Medway in a zombie apocalypse

In which Caitlin Webb ponders how things might go for the residents of Medway in an even more severe outbreak..

Day one. Most of us would shrug off the warnings and think “meh, this is just the flu.” “I survived foot and mouth, bird flu AND I grew up in Chatham, I can live through this”. We will keep calm and carry on and panic buy all the toilet rolls. 

The rest will completely panic. Raid the supermarkets and barricade ourselves in our homes and plan to ride it out with pasta, rice and chickpeas. 

Continue reading “Medway in a zombie apocalypse”

No to No Child Left Behind

In which Caitlin Webb considers why our three Medway MPs voted to stop unaccompanied child refugees being reunited with their families..

gray concrete wall beside grass

Any reasonable citizen would hope their representative on an almost £80k salary would vouch for some of the most vulnerable people in the world.

Yet this was put into question for those in Medway in January as their MPs voted against continuing to let unaccompanied child refugees be reunited with their families in the UK.

Rehman Chisti, Tracy Crouch and Kelly Tolhurst all swallowed the Conservative party line voting against an amendment of the Brexit Bill, which would have kept the EU protections so children can continue to come to the UK for safety.

Continue reading “No to No Child Left Behind”

Party or candidate, leader or policies?

In which Caitlin Webb tries to work through all of the different factors that go in to casting a vote at a General Election..

This has been called the most important vote in a lifetime, sound familiar? Feels like every time we go to the polling station, it’s to make a do-or-die decision. So deciding who to vote for is pretty important. There’s also the fact that people who have been living in this country for decades, people who have been cheated by the judicial system and 17-year-olds can’t vote, that drives me to put a cross in the box. But who will win my vote?

Continue reading “Party or candidate, leader or policies?”

5 weeks of imperfect balance

In which Caitlin Webb, the UK’s first Local Democracy Reporter, explains to us what purdah is, and how much it impacts an election campaign..

There’s a general election coming. There’s nothing more exciting for a political journalist. It’s where politics gets all serious and things could be really shaken up. We have now entered purdah, the pre-election period.

What is purdah and why is it so important? 

Continue reading “5 weeks of imperfect balance”

Medway: A Hostile Environment For Refugees?

In which we welcome Caitlin Webb, the UK’s first Local Democracy Reporter, to The Political Medway to look at how welcoming Medway has been to refugees..

You may not know but 17-23 June was Refugee Week. 

Before we delve into this subject- let’s get the facts straight. Refugees are displaced people who have been forced to leave their home country to escape war, persecution or natural disasters. This is different from migrants, who have moved to the UK for hope of a better life but could potentially return home.

Refugee Week may have gone under the radar because of the political sensitivity around the issue or simply because every week seems to be a celebration of something. Yet the Armed Forces Week has been promoted everywhere in the Towns.

Continue reading “Medway: A Hostile Environment For Refugees?”