Bloody Expensive

We at The Political Medway need time to drink these coffees that some of you wonderful people have bought us, and sometimes there’s a topic that we think doesn’t need another man to talk about it. Either way welcome to a series of Wednesday Guest Posts..

Back in September Medway Council’s public health team commissioned a survey of local teenagers, in which it was highlighted that as many as 1 in 5 young people know of a peer who had taken time off school due to not enough access to sanitary products.

Think about that for a moment. Young women, not going to school because they don’t have adequate sanitary protection.

Young women in Medway, missing out on school, and presumably family and social events too, because they don’t have the money or support to purchase sanitary towels, tampons or pads.

It’s a figure that astounds, embarrasses and saddens me.

Continue reading “Bloody Expensive”

A Comprehensive Internet Guide to ‘Medway Brexit’

Medway Council’s ruling Conservative Cabinet have rejected calls to investigate the effect of Brexit on The Medway Towns.
So Keevil set out to find answers, bestowed with the knowledge that everything is available online, including knowledge. Keevil went armed with a search engine and the words ‘Medway Brexit’.
We present to you almost everything we found in all it’s visual (and helpful?) glory.

Continue reading “A Comprehensive Internet Guide to ‘Medway Brexit’”

The Week in Westminster, 24 Nov

While we tend to focus on the drama of local politics, it can be easy to forget that Medway has three MPs representing us in parliament. What are they doing? What are they saying? Our new feature will try and break that down, while also accepting that many of the workings of parliament are horribly dense and not particularly accessible. Which leads us nicely to:


Kelly, Tracey and Rehman voted Nay.
Continue reading “The Week in Westminster, 24 Nov”

Alternate Delivery

The Medway Commercial Group (MCG) has been in the news recently, whether it be over issues regarding CCTV or potential controversy regarding the building of a new Independent SEN School.
Who or what is MCG?
Keevil set to impartially find out, using an alternate delivery model of as many screen shots as possible to save on typing.

Ask Google

Google Image Search result
Inconclusive?

In Their Own Words

Don’t click the link.
MCC sounded busy.
Early ambitions included a large number of social alarms & 25 car park cameras

Continue reading “Alternate Delivery”

inFrequently Answered Surveys: I’m Still Standing

One of our popular features on The Political Medway is inFrequently Answered Questions, where we send questions to relevant political figures and hope that we might occasionally get a reply.

It’s time to do our first (Keevil) / last (Jennings) survey!

Following developments last week with Cllr Pendergast leaving Medway UKIP, Cllr Howard leaving Medway Tories and further afield in Dover, Cllr Eddy, the former leader of the Labour Opposition leaving the Labour Group to join the Greens, we (just Keevil) decided to ask the other 53 councillors to select one statement that best represented them for #LocalElection2019:
– I will be standing in the same ward with the same party.
– I will be standing in the same ward with a different party.
– I will be standing in a different ward with the same party.
– I will be standing in a different ward with a different party.
– I will be standing as an Independent.
– I will be standing as a member of The ‘Medway’s Voice Party’.
– I have decided to stand down.
– I have been deselected.
– I do not know if I will be standing or be deselected.
– I did not know there was a Local Election in 2019.
Continue reading “inFrequently Answered Surveys: I’m Still Standing”

Fear and Loathing: GDPR on the Campaign Trail

It was inevitable that someone in Medway politics would screw up in this brave new GDPR world.

Politicians sharing reports and images from the campaign trail is standard practice at this point. Barely a weekend can go by without local activists telling us about the ‘fantastic response on the doorstep’ that they achieved. So it would have been easy to glance at the below image shared by Medway Conservative candidate for Luton and Wayfield Robbie Lammas and not think much of it.

Unless you care about data protection, anyway.

Continue reading “Fear and Loathing: GDPR on the Campaign Trail”

Fixed Odds On Principles

For some this is the worst of the post-war British Governments, and yet Tracey Crouch, as both Sports Minister and Minister for Loneliness, was an example of what a Member of Parliament with a social conscious could do in Government.

And then on All-Saints Day she resigned.

Keevil attempts to understand how modern gambling licensing works, what FOBTs are and why it would cause a politician of principles to resign on principle. Continue reading “Fixed Odds On Principles”

Councillor declares independence from Conservative Party instead of Europe

A second Medway councillor has resigned from their party to sit as an independent for the remainder of their term. Councillor Anne-Claire Howard, who represents Twydall, has quit the Conservative party after failing to be reselected to stand for the party in upcoming local elections.

This move won’t be entirely surprising to followers of local politics. Cllr Howard has long been one of the more outspoken members of the Conservative group, regularly criticising the stance of the party on Brexit as well as the actions of other councillors in the chamber.

Councillor Howard has issued this fairly damning statement: Continue reading “Councillor declares independence from Conservative Party instead of Europe”

Dickensian Medway, Hard Times: Homelessness

In which Keevil publishes the first in a series of indubitably jolly pieces looking at hardship within Medway.

Click this link if you are at risk of homelessness

(Leave the comment ‘Hard Times’ on any Ko-fi donation in relation to this article and a hot drink will be given to a homeless person.)

In 2017, Shelter estimated that Medway had 1,059 total homeless people and 14 long term rough sleepers.
Medway Council’s Rough Sleeper Estimate, in October 2017, verified by Homeless Link, had a figure of 44 rough sleepers in Medway. Continue reading “Dickensian Medway, Hard Times: Homelessness”

=Pop./km2

In which Keevil attempts to get the maximum number of possible readers, whom have clicked on a story with a title like that, to stop reading with the following sentence:

Population density is the average number of people living per km2

Still here? What about:

There is little correlation between population density and economic development.

Okay, how about a graphical representation? Continue reading “=Pop./km2”