On this page I addressed on this site the issue of "Cafe Society" because in the "Isle of Thanet Gazette, Friday, September 29, 2006", Page 2, Council Sandy Ezekiel is quoted as saying "...it is one of our mainstays in the Conservitive group to promote cafe society."

I wondered without seriousness if this was some confusion of Conservatives Against a Federal Europe or a reference to a new form of aggression that relies on a gesticulation more usually associated with Roman cafe society.

However, I knew that this was just pointless sarcasm and that I had no idea. So I emailed a few poeple a few members of the council replied. But more on that further on.

The wikipdeia has this to say:

Café society was the collective description for the so-called "beautiful people" and "bright young things" who gathered in fashionable cafes and restaurants in Paris, London, Rome or New York, beginning in the late 1800s. Although members of café society were not necessarily members of The Establishment or other ruling class groups, they were people who attended each other's private dinners and balls, took holidays in exotic locations or at elegant resorts, and whose children tended to marry the children of other café society members.

In the United States, café society came to the fore with the end of Prohibition in December 1933 and the rise of photo journalism, to describe the set of people who tended to do their entertaining semi-publicly, in restaurants and night clubs and who would include among them movie stars and sports celebrities.

In the late 1950s the term "Jet Set" began to take the place of "café society", but "café society" may still be used informally in some countries to describe people who habitually visit coffeehouses and give their parties in restaurants rather than at home.

So unless we have some better information we could conlude that Cllr Ezekiel wants to promote a Jet-Set for thanet. A group of rich people with nothing better to do than take skiing holidays probablly paid for by expensive projects like the Turner Centre that can be used to suck up vast ammounts of tax payer money.

Interestingly there was also a nightclub that traded on the use of this name:

Café Society was also a New York City nightclub opened in 1938 in Greenwich Village by Barney Josephson to showcase African American talent and to be an American version of the political cabarets he had seen in Europe before the war. Josephson also intended the club to defy the pretensions of the rich; he chose the name to mock Clare Booth Luce and what she referred to as "café society", the habitués of more upscale nightclubs. Josephson not only trademarked the name, which had not been trademarked by the gossip columnist for the New York Journal American M, who wrote as the first "Cholly Knickerbocker". but advertised the club as "The Wrong Place for the Right People." Josephson opened a second branch on 58th Street, between Lexington and Park Avenue, in 1940.
--wikipdeia

But as the conservative websites are silent on this "mainstay" I was baffled untill Cllr David Green pointed me to this long winded PDF. "I think its about tables and chairs" he told me. It seems that Café Society means allowing the greasy spoons and other caf's to put thier tables and chairs on the street. However, as we shall shortly learn the working group (or whatever) for this has never met.

That's why the newspaper story of the counciller that resigned.

Too right too.

But all this puts me in mind of the fuss of getting the upper class decks and chairs sorted out on the sinking titanic. That is not to say that I think Thanet is a sinking ship but the similarities scare the crap out of me.

"Although I cannot answer for Cllr Ezekiel I believe he was referring to the 'cafe society' where people sit outside and eat." says Iris Johnston in her reply to me.

She continues in her explination and enlightens us greatly on this secret mainstay.

"The Council has promoted the idea of tables and chairs outside cafes as in warmer countries and a working party was to be set up to set out guidlines and charges. I have complained on several occasions that the group has yet to meet." (which we had established).

"There has been problems at the Parade in Margate where my advice to work with all food providers was not listened to since 2003. Cllr Ezekiel recently told me there was no need to have proper arrangements ...he was involved in a disasterous road closure episode recently where no one had a clue what was going on and I spent my weekend placating traders in my ward We have real disagreements between some traders on whose tables and chairs should be where and a nice idea is being spoiled by lack of proper procedures." (abridged).

Cllr Johnstone then continued to explain exactly what had happened in a way that I only wish the newspaper had done.

Councillor Cohen a former chairman of Planning was quite right to put his question at Full Council (Gazette story Rossetti Gardens Birchington) to Councillor Latchford. The Cabinet member for Tourism and Leisure is often the first port of call for someone wishing to use public open space. He can agree to its use or bring it to Cabinet. He should also advise that planning permission/advice must be sought with full public consultation. This didnt happen in Birchington and is only beginning to happen after pressure from me in Margate. Councillor Cohen has left the Conservative Group at TDC and sits alone and Cllr Latchford simmered throughout the meeting with anger. Cllr Kirby had to cover up their incompetence and an officer was blamed. No one knows who the officer is!

From this I can only conclude that this Café Society of Cllr Ezekiel is a strangly anarcho-communistic* by-pass of planning permision. I strangely as I would have expected something this far left of centre to be the soul domain of the labour party. It's that or Cllr Ezekiel has taken a bribe that no one is aware of.

*note: see also Libertarian Communism.

Anarchist communism stresses egalitarianism and the abolition of social hierarchy and class distinctions that arise from unequal wealth distribution, the abolition of capitalism and money, and the collective production and distribution of wealth by means of voluntary associations.

In anarchist communism, the state and property would no longer exist. Each individual and group would be free to contribute to production and to satisfy their needs based on their own choice. Systems of production and distribution would be managed by their participants.
-wikipedia.org

What I wonder is why the leader of Thanet's right wing party is promoting such a left wing ideal?

What is going on at Thanet Council?

Who is realy in control, if any one?

It seems that this could be a potentially cynical and depressive death rattle of a council ready to give up the ghost to a great power. Does anyone know if Kent Council are thinking of anexing the district council?

Is Thanet Council in danger of become a puppet to some one or some thing else?

Were we invaded and no one told us?

This is truely a scary place to be.