It was rather a low key debut for the new 17-strong opposition UKIP group at County Hall this week, as councillors gathered for the first official meeting since the dramatic election.

You could hardly say there was a lot of raw politics about. Given this was largely a ceremonial meeting to appoint a new chairman and deal with some rather boring constitutional details, perhaps we should not have been surprised.

The ruling Conservatives remain a bit jittery about UKIP, that's clear -  but they had a relatively easy ride on this outing and were rather relieved not to have been put on the spot about anything that contentious.

Let's not forget that this was the first taste of County Hall politics that the 17 UKIP councillors had and there were probably a few "first-day-at-school" type nerves around. KCC can be a pretty intimidating place - as a couple of the newcomers confided. "The scale of this place is huge," said one.

Perhaps the nerves were responsible for a bit of a tangle that UKIP got into over the new allowances scheme - in other words, their pay.

The group's leader Roger Latchford said his group supported a freeze but went on to say that it was unfair that all opposition group leaders were getting the same special responsibility allowance.

The point seemed to be that UKIP was taking on the "formal" opposition role at KCC and therefore its shadow cabinet members ought to be entitled to more money. (Under the scheme, all oppostion groups leaders will get £6,316 plus an additional £500 for each member.) 

Whatever way you look at it, it came across as a request for more money from the taxpayers' pocket and a few Conservatives lost no time in making the point.

For a party that makes much of the need to curb public sector profligacy, it was not an altogether auspicious start. Let's put it down to finding their political feet.

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HOW did Thanet Council come to a position where it has found itself out of pocket to the tune of £3.3m after a secret deal with a ferry company went pear shaped?

And perhaps as importantly, why were details of the deal kept secret from councillors?

And was there a serious misjudgement by officers and members in allowing the debts to stack up and a failure to recognise warning signs?

These are just some of the questions facing the council after it emerged that it was having to raid its reserves to plug the £3.3m hole in its finances caused by the company, Transeuropa Ferries, going into administration.

It is staggering that the council has found itself in such a situation. It believed the deal, which allowed Transeurope to defer payments on harbour fees to the council, was justified to retain the company's presence in the town.

One of many problems it now faces is why the deal was kept secret and never shared with all members of the council, who should have had the opportunity to scrutinise it properly - even if it meant they had to do it behind closed doors as an exempt item.

It is not even clear whether the original deal that was agreed by the council's then Conservative administration was the subject of a cabinet decision or report. Ought not such a deal have been signed off by the executive under the proper executive decision-making process?

If it was a key cabinet decision - and it is hard to think why it would not have been - it should have been properly recorded and reported by the cabinet or cabinet member and then presented to the relevant scrutiny committee who would have had the power to call it in.

As far as we can tell, it wasn't - the council has not yet responded to a series of questions we have asked on this.

And not only that but why wasn't the deal flagged up in the council's last annual statement of accounts, where you might have expected it to feature?

Someone at the council will have to account for all of this but on the surface, it looks like a monumental mess that has left taxpayers likely to foot the bill.

If UKIP was a band, it would probably be the type that comfortably fills mid-size venues but hasn't quite reached the point at which it is capable of selling out big stadium tours. There is a sense in which its supporters are a bit like fans who consider they are in on the next big thing but might actually be a bit regretful if it became a mainstream success.

But there's no doubt plenty of people think it is on the cusp of making the crossover from cult band to chart toppers. Its PR people like to talk about a buzz around the party, a bit like A and R men.

A measure of this progress will, of course, be how it fares at the county council elections.

And the leadership has its eye on Kent as somewhere it can create a few ripples. It is fielding 76 candidates out of 84 - a record number and judging by the unbridled spirit of optimism at the launch of its Kent manifesto on Friday night in Gravesend, many think County Hall will have its first elected UKIP county councillors come May 3.

Actually, the event was not so much a manifesto launch (not much was mentioned about Kent at all) as much as a rally designed to raise spirits for the battle ahead.

More than 300 activists and supporters crammed into a hotel room to listen to Nigel Farage deliver a characteristically flamboyant and colourful speech, in which he fired broadsides at all the mainstream parties (Cameron - "no-one will ever believe him again"; Clegg - "hopeless"; Osborne - "hopeless"; Angela Merkel - "more miserable in private than she is in public"; Miliband - "who cares?") and declaimed like a evangelical preacher that the party's time had come.

Say what you like about him, but he certainly knows how to find a key part of the party's anatomy (in the way it was said of Michael Heseltine and the Tories).

One of his quips about his critics was telling: "They're writing me off as a populist now!" because it touched on why the three mainstream parties are so concerned aboout UKIP.  It has successfully exploited the widespread disenchantment with the big parties among voters who think they all look the same and say the same. It is that disaffection that meant second place in the Eastleigh by-election was depicted as a victory.

The forthcoming elections come at a good time for UKIP: mid-term in the life of any government is a bad time to be going to the polls for those in power and UKIP is picking up support from many Tories in the shire counties that disapprove of the party's position on gay marriage and harbour fears over the impact of immigration.

It has certainly leapfrogged the Lib Dems as the preferred repository of the protest vote. More than that, there is the fact that they have a much more organised campaign and activists willing to trudge the streets with leaflets - the kind of foot soldiers every party needs. And it already has councillors in Tunbridge Wells.

So, you can understand why it feels bouyant. I think the issue, however, is that while it could significantly build on its share of the vote across Kent it may end up in second place in lots of areas, just falling short of victory.

Nigel Farage is typically robust in his assessment, saying it would be a major surprise if Kent - his home county - doesn't have UKIP county councillors next month. He won't say but the target areas are Thanet and Tunbridge Wells, with north Kent also in its sights.

When I asked him if he would have a bet on UKIP holding the balance of power at County Hall, he said he would have to look at the odds. But his smile suggested it may be something the party has contemplated as a possibility.

Such a result is the UKIP dream scenario and the Conservatives' nightmare, which accounts for the current jitters in Tory ranks.

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Among UKIP's candidates is another defecting Tory.  Roger Latchford, who was at one point deputy Conservative leader of Thanet council, has defected and will contest the Birchington and Villages division in Thanet.

Another former Tory, Brian Ransley, once a cabinet member in Tunbridge Wells council until he lost his seat to the Lib Dems, is standing in Tunbridge Wells North.

The most exciting news (allegedly) in Thanet, since the opening of Dreamland in the 1950’s, is the opening of Turner Contemporary in Margate. I was lucky enough to go the press opening on Wednesday 13^th April ahead of the official opening.

Whilst what is on exhibited is quite beautiful, although sparse, the most dramatic scene is the view of the sea from the various galleries which is rather special especially when the sun sets.  

I cannot but feel that this is the wrong location for the right project. This should have been in Whitstable, where it would have been more at home with the population, rather than the still down-at-heel Margate.

Building Turner Contemporary in Margate, is akin to deciding to re-build the iconic Indian Taj Mahal mausoleum in Leytonstone, East London.

I do love Thanet, and in particular Margate, as I have fond childhood memories from the 1970s. But the memories of what Margate was then and is now and what it could be is so contrasting that it could be fiction.

I make an exception though for the following: the outstanding boutique B&B The Reading Rooms, (www.thereadingroomsmargate.co.uk) the Harbour Café Bar, restaurant, The Ambrette (www.theambrette.co.uk), The Lifeboat Ale & Cider House (www.thelifeboat-margate.com), the boutiques and galleries in the Old Town and of course the mildly eccentric  Walpole Bay Hotel, (www.walpolebayhotel.co.uk). I worry that apart from these places, Margate has little to offer the 400 people a day expected to visit Turner Contemporary.

If the not-great attitude I encountered on the telephone with the receptionist, at Turner, is mixed with the ineptitude of the Visit Kent staff (who I feel have ignored Thanet for years) then Margate’s school report should be downgraded from ‘could do better’ to ‘there is little or no improvement here, just yet’.

Margate needs as huge facelift: for starters why not knock that hideous high rise on the seafront down or at least paint it. In fact, why not give grants to paint the entire seafront.  Remove the tacky arcades, and replace them with Victorian-style shopping fronts and make Margate, Margate again.

Then inform certain London local authorities that Thanet will no longer tolerate housing their addicts or delinquents and push hard for a high-speed link to Canterbury - and only then might Margate rise from the ashes and I hope it does, as I love the place.

But as I write this blog, it appears that the Margate’s Big Event, the one with the Red Arrows, might not happen as the money has gone on the Turner, but then again it might have gone on a dozen street football coordinators…

Drug companies have played a major role in the Kent economy for a century or more.

GlaxoSmithKline – formerly Wellcome – dominated the Dartford scene, injecting millions into the town and surrounding areas for generations.

But it is gone. Now Pfizer, home of Viagra and one of the county’s biggest private sector employers, is quitting. It is the biggest blow to our economy since the closure of Chatham Royal Naval Dockyard in 1984 which did no much to ravage the Medway Towns.

The loss of Pfizer’s world-renowned facility is not only a massive blow to 2,400 people and the thousands more who depend on Pfizer’s business, but also to Kent’s reputation as a great place for the pharma industry. It is one of the key sectors promoted by inward investment agency Locate in Kent, and a UK priority sectors.

But Pfizer’s decision, taken in New York, purports to have little to do with our attractiveness to pharma companies, more a reflection of changes in the industry itself and the ending of lucrative drug patents.

We need to know more before we can exonerate the company from blame. For all the global circumstances, the closure decision is a regrettable American insult to Kent and the UK. They must come clean on their decision-making process that left Sandwich abandoned.

One also has to ask whether the Government did enough to persuade the US giant to keep Pfizer in Sandwich. Was it well enough informed? Certainly Locate in Kent, local MPs and trade union representatives knew nothing in advance.

One of LiK’s primary roles is to protect jobs. But if they are not told, they cannot discharge this obligation, underlining just how vulnerable the agency – and the economy – is to global decision-making. They appear impotent - sorry about the pun - when it comes to worldwide companies taking decisions that wreak so much havoc on local communities.

Its secret nature left no time to debate possible solutions. This Government may not have been willing to offer sweeteners, but something could and should have been done. All the action is to happen now after the horse as bolted. The taskforce is welcome, the prospect of a science park or some other R&D facility would be ideal.

Perhaps another pharma company. Employment needs to match the high skills of the redundant workforce. But, as David Philpott, chairman of Kent Institute of Directors, points out, the site is geographically isolated and not ideal for many international companies.

However, everyone must pull together. This will be the first big test for the new local enterprise partnership, and the Government’s willingness to check its ferocious cost-cutting campaign and hand out some transformational cash. There is hope.

There is life after the closure of the former East Kent coalfields. And Medway’s economy has gradually recovered from the dockyard closure. But in both cases, it took many years to recover.

The closure will also offer new start-up opportunities to redundant staff with the courage to pursue commercial ideas. Kent Science Park at Sittingbourne, a hi-tech beacon, is ready to welcome science entrepreneurs.

But the bottom line is that jobs, skills and Kent’s assertion that it is a great place for knowledge-based industries are all at stake in the wake of yesterday's devastating news..

PFIZER, which earned worldwide fame for discovering the Viagra anti-impotence drug, has been a key part of Kent’s business scene for more than half a century.

It is a flagship name that has had a major impact on the East Kent economy and been used to promote the county as a great place for Blue Chip companies.

With 2,400 people thrown onto the dole and scores of businesses losing valuable Pfizer business, this is a single blow to the heart of the Kent economy that is unparalleled in recent times. Yet warning bells have been ringing for some time.

After years of expansion, the company began cutting jobs worldwide, with Sandwich one of several plants to be hit. The New York-based business halted manufacturing with the loss of hundreds of jobs.

Yet it was manufacturing that was the Sandwich plant’s key activity for more than 50 years.

It shows just how vulnerable local economies are to global decisions made in remote boardrooms with no loyalty to a particular site or region.

The American firm had won early success for mass-production penicillin but the discovery of an anti-biotic in 1949 transformed Pfizer into an international pharmaceutical company.

Due to huge demand, this drug called Terramycint was imported into the UK from the States but this involved numerous delays.

The solution was to manufacture the drug and in 1952 Folkestone was chosen as the most suitable location for a new compounding operation.

However, the British Government restricted sales unless the drug was fully manufactured in Britain. So Pfizer decided to create a new manufacturing plant, and homed in on a derelict 80-acre site close to the River Stour. Government grants were on offer and so the Sandwich operation began in 1954.

Huge expansion followed, with handsome new buildings housing some of the finest research and development laboratories in the world. Staff numbers rose rapidly to more than 5,000. Since 1998, the company has invested almost a billion pounds in the Sandwich plant, and countless millions of pounds before that.

It was a story of continuous success and discovery, tempered by occasional public protest over its animal testing programme.

Pfizer has been an economic powerhouse for East Kent, prospering at a time when the rest of the area was struggling. It is fair to say that the economic decline of Thanet and the surrounding area would have been far more serious but for Pfizer’s presence.

But such splendid isolation came at a price. Pfizer struggled to attract the best scientists to a place perceived as being too far from the mainstream. Pfizer complained about transport links and shortage of good quality housing for their senior staff. But the company came up with a stream of good discoveries, notably Viagra, and manufactured a wide range of successful products.

Gradually, its influence paid dividends and a new road was built. But the recruitment challenge remained and dozens of marketing staff were transferred to Surrey.

As the world-wide pharmaceutical industry became more competitive, Pfizer came under mounting pressure. There have been regular job losses over the past few years as Pfizer consolidated.

A few years ago, Its New York headquarters recently announced plans to axe 10,000 jobs at its plants worldwide. The company has been hit by fierce competition and downward price pressure after drugs came out their restricted licensing period, While rumours of closure have been around for sometime, no one really thought the unthinkable would ever happen.

Now it has. Without Pfizer dominating the Sandwich skyline and the East Kent economy like a colossus, the future for the area looks pretty grim.

I moved away from Kent at age 18, in a time when trains from Canterbury East to London were large comfortable and fast: the journey time taking one hour and twenty minutes. Now twenty-four years on, I am back, and they are small, uncomfortable, slow and take twenty minutes longer (I do not include the high speed service in this) and almost empty apart from schoolchildren and people who need to do the journey who have limited funds.

The high speed train though from Canterbury West is a whole other story and is probably one of the best services in the country. I find the staff friendly and the journey in to London St Pancras goes in a flash.

But of course this was not the reason I returned to Kent after the heady days of working in the City and appearing on the first Big Brother. I moved back as I genuinely feel that Kent is the most underrated county in England and very poorly sold by the tourist board. We have fabulous blue flag beaches, beautiful villages, and perhaps the most hours of sun of any county. We are closer to France than London but I am not sure if that is good or bad! I also must not forget to mention great pubs, restaurants and markets such as the Red Lion at Stodmarsh, Reads in Faversham and Canterbury’s Goods Shed.

However moving back does also highlight the strange idiosyncrasies of the council and the region. I live in a small village, which is in a conservation area. If I put up a satellite dish someone from the council comes around with a clipboard and tells me to take it down. If I fail to pay my council tax by three days I get a red letter. If I complain about holes in the road nothing is done for weeks.  If someone in the village cuts an old tree down (on purpose) - what do the council do? Nothing! If planning permission signs are not put up where they are meant to be or not advised properly - what do the council do? Nothing!

We have an issue in our very old village as the local planning department are considering an application to build new houses in the middle of it. I would say about 95% of the village has written to the council to complain, as the primary school is already full and could not take any new families and I have heard that even the environment agency are not sure about the proposed development. Here lies the problem, the council claim they need to build new houses, but if you look around the Medway towns and Thanet and Canterbury there are thousands of new and old homes unsold and empty.

Please, let’s not destroy a village to make up numbers. As mortgages are harder to get, the economic climate is still bleak and for the sake of a few brown envelopes flying around, lets not ugly-fy our villages - for that is one thing in life we should leave alone. I fear otherwise it will be too late and our villages will merge into towns and the rural way of life will be lost forever…

Kent County Council is currently in hot water, with admission staff facing a potential nightmare. Parents in Thanet, after a month of the new school year, are still waiting to find out the school of their childs potential destination - which has led to a major backlash. According to government documents, "casual admissions are those that occur outside the normal admission round for the admission of children to school" and under reforms from the previous government, all casual admissions must go through the local authority.

With this in mind, Kent County Council have decided to blame the previous government. A fair point. This is a bureaucratic nightmare.

But, alas, the council did have enough time to prepare. The Meeting of Kent Schools Admissions Forum, Thursday, 17th December, 2009 2.00 pm (Item 4.) clearly highlights, that the council were aware problems might occur in this years admissions (2010/11). So, a fair question to ask, why wasn't a contingency plan constructed? Judging by other councils, action plans were implemented and local authorities cooperated with the schools - to ensure a smooth and less chaotic process. But not in Kent. If a strategy was formulated, I'm sorry, but I cannot see any evidence of it working. Unless I'm being too criticial, I cannot even understand a coherent strategy or route of action in this disastrous news. It is truly appalling. Blaming others is an excuse because, as I've found out, the council were aware from December 2009 that an event like this could occur. Eight months to prepare the system; agreed it is short, but it can be done.

I fear this will no doubt drag on into October and, hopefully, this will not damage the future of the children involved. Education is important, very significant to a child's development, and it is about time Kent County Council takes education very seriously.