into missing scratch cards before. This started when the accounts clerk noticed a number of discrepancies shortly after taking up her new post and reported them to the manager.

What I did not mention for obvious reasons was that by the time I heard about it, the investigation had focused on the store's supervisor.

A fact she was apparently well aware of at the time.

What followed was a ridiculous series of clumsy attempts to 'stitch-up' the accounts clerk which eventually escalated to include the current manager and, on one occasion, the area manager who was severely reprimanded for her behaviour after it blew up in their faces.

Since that incident both the manager and the supervisor have also been reprimanded for their "unprofessional behaviour" towards the young lady in question.

That was several months ago and now it seems that the investigation into this pair of idiots might still be ongoing if the manager's most recent blunder is anything to go by.

Stealing from your employer is pretty stupid to begin with. To follow that with a clumsy and thoroughly disastrous campaign of harassment against the person who discovered the thefts is even worse.

But to then compound the whole thing by telling the young lady in question that she could keep her job if she dropped the matter simply beggars believe.

To do this is a place where they could be overheard by anyone passing nearby simply leaves me speechless in amazement.

Another long Gap

Normally this is where I would make some pathetic sounding excuse about my workload and not having enough time.

The fact that it’s true. I do have an enormous workload which leaves me with barely enough time to do what I need to, never mind anything else is besides the point.

“I didn’t have time" still sounds like a pathetic excuse.

However on this occasion it was a security problem and not a lack of time.

This is nothing new of course. I’m used to the amateurish attempts to break into my email account which often follow postings about the Labour Party or Dover District Council.

I’m also used to the light-hearted attempts of a certain town councillor to ferret out the same information and certainly wouldn’t want him to stop.

However this was very different.

It was far too persistent for one thing, having started somewhere around the beginning of September last year and continued on and off until just over six weeks ago.

It was also far more sophisticated, almost ‘professional’ in it’s approach and while the Techo-Rabbi is fairly certain the attempts were unsuccessful, he cannot guarantee that. Not that it would have helped as none of the accounts link back to me in any way.

However this did mean some fairly extensive changes were needed. I had to refrain from logging on to this blog and the accounts connected to it while this was ongoing to avoid any chance of the connection being traced. I couldn’t even risk changing the passwords.

The computer I use for writing and publishing this blog had to be wiped and re-installed to eliminate any traces which might have ‘slipped through the cracks’.

Finally, new ‘security arrangements’ had to be designed and put into place. Naturally this took some time but the Techo-Rabbi thought it was necessary and as I couldn’t do anything while the ‘attack’ was ongoing, I wasn’t going to argue with him. Particularly as he would be doing all the work.


That’s all done now. The new arrangements are in place. There has been no ‘hostile’ activity for six weeks and I’ve changed all the passwords so now I can get back to using pathetic sounding excuses about not having enough time.


Naturally I’m curious about what set this off but the only thing I can think of is the remark about a secret deal to sell off council housing stock which I closed my Simply Bad Management post with.

It was meant to be amusing but instead I seem to have touched a nerve.

A very, very raw one.

2012 Olympic Games threatened by Boris Johnson

I was much amused in an exasperated sort of way, to hear Boris Johnson blathering on last week about ‘sex workers’ and the alleged threat they pose to the London Olympic Games in 2012 claiming that

“Major sporting events are often linked to an upsurge in demand for prostitution”.

Naturally he declined to provide any evidence to support this ridiculous claim which ranks him alongside Labour MP Dennis MacShane and the ArchSelfPublicist of York, Dr John Sentamu, who also declined to provide any evidence for their claims that the 2012 games would attract large numbers of prostitutes and thus the attention of human traffickers.

While I applaud their efforts to raise public awareness of human trafficking, I’m inclined to suspect that in this particular case it is simply wishful thinking on their part as all the available evidence suggests quite the opposite.

Criminals like easy profits, the bigger the better, and with the Olympic Games being pretty much a family affair, they are unlikely to attract the sort of clientèle which would enable the traffickers to recoup their ‘investment’.

As for the other major sporting events, the overwhelming quantity of evidence available clearly shows that the only time football fans have any kind of interpersonal contact - intimate or otherwise - with other people who are not football fans is when there is no football to watch.

No. These are not extremists, most of whom starved to death within weeks of the advent of 24hour football television channels - although there are rumours that some may have held out for nearly a month. They are simply ‘ordinary’ football fans who are unfortunately, still living and breeding in our towns and cities.

I realise that might give some people the impression that I dislike football which is not the case. Of course I like football. I’m English aren’t I?

The problem is that the majority of football fans take it far too seriously. Anyone who was around in the 70s and early 80s doesn’t need me to remind them just how bad it was. It’s certainly no co-incidence that I and many other ‘casual’ fans stopped going to football matches at that time.

But even then, we went to watch football not find prostitutes.

Downfall (ACS Law remix)

Some of you may have seen the Gordon Brown parodies based on the bunker scene from the film Downfall featuring Adolf Hitler as Gordon Brown.

I found most of them quite amusing but the real Gordon Brown’s reaction to them was much, much better. To paraphrase Queen Victoria, he was not amused. After viewing one in particular he then ‘parodied the parody’ so to speak, by have a temper tantrum much like that depicted.

Which led me to wonder - after I had stopped laughing of course - what Andrew Crossley’s reaction would be to the following video I was sent a couple of days ago.



From what I’ve read in his emails I suspect it may be somewhat similar to that of Gordon Brown.

Artchas Coart Skool

By now everyone has no doubt heard about the ‘incident’ at Archers Court or as it is now known Dover Christchurch Academy.

There’s certainly been enough coverage of it in the media with some ‘parents’ actually supporting the actions of the pupils.

What hasn’t received much in the way of media attention is the injuries sustained by staff and pupils who refused to take part or were otherwise uninvolved. Nor has there been any significant coverage of the ongoing harassment and assaults on those pupils.

While I can’t say very much as I don’t wish to risk prejudicing the ongoing investigation. I’m sure it will come as no surprise to learn that this is due for the most part to pressure from KCC to ‘play it down’. One media outlet, the KM Group, actually went so far as to falsely claim that no one had been injured.

Naturally KCC are claiming this is for the benefit of the pupils and not simply to spare them the embarassment of having yet again failed miserably to address the ongoing problem of Archers Court.

As for those ‘parents’ who expressed their support. These are the same ones who support the closure of both grammar schools and Astor College because - they claim - it gives the pupils who attend them an “unfair advantage”.

By “unfair advantage” I suspect they mean it’s depriving their children of the opportunity to persecute anyone younger, smaller or more intelligent than them without fear of reprisal as they themselves did for far, far too many years.

Poetic Justice

My techie friend has been having a whale of a time after some idiot at ACS Law made an unencrypted backup containing a substantial quantity of their emails available on their website last week.

As some people may already know,‭ ‬ACS Law is the London based law firm run by Andrew Crossley which has become notorious for it's abuse of the legal system to extort money from people accused - wrongly in many cases - of copyright infringement.

An abuse which has been condemned by members of the House of Lords‭ ‬and the BPI. Although I suspect that in the case of the latter they foresaw what would eventually happen and were simply trying to avoid being hit by flying excrement when it finally hit the fan.

Below is a list of links - provided by the aforementioned techno-rabbi - to articles covering the contents of the emails in far greater detail than I could manage. The file contains nearly 7000 documents and even with the best will in the world, it would quite impossible to do more than skim the surface in the limited time I could scrounge from my many other commitments.

However there was a couple of things which caught my attention.

One of Andrew Crossley’s ‘copyright’ clients is none other than Anna Span, a.k.a. Anna Arrowsmith. Pornographer and the very well publicised Lib-Dem PPC for Gravesham in the general election.

I suspect that their leadership may be regretting that particular piece of‭ '‬open mindedness‭' ‬given their very public opposition to Andrew Crossley and his ilk. After all, it was a Lib-Dem Peer who compared Andrew Crossley and ACS Law to “rogue wheel-clampers”.


And how about this for sheer bloody cheek.

How about a complaint to the sra that this lady - who is a solicitor - is bringing the profession into disrepute? She is issuing misleading information that is slanted and innaccurate and it leads people she does not act for to disregard a matter that could end up in court. She is a total disgrace.

Andrew J. Crossley
Principal
ACS Law Solicitors


My overall impression of Andrew Crossley from his emails is that of a ‘Del-Boy‭' ‬of the legal profession.‭ ‬A shady‭ '‬wheeler and dealer‭' ‬who's not above bending,‭ ‬perhaps even breaking,‭ ‬the law to earn a little money.

However there is one very,‭ ‬very significant difference.

Del-Boy as portrayed by actor David Jason was basically a decent person trying to do his best for a younger brother and an elderly relative in a run-down area of south London full of con-artists,‭ ‬crooks and corrupt coppers.

Andrew Crossley is not.


Following the revelations detailed in the articles linked below, it should come as no surprise that most of the ISPs targeted by Andrew Crossley have now 'suspended cooperation’ citing security concerns. The single exception to this is Entanet which is continuing to ‘cooperate’ at this time.

BT have also said that it would resist efforts to share more customer details until it could be sure that “alleged copyright infringements have some basis and customers are treated fairly"

It’s a pity they didn’t think that way before but with their own balls in the wringer over having sent the data unencrypted they, like most of the ISPs involved, are now bending over backwards in a futile attempt to distance themselves from ACS Law.


And finally, to add insult to a well deserved injury, a group calling themselves “Wankers” - apparently in reference to Andrew Crossley’s childish threat to sue Slyck.com over a forum post calling him a wanker - has put together a ‘megapack’ containing all of the music which Andrew Crossley is using as a pretext to send his threatening letters and made it available on a range of filesharing platforms.


New 4chan DDoS Targets Hated Anti-Piracy Law Firm
Piracy threats lawyer mocks 4chan DDoS attack
ACS:Law Anti-Piracy Law Firm Torn Apart By Leaked Emails
ACS:Law (Gay) Porn Letters Target Pensioners, Married Men
Leaked Emails Reveal Profits of Anti-Piracy Cash Scheme
High-Profile, High Damages File-Sharing ‘Conviction’ Was a Farce
Anti-piracy lawyers' email database leaked after hack
ACS:Law's mocking of 4chan could cost it £500k
The "legal blackmail" business: inside a P2P settlement factory
P2P settlement factory expects £10 million from... mailing letters
Pirates release ACS:Law 'megapack' of music

oops...

My wife and I had dinner last night with some friends from London, one of whom is a senior surgical registrar at a teaching hospital.

The conversation naturally turned to the Pope’s visit which had caused the hospital a few problems. Along with staff demanding time off for “religious reasons" - not all of whom were Catholic it seems - there was the inevitable traffic congestion and a veritable flood of minor injuries sustained in the ‘crush’.

I happened to mention that a senior Vatican official had claimed the HIV virus could easily pass through the pores of a condom. Something which had resurfaced amongst the fringe coverage of the Pope’s visit.

The look of utter disgust on his face was truly something to behold, as were his words.

“Jesus Christ! I thought priests were supposed to be educated men!”

There really wasn’t anything I could have said to that even if I hadn’t been laughing my head off along with everyone else.

Staine Resistant

I was at a Labour Party‭ ‘‬thing‭’ ‬last week and despite the change in leadership,‭ ‬little else seems to have changed.

I’m still a traditional socialist and the neo-tory fascists of new labour are still treating me like the victim of a horrendously disfiguring and highly contagious disease.

But I was expecting that of course.‭ ‬It’s something I’ve gotten used to and quite frankly,‭ ‬I would be very concerned if they suddenly started treating me like a colleague again.

What I wasn’t expecting was to run into Paul Staines,‭ ‬author of the Guido Fawkes blog.‭ ‬After all,‭ ‬he’s probably one of the very few people the new labour mob hate more than socialists.

Being unable to avoid or escape him due to the circumstances,‭ ‬I was forced to listen to him whining on and on about the Islamification of England and how the pope’s plans for‭ “‬re-Catholicisation‭” ‬were our only hope of survival.‭ ‬This was followed by a rant about the‭ “‬Atheist Bigoted Media‭” ‬and their campaign of hatred against the pope.

Bigoted‭? ‬From a‭ ‘‬man‭’ ‬who had just spent what seemed like an incredibly long ten minutes lecturing me on the evils of Islam‭?

To make matters worse,‭ ‬he was doing this in defence of child abusers and the man who protected them.‭ ‬Joseph Ratzinger,‭ ‬an anti-Semitic bigot who as head of the Inquisition‭ ‬-‭ ‬now known as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith‭ ‬-‭ ‬personally signed the orders that priests accused of sexual offences against children should not be surrendered to the authorities.

It‭ ‬could be suggested that his highly inebriated condition had something to do with this‭ ‘‬outburst‭’ ‬but he’s always like this.‭ ‬Mind you I’ve rarely seen him in any other condition and never stone cold sober.

Wel... (cough, choke)... Welcome Back Kingsley

Lambeth Councillor Kingsley Abrams who was suspended from the Lambeth Labour group after retaining his seat with an increased majority is to be rather‭ ‬grudgingly‭ “‬invited to rejoin the ranks‭”‬.

I say‭ ‬grudgingly because in addition to the short,‭ ‬rather curt message on the Labour in Lambeth website‭ ‬-‭ ‬which incidentally,‭ ‬contains no hint of reconciliation.‭ ‬The Lambeth Labour group has once again changed it’s tune and is now claiming that Councillor Abrams leaked‭ “‬highly confidential information to the Liberal Democrats in the run-up to the council elections‭”‬.

The original version of events was that he had been suspended for‭ "violating council email use policy‭" ‬after a nasty little entrapment operation run by supposedly neutral council officers went wrong.

And if the original version of this sorry tale was stretching credulity a bit far then this new version has definitely caused it to snap‭!

Quite frankly,‭ ‬the idea that a man who has been a dedicated member of the Labour Party for‭ ‬32‭ ‬years would pass confidential information to the Conservative Support Group...‭ ‬erm...‭ ‬I mean the Liberal Democrats...‭ ‬is bloody ridiculous.

I must admit I don’t know Kingsley Abrams very well but he always seemed to be a fairly decent bloke who,‭ ‬like me,‭ ‬believes that essential infrastructure such as social housing is far too important to be left in private hands.

The appalling mismanagement of Lambeth’s housing stock by the Lambeth Living ALMO and the collapse of Connaught only serve to underline that point.

Labour in Lambeth

Would YOU vote for him?

I was rather amused to hear of a certain local politician who is refusing to have a vasectomy because he thinks it might have an adverse effect on his chances of being re-elected.

No, this is not a joke. He genuinely seems to believe that some people will not vote for him if he has ‘The Snip’.

I would suggest that only a devout Catholic could be so daft - the Catholic Church has made it’s feelings on the matter abundantly clear on many occasions - but he isn’t a Catholic, devout or otherwise, and the Catholics won’t vote for him anyway because he’s one of us “Godless Heathen” or Atheists as we’re more commonly called.

Alternatively, he may have been talking to the Knuckle-Draggers of the Tabloid Press Readers Association and/or men with certain 'cultural' prejudices - both of whom have condemned vasectomy as a “cruel and barbaric” practice - but they won’t vote for him either as he neither shares their prejudices nor panders to them.

Still... As pathetic excuses go, it’s certainly the most original I’ve heard for a while and it does make a change from the usual childish whining about their precious ‘manhood’.

Is that all there is?

I been hearing a lot of people complaining about this year’s Dover carnival which took place Sunday.

Boring, wasn’t worth the effort, etc. The usual sort of nonsense I expect from members of the Whingers and Whiners Club for whom it seems, nothing is ever good enough.

Unfortunately on this occasion I would have to agree with them. Most people did seem to find it disappointing, particularly those who had made a special trip to see it.

However I would ask everyone to remember that the organisers did the best they could under very difficult circumstances and while it might have been better to cancel it this year, that would have set a bad precedent. If cancelled under the present circumstances there is no guarantee it would take place again in the foreseeable future. Something which even I would like to avoid if possible despite my personal distaste for certain aspects of it.

As for the miserable sods from the Whingers and Whiners Club. Who knows what goes on in their minds...

May I have your attention please...

I popped into Smiths on my way past yesterday afternoon to pick a newspaper and was just in time to catch the accounts clerk ‘remonstrating’ with her colleagues over their somewhat strange obsession with her private life.

From what I can gather it started with their ‘persistent’ questions as to why she was there in the afternoon instead of the morning and deteriorated from there until it reached the point where she demanded they stop what they were doing and listen.

Whereupon she gave them the information they were so persistently seeking - right between the eyes!

To say they seemed suitably embarrassed might be something of an understatement.

Yes, I know. Some people might consider it highly unprofessional of her to do that in front of customers and in a manager or supervisor it most certainly would be.

However as someone who has had to hang about waiting to be served on far too many occasions while staff gossiped I can only applaud her not-so-subtle way of reminding them that they’re being paid to serve customers, not pry into her private life.

I expect the area manager will have an opinion on this but given her own history of unprofessional behaviour towards this young woman - which almost cost her her job last year – it would probably be a very good idea if she kept it to herself.

One is certain, I sure as hell wouldn’t want to upset that young lady!

Simply Bad Management?

There’s been a bit of a row going on in Lambeth over the council’s monitoring of Councillor Kingsley Abrams email and his subsequent suspension from the local Labour group for four months.

However what seems to have been 'overlooked’ amongst all the shouting, accusations, counter-accusations, etc. is that the email incident which led to his suspension was simply another attempt in a sustained campaign of harassment aimed at forcing him out prior to the local elections on the 6th May.

All of which failed when he dug his heels in and refused to resign. Suspending him after he was re-elected with 2533 votes - the highest in that ward - simply shows how petty, spiteful and childish New Labour’s neo-tory leaders really are.


Yes, that’s all very interesting but what does it have to do with Dover?

Considerably more than you might think.

The reason behind all this ‘fuss’ is Kingsley Abrams’ staunch opposition to the now spectacularly failed Lambeth Living, an Arms Length Management Organisation (ALMO) created in 2008 by Lambeth council to manage it's housing stock and which was described by the Audit Commission as “poor and deteriorating” with 11 out of 13 service areas being described as a weakness or having more weaknesses than strengths.

The report also expressed concerns over Lambeth Living’s steep rent increases which had been expected to exceed 17% last year and concluded that housing standards had significantly deteriorated under Lambeth Living’s management with little prospect for improvement.

However, damning as it is, the Audit Commission’s report simply confirmed what was already common knowledge.

Lambeth council’s ALMO experiment has been an unmitigated disaster.

Starting with an unexplained ‘deficit’ of £8.4 million in the first 4 months of operation - much of which has still not been fully accounted for. Residents and leaseholders being over billed, double billed, billed for works and contracts which simply did not exist. Accounting errors which left Lambeth Living with an additional deficit of over £4 million last year.

With this in mind it will probably come as no surprise to learn that only 2 of the more than 100 tower blocks in the borough have a valid fire safety certificate.

Describing Lambeth Living’s customer service centre as 'dire' seems somewhat anti-climatic by comparison.


The ALMO scam... erm... I mean scheme, being proposed by Dover District Council in partnership with Canterbury, Shepway and Thanet is essentially identical in all the important aspects to that created by Lambeth council.

Dover District Council’s claim that 21 of the 69 - soon to be 68 with the forthcoming demise of Lambeth Living - are ‘top performing’ is like claiming that one cesspool is performing better than another cesspool because it doesn’t smell so bad.

The truth is they both stink and it’s not something that most people would want in their community.

In fact, only 11 out of the soon to be 68 ALMOs actually meet the Decent Housing Standard while the other 10 are ‘on course’ to meet their obligations by the end of the specified two year period.

Which still leaves nearly three quarters of them failing and with the Audit Commission due to go on the bonfire in the near future that number will only grow as councils will then be free to appoint their own auditors.

Also amongst their various waffling claims of improved services, more say in how those services are provided etc. is the claim that council tenants would “pay similar rents”.

Note, similar, not the same.

This means that when the expected cost savings fail to appear - as seems likely based on other local authorities experiences - it will almost certainly be council tenants and leaseholders who will be expected to foot the bill for the ALMO's failures.



So what’s next for Lambeth council tenants and leaseholders? With the dismal failure of Lambeth Living the council claims it has only one option left - stock transfer. It is now seeking approval to ‘transfer’ ownership of a large portion of it’s better housing assets to ‘approved’ social housing landlords.


By the way, I’m fairly sure that there is absolutely no truth in the rumours of a secret deal to sell council housing stock to the Southern Housing Group at a significantly discounted price when the ALMO scam... I mean scheme, collapses.

Rogue Waves

I was at the Waves cafe in De Bradelei Wharf a couple of weeks ago when I overheard two of the staff discussing how they could get rid of the new cook.

Apparently one of them wanted ‘her’ job back.

Their idea was to plant something in the cook’s bag then inform the manager they had seen her put it there.

At the time I simply ignored it. I hear a lot of this sort of petty spiteful gossip - it’s difficult to avoid it given the size of my ears. A right ‘princely’ pair as one of my colleagues once joked.

However I was back there again at the weekend and was reminded of this rather nasty little tete-a-tete when I learned that the cook they were referring to had been dismissed last week - for theft.

Now this could simply be a coincidence of course, but as a friend in the Kent Constabulary once remarked,

Not even the Commissioner of the Met is stupid enough to believe that!