Manston’s winning ways remain secret

There is a lot of interest in the background to the government’s decision to locate an emergency lorry park at Manston airfield.

But it seems that we may not find out what went on behind the scenes in the run-up to the announcement.

Or the reasons why they ditched other locations, like the Detling Hill showground and Folkestone racecourse.

A Freedom of Information request we made to see various papers and documents is in limbo after the Department for Transport said it was weighing up whether it would be in the public interest to release them.

Its response cites seven grounds on which it could rely on any decision to withhold the information, roughly a third of the public exemptions it is permitted to use.

Will the interests of transparency and openness win the day? We will have to

A backbench rebellion means that there will not be a softening of the ‘purdah’ rules in the run-up to the referendum, which could have allowed the government to use public money to promote its views on the referendum.

Among those who helped inflict the defeat on the government were Kent backbenchers Craig Mackinlay, South Thanet and Adam Holloway, the Gravesham MP. WE like the latest way a council has chosen to describe a budget overspend and how to address it.

The fashionable way appears to be to refer to a “re-alignment of finances”.

And if a project has overspent, it is often because of the “elongation of the project timeline”.

Thank you, Thanet council.

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Victim Daniel Wells