Time To Turn Back The Clocks?

THE UNITED KINGDOM will turn its clocks back an hour - at midnight tonight - in order to gain an additional hour’s morning daylight as the Earth’s rotation around the Sun leads us all towards the shortest day of the year (which coincides with December’s Winter Solstice).

At 11.37pm, Universal Time (or GMT), on Tuesday, December 21st, the life giving rays of our Sun will be at their weakest. The old Sun will ‘die’ and be ‘reborn’ to us at 8.07am UT on Wednesday, the 22nd of December.

Coincidentally, this year, there will be a full-moon eclipse at 8.17am on the Tuesday in which the planet will seem to disappear – before being fully visible again, in all its glory, fifteen minutes later.

It is unclear if this portentous event denotes the heavens’ support - or opposition - for our MP, Rebecca Harris, and her Private Member’s Bill.

87% Of Letchford’s Petition Signatures Invalid

CLOSE ON THE HEELS of Canvey Island Town Council’s Summer Fun package – that never was – Colin Letchford’s eight-month long petition for an Elected Mayor looks set to become one of this year’s biggest non-events. After handing-in his 4,442 strong signature, 179 page petition to Castle Point Borough Council for inspection last month, it transpires that only 588 signatures meet the requirements of the law relating to referendums and petitions.

Of those valid signatures, 93% are from Canvey residents and only 7% from Benfleet, Thundersley, and Hadleigh. It was therefore found to contain insufficient signatures of electors covering the whole of the Borough. In addition, the petition was also found to fail a further legal requirement in that it does not accurately describe the constitutional change being sought: namely an Elected Mayor with a Cabinet.

Another Late Night For CIIP Councillors

WHILE RESIDENTS ANXIOUSLY AWAIT details of how yesterday’s Comprehensive Spending Review will directly affect them and worry about the provision of local Meals on Wheels Services; Home Care Charges; Job Security; Benefit Reductions and huge increases in new Council Home Rents, the Canvey Island Independent Party’s blog – true to upholding its promise of keeping all islanders informed – has spent the last two months recording Neville Watson’s and other senior CIIP councillors’ appearances on the local celebrity circuit. But rumour has it that tonight will be an evening-in with a Chinese take-away and a six-pack as they anxiously follow the Tower Hamlets’ poll for an elected mayor on cable TV.

Unlike George Galloway’s Respect party, the local CIIP has been keen to distance itself from collecting resident signatures to have an elected Mayor - and an opportunity for Spink and Blackwell to launch a further attempt at controlling the borough. But, just as Galloway instituted the Tower Hamlets’ petition, there is little doubt that Spink’s fingerprints were all over Colin Letchford’s to provide an opportunity for the former to achieve another public office should he fail to be re-elected as our local MP.

Get Advice Before Starting Your Own Business

FIGURES PUBLISHED THIS WEEK show almost seven people out of work for every job registered in the local Castle Point Council area, putting it fourth highest in the country; but the Essex Federation of Small Businesses is urging the jobless to think twice before starting their own business.

South East Essex FSB Branch Chairman, Terry Taber, said: ‘The latest figures showing that for every job advertised in Castle Point there are 6.6 people unemployed is a very worrying statistic – and, following the Comprehensive Spending Review this week, it is likely there will be an increase in that figure as the public sector sheds jobs.

That’s Not Quite True – Is It, Dave?

THE ECHO provided several of its precious column inches to covering the island this week. The paper reported that Joan Liddiard (Vice Chair of Canvey Island Town Council) would be hurling her ‘really bad knees’ from an aircraft in the hope of obtaining the £400 cost of making the parachute jump from donations she hoped to collect in support of the local Citizens’ Advice Bureau. One would have thought that, in her position, she could have called upon the civic support of the Town Council to cover the costs of her charitable venture - but perhaps there is nothing left in the local Grant Budget to make that possible.

Council Votes To Review Cabinet System

AT ITS FULL COUNCIL MEETING on Tuesday, Castle Point Borough Council voted 21 to 14 in favour of undertaking a review of the current Cabinet System in anticipation of Coalition Government changes to the Local Government Act, which currently makes the present system mandatory.

The Canvey Island Independent Party voted in block against Bill Dick’s amendment to Dave Blackwell’s original motion calling upon the Council to revert to the previous Committee System, employed under the last local Labour administration, which had led to the Council being rated one of the eight worst boroughs in the UK. At that time, John Prescott (the then Deputy Labour Prime Minister) had threatened to take central control of the Socialist run borough to rectify the lamentable state of its political leadership and administration.