Reform UK - East Thanet Constituency

01/11/2026

A look at one of our seaside towns that we have the privilege of enjoying year round.

30/10/2026

It’s back! Third series: Things you should have done. What would you have done?
Madness; but great comedy and all filmed in Thanet. Can you spot the locations?

First series available on BBC iPlayer.

Filming for series three of BBC comedy Things You Should Have Done is taking place in Thanet. Written by and starring Margate-born Lucia Keskin, the series follows Chi, a self-titled stay-at-home d…

28/10/2026

More a murmur than an earthquake budget. So bland, so weak. But they announce an update on Kent’s governance. Not LGR but possibly Mayoral elections. They just need to make a decision, which is clearly a challenge for Labour.

27/10/2026

Built to take the heavy lorries heading for the ferry away from the town centre and Royal Harbour. Now surplus to requirements.

🚧 Planned emergency exercise at Ramsgate Tunnel

On Friday 30 October, KCC, Thanet District Council and emergency services will be carrying out a planned emergency response exercise at Ramsgate Tunnel.

You may see emergency vehicles, personnel and simulated incident activity.

✅ This is only an exercise
✅ Please follow signed diversion routes
✅ There is no need to report activity associated with the exercise

Thank you for your patience while we carry out this important safety exercise.

26/10/2026

Is Sir Roger, MP for RiverOak really going to stand again? Were is the upcoming talent in the Conservative Party?

Another interesting "direction of travel" decision here.

Kemi's "New" Conservative Party has re-selected REMAINER Roger Gale as a parliamentary candidate.

Gale is 83, and recently REFUSED to vote for ECHR withdrawal, and in fact called the idea of leaving "a grave mistake."

He was previously suspended from parliament for attempted to influence judges to protect a sexual assault convict, his friend and former MP Charlie Elphicke.

Tell us, Kemi! Is this really a NEW Conservative Party?

Or is it the SAME OLD TORIES?

26/10/2026

Labour government call to arms.

WES STREETING has said Britain must be ready for war in 1,000 days as Russia continues its hybrid warfare against Nato.

The Defence Secretary has warned that Britain’s enemies could be in a position to attack the country by 2030, meaning that by then we must “be ready with our allies to fight and win”.

Under a new government campaign, households are being urged to stockpile food and water in case everyday services are disrupted by cyber attacks.

New guidance published by the Government urged the public to keep kits for emergencies, including three days’ worth of non-perishable food and bottled water, an FM radio, power banks and blankets.

In December 2025 the then Defence Secretary, John Healey, and the former Minister for Veterans and People, Louise Sandher-Jones, announced the launch of a “gap year” foundation scheme to give under-25s experience of the armed forces.

The scheme was a recommendation of the government’s 2025 Strategic Defence Review and was initially set to launch in early 2026, with the first intake of around 150 participants gaining a year of paid experience and training across the armed forces. Ministers aim to expand the scheme to over 1,000 young people.

The government later announced: “The total cost to Defence to deliver the pilot scheme is £13m, which will be drawn from existing training and workforce budgets.” The first take of the Armed Forces Foundation Scheme will begin in September 2026.

ANDY BURNHAM has doubled the funding for his pledge to end rough sleeping after failing to solve the problem when he was mayor of Greater Manchester.

Chancellor John Healey will outline £432m of taxpayer money for rough sleepers in his maiden Budget on Wednesday, adding to the £442m already pledged and taking the total investment into rough sleeping to £874m until the end of this Parliament.

Tents are being handed out to early release prisoners by the Probation Service after it ran out of housing for them, The Telegraph can reveal.

A whistleblower said that their probation office handed out about 100 tents in the past year to freed prisoners who had nowhere to live, but said that stocks had now run dry amid surging demand.

Charities have also reported that probation officers had been asking for tents they could give out, according to documents seen by this publication.

Andy Burnham’s early release scheme allows prisoners to be freed as little as a third of the way into their sentences to ease the prison overcrowding crisis.

However, a housing shortage means the number of releases into rough sleeping has more than doubled since 2022-23, rising from 6,040 to 14,360 this year. Almost one in six prisoners (15.9 per cent) are left homeless.

UNPAID council tax bills have soared to a record £7.4bn owed by households, official figures have revealed.

The council tax arrears have risen by £782m in the past year as families have struggled to cope with the cost of living crisis, according to analysis by the Centre for Social Justice think tank (CSJ).

Unpaid council tax bills have increased by more than £500m a year since 2020-21, from £4.97bn in 2021-22 to £7.42bn in 2025-26, a rise of nearly 50 per cent.

The debt mountain is equivalent to the £7bn that would be needed to cut income tax by 1p.

The chancellor, John Healey, will unveil billions of pounds of new defence spending in an unexpected announcement in Wednesday’s budget.

Real-terms defence spending fell by 22% between 2009/10 and 2016/17, from £61.5 billion to £48.0 billion (in 2025/26 prices). Since then, spending has generally increased and now stands above 2010 levels in real terms.

John Healey, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, is expected to announce that the tax office will have the authority to automatically deduct payments from current and savings accounts as part of efforts to recover up to £4bn of small unpaid debt.

Mr Healey is facing significant financial headwinds – government debt is approaching £3tn and the Treasury spent £8.8bn servicing interest on it in August alone.

Household gas and electricity bills in the UK also rose by 4 per cent in October 2026 – adding about £60 a year for a typical household – and are projected to increase further by 16 per cent (£276) in January 2027.

Everywhere you go at the Labour party conference, you are being urged to “Hope Again”. It’s on the screens in the main hall and on banners in the exhibition area. It’s on T-shirts, balloons and coffee mugs. It’s all just a bit much. Overkill.

24/10/2026

Clocks go back one hour.

Britain introduced daylight saving time 100 years ago – and was quickly followed by countries worldwide. Love it or hate it, there’s a stubborn British campaigner you can thank.

He lived in the south-east London suburb of Chislehurst. He was a builder. He was of average wealth. His name was William Willett and without him Britain – and a quarter of the world, including the US – might never have adopted daylight saving time (DST).

A lover of open spaces, Willett was horseback riding one summer morning in 1905 when, ruefully, he observed how many curtains remained drawn against the sunlight. A solution occurred to him: why not move the clocks forward before each summer began?

Willett wasn’t the first to conceive of such a measure. Ancient civilisations shortened and lengthened days depending on the season – a Roman hour, for instance, could last 44 minutes during winter, but 75 in summer.

But it took Willett for DST to – eventually – come to pass. By 1907, he had self-published a pamphlet, Waste of Daylight, which advocated that time be advanced by four 20-minute increments during April, then similarly reversed in September. Along with more recreational opportunities, Willett said, this would lower lighting costs. The government were not convinced.

Two years into the World War One, Britain was running desperately short on coal – the chief source of power for its industry and households. “Not only was there increased demand to fuel the navy, railways and armaments industry, but Britain had to supply allies whose coalfields were German-occupied, plus thousands of miners had volunteered for service,” says David Stevenson, history professor at the London School of Economics.

Willett’s ideas promised relief: longer evenings and less demand for coal-powered lighting. After Germany ratified a DST bill on 30 April 1916, Britain promptly followed suit with its own Summer Time Act, passed on 17 May.

According to the new law, civil time would be advanced one hour ahead of Greenwich Mean Time during the newly-defined British Summer Time. Several other European nations soon followed suit, along with the US – coining its famous mnemonic of ‘spring forward, fall back’.

Of the world’s population of 7.4 billion, around one-quarter use DST. Who deserves the credit. “The passage of DST laws came directly from William Willett's efforts,”.

William Willett’s memorial Petts Wood.

23/10/2026

HMRC writes off £13bn in tax as businesses collapse under Labour

In a report published yesterday, the National Audit Office (NAO) said HMRC had been forced to write off billions in unpaid tax because of increased company liquidations.

Unpaid tax has more than doubled from £19bn in 2019-20 to £43.8bn in 2025-26.

But the amount of debt that HMRC expects it will not be able to collect has more than trebled over the same period – from £4.2bn to £12.9bn.

According to the report, three quarters (£9.8bn) of these losses were “write-offs”, driven by a surge in company closures and personal bankruptcies. A “write-off” is where HMRC decides debts are irrecoverable. Business insolvencies rose 39 per cent between 2019-20 and 2025-26.

Glen Flannery, of law firm CMS, said: “Formal insolvencies remain at historically elevated levels.

“What we’re seeing now is the cumulative effect of inflation, higher interest rates and increased employment costs landing at the same time.”

Nimesh Shah, of accountancy firm Blick Rothenberg, said: “The UK tax burden is at its highest levels in modern peace time and changes to tax, labour laws and the minimum wage has added significant burden to businesses.

“The irony is that the Government increasing the tax burden has had the effect of increasing HMRC’s tax losses.” (The Telegraph)

22/10/2026

As Remembrance Sunday approaches we remember those you gave their lives for our freedoms. Wear you poppy with pride.

22/10/2026

Inflation to push up benefits bill by £5.5bn.

Analysis for The Telegraph by the Institute for Fiscal Studies found that total spending on welfare would rise by around £5.5bn in 2027. That is as much as £2.2bn more than the Treasury has budgeted for, based on Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) forecasts. The figures present a headache for John Healey, the Chancellor, before his first Budget next Wednesday, and increase the probability of him needing to raise taxes.

The Government is facing growing warnings over the size of Britain’s national debt, which has climbed to a record £3tn. Rising inflation, fuelled by the energy shock caused by the war in Iran, also makes it more likely that the Bank of England will need to raise interest rates in November, which will in turn make it more expensive for the Government to service public debt.

Welfare spending has soared to an estimated £160bn this year, fuelled by a substantial rise in sickness benefit claims for mental health conditions. The total is more than the budgets for defence, schools and policing combined.

Mr Burnham has insisted he will get the welfare bill down, but has said he will do so by supporting people into work rather than making “crude” cuts. The Prime Minister told the Commons: “I don’t want to see anybody in their 20s on benefits in this country.