Sizing up MPs efforts with literacy

Kent MPs appear to have a strong literary streak even if they are not quite on the scale of J K Rowling when it comes to writing bestsellers. The Folkestone and Hythe MP Damian Collins penned a well-received biography of the wealthy aesthete Philip Sassoon last year.

Meanwhile, Canterbury MP Julian Brazer has received modest rewards for his own novel Viking Storm about Alfred The Great.

Well-received by the critics and with an endorsement by none other than Boris Johnson, who described it as “a pacy and suspenseful blockbuster” it has not made its author a fortune.

According to the latest MPs Register of Interests, the MP received royalties of £613.03 in 2016.

Which leaves the former Maidstone MP Ann Widdecombe as the most successful author of past and present Kent MPs.

KENT County Council has produced a freight action plan, setting out how it intends to deal with rising numbers of HGVs trundling through the county.

There’s not a great deal new in it - it largely consists of steps already taken and policies already published.

Still, at least it introduces a new entry into the lexicon of local authority waffle – describing the report as a “daughter document” to a previous transport strategy.

As opposed to a brother document – that’d be too much like a trade union report.

TO say that Kent County Council leader Paul Carter is rather underwhelmed by his own government’s failure to recognise the budget pressures councils are under is, well, an understatement.

There are good reasons why KCC feels it has been shortchanged – not least that it means the Conservatives are going into the forthcoming county council elections on the back of a rather large council tax hike.

It has been a bit quiet on the devolution front in Kent but things may be about to get interesting if not exciting.

A report on the pros and cons of creating a “super district council” in east Kent is due to be published by the end of the month.

Meanwhile, we expect to see much more “joint working” initiatives between councils as they collaborate to save money.

The dire financial straits KCC is in means savings are having to be made across every budget.

An edict has gone out that managers should stop holding staff meetings in hotels.

Which seems fair enough. Except for the fact that when we have questioned this kind of expenditure in the past, we were told that it was an efficient way of doing things because staff were often spread across different parts of the county and a meeting at a hotel was a costeffective way of doing things. Follow Paul on Twitter @PaulOnPolitics

MP Julian Brazier’s book has gone down a storm