The Week in Medway Politics: Oh come on, it’s Star Wars week

Medway MPs in Parliament

Quiet week in Parliament
As MPs finished up for Christmas this week, not a great deal was going on. Kelly Tolhurst spoke at length about the exploitation of 16 and 17 year olds, while Tracey Crouch answered some questions and gambling, and most importantly, announced the government had no plans to change daylight savings arrangement.

Medway Council

Refugees not welcome
The council this week declared that it would not be taking any Syrian refugees, apparently because they can’t afford to look after them. For context, Ashford Borough Council is taking in 250 refugees. The “can’t afford it” argument is a little hard to buy from a council that was able to spend £16,178 on marketing, £12,152 on CCTV cameras, and £1,647 on Warner Bros studio tours in September.

Booze limit
A licence application for a new off-licence in Chatham was turned down this week as councillors decided the area didn’t need another place to buy alcohol. There are already 93 apparently completely acceptable outlets with 1km of the proposed site, so obviously having 94 would be a step too far.

Who needs houses?
Once again, Medway Council rejected a large scale housing application after throwing out a proposed development of 450 homes in the Capstone area. After throwing out similar plans on various sites in Medway, it’s not clear exactly where Medway Council believes the tens of thousands of new homes Medway needs will go, but hey, at least we’ve got a nice field, eh?

Political Parties

Medway Conservatives
Still missing, because why do they need to actively do anything given the state of the Labour Party?

Medway Labour
Unsurprisingly, they aren’t too happy about the council’s stance of not taking any Syrian refugees.

Medway UKIP
Still missing, because it’s Medway UKIP.

Medway Liberal Democrats
Missing, because they actually did stuff for the past few weeks and now they need a nap.

Medway Green Party
Unsurprisingly, they’re happy the Capstone homes application was thrown out.

Medway TUSC
Missing, presumably filling in their Momentum membership forms.

Other News

Rehman About Town
A shockingly quiet week for Rehman this week, with him only managing to have his photo taken with multiple Medway headteachers, a new distillery, barn dancing pensioners, and the only residents of Gillingham shorter than him.

Dude, where’s my signature?

By now, you’re mostly likely aware of the Rochester Town Council campaign. It’s been running for a while now, with the primary aim to give Rochester more say over it’s own affairs. This article is not about the pros and cons of such a council, it’s about the process and barriers that the campaign is having to deal with.

Disclosure: I am a supporter of the Rochester Town Council campaign, and signed it’s petition. The reason this is relevant will become clear later on.

The campaign for a town council formally began in March of this year. It needed to collect signatures from 7.5% of registered electors in the area of the proposed council to trigger a Community Governance Review. This essentially forces the council to hold a full consultation on whether or not a new council needs to be created. 7.5% of the electors of Rochester meant 1644 signatures were required to meet this threshold.

Throughout the campaign, Medway Council have made their feelings on the matter clear. Despite the fact they have to give the campaign a fair hearing via the Community Governance Reviews, cabinet members (especially the portfolio holder for Democracy and Governance, Andrew Mackness) have stated on several occasions that they see no merit in creating an additional layer of local government in Medway. While this can be dismissed as personal opinion, there are some rather more worrying signs from the council about their commitment to treating the campaign fairly.

In October, the campaign formally submitted their petition to Medway Council, having collected 1785 (141 more than required) signatures in the previous seven months. After two months, the council declared the petition to be invalid, after refusing to accept signatures collected online rather than on paper, despite previous suggestions that these would be accepted. Granted, the campaign should have probably done more to ensure they had the status of online signatures in writing, but it’s not difficult to look at this and wonder why the council didn’t flag this earlier.

The second issue is the way in which the council is verifying the signatures, even those submitted on paper. The council decided to compare the submitted signatures with those on June’s electoral register. This was not the start of the campaign, nor was it the end, instead it’s somewhere in the middle. It’s also how they were able to deny my own signature.

I moved into the town council petition area in September. I duly notified the council and added myself to the electoral register, and received confirmation in writing that I had been accepted. As such, I signed the Rochester Town Council petition, yet have since discovered that my own signature was declared invalid as I didn’t live within the town in June. Which leaves me in a slightly odd position of living within Rochester, being on the electoral roll in Rochester, while also apparently not being a valid resident of Rochester at the same time. I am Schrödinger’s constituent.

The Rochester Town Council campaign are not giving up though, instead attempting to collect all of the online signatures on paper (and some extras too). These will be submitted to the council in the new year, when the council hopefully won’t find another arbitrary hurdle that the campaign has to overcome.

The Week in Medway Politics: Alarms, schools, votes

Medway MPs in Parliament

Votes at 16
In an ongoing battle between the House of Commons and the House of Lords on whether or not 16 or 17 year olds should be allowed to vote in the upcoming EU referendum, all 3 Medway MPs voted against extending the franchise. Despite it recently working well in the Scottish referendum, and complaints that the young are too disinterested in politics, Medway MPs decided that things are just fine how they are. This issue will likely return for another round in the near future.

Votes

Out of a maximum of 3 votes in Parliament this week, the Medway MP vote tally was as follows:
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham & Rainham) – 3 votes
Tracey Crouch (Chatham & Aylesford) – 3 votes
Kelly Tolhurst (Rochester & Strood) – 3 votes

Elsewhere in Parliament
Rehman Chishti apparently had a pretty grim week as he discovered the existence of Boko Haram in Nigeria. In brighter news, he also raised questions in Parliament about introducing automatic compensation for delayed Southeastern trains, a definite vote winner in Medway. Tracey Crouch got to speak at length on the effects of incidents like the recent Paris terrorist attacks on tourism, and Kelly Tolhurst didn’t say anything in Parliament all week.

Medway Council

Apocashit
The council created a bit of a panic on the Isle of Grain this week, by accidentally sending everyone an emergency warning message about the gas terminal located there. Seeing as an actual incident at the terminal could be catastrophic for those leaving in the area, it’s unsurprisingly that they weren’t exactly amused by the error.

Edukation standards
It’s hardly even a surprise at this point, but Medway primary schools are once again rated as the worst in the country. Maybe this report will be the one to spur change in the administration, but we expect we’ll be writing the same thing again next year.

Political Parties

Medway Conservatives
Still missing, because why do they need to actively do anything given the state of the Labour Party?

Medway Labour
Unsurprisingly, they aren’t too happy about the state of Medway’s primary schools, and have called for the portfolio holder, Cllr Mike O’Brien, to resign over the report.
Fun times ahead as Medway Momentum have popped up on Twitter, and are organising their first meeting for January.

Medway UKIP
Missing, because it’s Medway UKIP.

Medway Liberal Democrats
Sad news this week as former councillor and Deputy Mayor for the party, Steve Kearney, passed away.

Medway Green Party
The party raised an interesting question about where Medway Council might have funds invested. We’d quite like to know the answer to that too.

Medway TUSC
Missing, presumably filling in their Momentum membership forms.

Other News

Rehman About Town
This week, Rehman managed to have his photo taken with students from Rainham Mark Grammar School, Reverend Ann from Twydall, the Chief Constable of Kent Police, an exercise bike, a possibly angry resident named Steve, a band, some shitty crafts, Santa, another Santa, some young Tories bowling, some babies, some students from Midkent College, and the Daily fucking Mail.

The Week in Medway Politics: Dickens, bombs, and broadband

Medway MPs in Parliament

Syria Vote
The biggest issue in Parliament this week was the polarising vote on whether or not to launch airstrikes against IS in Syria. All 3 Medway MPs voted in favour of launching airstrikes. Tracey Crouch wrote a detailed explanation for her vote on her Facebook page, while Rehman Chishti and Kelly Tolhurst have offered comment via the Medway Messenger.

Votes

Out of a maximum of 8 votes in Parliament this week, the Medway MP vote tally was as follows:
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham & Rainham) – 7 votes
Kelly Tolhurst (Rochester & Strood) – 7 votes
Tracey Crouch (Chatham & Aylesford) – 2 votes

Elsewhere in Parliament
Kelly Tolhurst claimed that after knocking on thousands of doors (presumably in Rochester and Strood) in the past year, immigration nearly always comes up. Apparently the broadband in Rochester is pretty shit too. Rehman Chishti also won his battle against Islamic State, but in the most pointless of ways.

Medway Council

Dickensian Christmas
This weekend saw the usual tatfest that is the council organised Dickensian Christmas festival in Rochester. The council seemed to think it went well, with just some “minor traffic issues”, which is hardly how most drivers in Rochester and Strood would likely describe things.

Rochester Town Council campaign
Medway Council this week rejected the initial petition for a Rochester Town Council on the rather tenuous reason that collected electronic signatures are not okay, despite previously implying they were. This definitely not a delaying tactic will not deter the campaign though, who now need to collect the signatures on paper and submit them again in the new year.

Political Parties

Medway Conservatives
Still missing, because why do they need to actively do anything given the state of the Labour Party?

Medway Labour
Not a busy week for Medway Labour, as they’ve managed to come up with 8 paragraphs on the subject of whether shops should be allowed to put signs on the pavement.
The national strife of Labour may be heading to Medway, as Momentum Medway is holding their first meeting in January, featuring a range of Labour and non-Labour faces.

Medway UKIP
Missing, because it’s Medway UKIP.

Medway Liberal Democrats
The party this week called for more support for small businesses in Medway. All of which is very noble. The party even had some nice quotes on the subject:
Lib Dems

While the Lib Dem leader on Norwich City Council said the following:
Lib Dems

The moral of this story? If you’re going to take a national campaign and make it local, at least vary the words a bit to something vaguely resembling your own.

Medway Green Party
The Greens made a strong play for the local arts/culture community this week, by supporting the crowdfunding campaign for the fantastic WOW magazine.
Unsurprisingly, they aren’t too happy about bombs being dropped on Syria either.

Medway TUSC
Missing, presumably filling in their Momentum membership forms.

Other News

Rehman About Town
This week, Rehman managed to have his photo taken with Eileen from Medway Hospital Radio, the Ambassador of Kuwait, some shipping containers with an invisible George Osborne, a professor in Parliament, the Speaker of the National Assembly of Pakistan, the Daily Politics green-screen, a Tesco manager in a giant Christmas jumper, some residents all from a similar demographic, former council leader Rodney Chambers in his card shop, a bipolar focus group, some guys from the Bahraini embassy, some windswept residents, Dorris and Dave, some kids at a Christmas fair, the team from a remembrance service, and a squash racquet and a lot of sweat. Imagine what he’d be like if there was an election campaign on.