Not sure anyone in local politics is okay really.
Quite a novelty for Medway Council last night. In light of the ongoing situation, Medway Council conducted a socially distanced full council meeting last night, and live streamed the proceedings online. For years they said this wasn’t financially viable, yet here we are. If you had a better use for your Thursday night than watching three hours of a council getting used to new technology, we’ve got your back with the recap below:
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Last night was the 2020 Medway Council budget meeting, which was just as exciting as you might expect. If you couldn’t bare to drag yourself away from a new episode of Riverdale to come along, we’ve got your back with the full highlights below:
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Last week was the first full Medway Council of the year, and it managed to be both horrifically dull and somewhat enlightening in equal measure.. If you didn’t fancy giving up four hours of your life on a Thursday to pop along, we’ve got all of the highlights below:
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The polls have closed in today’s General Election, and we are settled in at Medway Park for the count. We’ll be bringing you the results as they come in throughout the night.
For up to the minute coverage, we recommend you follow us on Twitter. The latest tweets are embedded below, but if you click through to Twitter you’ll be able to see everything.
Results will unfortunately take some time, with the count to set to conclude around 6am. It’ll be a long night, so feel free to buy us a coffee.
Live results
Chatham and Aylesford
Tracey Crouch (Con): 28,856
Vince Maple (Lab): 10,316
Dave Naghi (Lib Dem): 2,866
Geoff Wilkinson (Green): 1,090
John Gibson (CPA): 212
Gillingham and Rainham
Rehman Chishti (Con): 28,173
Andy Stamp (Lab): 13,064
Alan Bullion (Lib Dem): 2,503
George Salomon (Green): 1,043
Rob McCulloch Martin (UKIP): 837
Peter Cook (Ind): 229
Roger Peacock (CPA): 119
Rochester and Strood
Kelly Tolhurst (Con): 31,151
Teresa Murray (Lab): 14,079
Graham Colley (Lib Dem): 3,717
Sonia Hyner (Green): 1,312
Roy Freshwater (UKIP): 1,080
Chris Spalding (Ind): 587
Last night was the latest full Medway Council meeting, the first featuring the new lineup of councillors elected back in May. If you didn’t fancy giving up four hours of your life on a Thursday to pop along, we’ve got all of the highlights below:
Continue reading “Recap: The July full Medway Council meeting”
This week saw the first Medway Council meeting following our recent local elections. While not a regular full council meeting with all of the bells and whistles, this one saw the election of a new mayor and deputy, a selection for leader of the council, and a couple of other bits. Keevil went along to cover the proceedings, and you can find the highlights below.
Continue reading “Recap: Annual Meeting of Medway Council”
The polls have closed in Medway’s local elections, and we are settled in at Medway Park. We’ll be bringing you the results as they come in throughout the night.
For up to the minute coverage, we recommend you follow us on Twitter. The latest tweets are embedded below, but if you click through to Twitter where you can see everything.
Results will start trickling in sometime after midnight, with final results due sometime around 7am. It’ll be a long night, so feel free to buy us a coffee.
Live results (55 seats of 55 declared / 28 needed for a majority)
Conservative: 33 seats (-3)
Labour: 20 seats (+5)
Independents: 2 seats (+2)
UKIP: 0 seats (-4)
Liberal Democrats: 0 seats (-)
Green: 0 seats (-)
Christian People’s Alliance: 0 seats (-)
Animal Welfare Party: 0 seats (-)
Councillors elected by ward
Cuxton and Halling – Matt Fearn (Con)
Rainham North – Kirstine Carr (Con), Martin Potter (Con)
Hempstead and Wigmore – Diane Chambers (Con), Rodney Chambers (Con)
Rochester East – Nick Bowler (Lab), Teresa Murray (Lab)
Princes Park – Tashi Bhutia (Con), Gloria Opara (Con)
Twydall – Hazel Browne (Lab), John Lloyd (Lab), Mark Prenter (Lab)
River – Habib Tejan (Con), Piers Thompson (Con)
Luton and Wayfield: Simon Curry (Lab), Joanne Howcroft-Scott (Lab), Tristan Osborne (Lab)
Lordswood and Capstone: Alan Jarrett (Con), David Wildey (Con)
Watling: Wendy Purdy (Con), Chrissy Stamp (Lab)
Rochester West: Alex Paterson (Lab), Stuart Tranter (Con)
Walderslade: David Brake (Con), Adrian Gulvin (Con)
Gillingham North: Pat Cooper (Lab), Adam Price (Lab), Andy Stamp (Lab)
Chatham Central: Siju Adeoye (Lab), Harinder Mahil (Lab), Vince Maple (Lab)
Rochester South and Horsted: Trevor Clarke (Con), Sylvia Griffin (Con), Rupert Turpin (Con)
Strood Rural: Gary Etheridge (Con), Elizabeth Turpin (Con), John Williams (Con)
Strood North: Jane Chitty (Con), Stephen Hubbard (Lab), Steve Iles (Con)
Peninsula: Phil Filmer (Con), Mick Pendergast (Ind), Ron Sands (Ind)
Gillingham South: Clive Johnson (Lab), Naushabah Khan (Lab), Dan McDonald (Lab)
Strood South: Chris Buckwell (Con), Josie Iles (Con), Richard Thorne (Con)
Rainham South: Roger Barrett (Con), Howard Doe (Con), Gary Hackwell (Con)
Rainham Central: Nurat Ahmed (Con), Jan Aldous (Con), Barry Kemp (Con)
Last night saw the very last full Medway Council meeting of the current term, before Medway votes in local elections next week. It was a long, rollercoaster of a meeting, with moments of cross-party unity, and also some of the more vicious exchanges we’ve seen in a while. If you didn’t feel like coming along to the St. George’s Centre for all six hours of proceedings, we’ve got you covered here with the highlights from our live tweeting last night.
Continue reading “Recap: The final full Medway Council meeting before #MedwayElects19”
Last night, The Political Medway held our first live event, a debate between the future leaders of Medway Council as we approach the local elections. We were delighted to have Cllr Jarrett of Medway Conservatives and Cllr Maple from Medway Labour both came and set out their vision for Medway in front of an audience of approximately 200 people at Midkent College.
If you couldn’t make it along, you can catch up on all of the action from the evening below through medium of tweets:
Continue reading “Recap: #MedwayDebates19”
Medway Council Cabinet meetings are where the majority of important decisions are made. With the Conservatives holding a majority on the council, the decisions taken at Cabinet become de facto council policy.
Rather unhelpfully, Cabinet meetings are held at 3pm on a Tuesday afternoon, and while these are in principle public meetings, they are incredibly difficult for the public to attend if they have basic things like, you know, a job.
We’ve tried to cover them when we can, but it’s been fairly few and far between. We can only afford to cover these meetings if our costs in doing so are covered. Last month, via our Ko-fi page, you called our bluff and put enough in the pot to send Jennings down to live tweet the final Cabinet meeting of the current administration.
Highlights of the meeting are below, and honestly, we use the term loosely:
Continue reading “Recap: The final Cabinet of term”