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#MedwayPredicts19

You may have heard that we’ve got a local election tomorrow in Medway. As such, today we’re going to publish our predictions for how we think things will shake out across each ward and in Medway as a whole.

One caveat: We did this in 2015 and we were wrong on a lot of fronts. But maybe we’ve learnt something four years on? We’ll find out on Friday.

We’d love to hear your own predictions. Drop yours into the comments at the bottom of this post, on our Facebook page, or tweet us using the hashtag #MedwayPredicts19.

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The slow, slow march for gender equality in local politics

Back in 2015 I wrote an article shortly before the local elections of that year on how well the parties were doing on a quest for gender equality. The results were, to put it mildly, not happy reading. Women were a minority on the candidate lists from most parties, and made up little more than a quarter of councillors in the chamber. So four years on, are we doing any better?

To begin, here is an infographic showing the current composition of the council by gender:

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iFAQ: Debates for the many

On April 18, we held our Medway Leaders’ Debate, where we invited the two potential future leaders of Medway Council – Cllr Jarrett of Medway Conservatives and Cllr Vince Maple of Medway Labour – to answer questions about the future of Medway. If you weren’t one of the people lucky enough to be in the audience, you can watch the full event back in full here.

Following the debate, we invited representatives of the smaller parties, who did not meet the eligibility criteria for the debate itself, to answer some of the questions asked on the night. Below are their answers, presented entirely unedited.

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Virtual Doorstep: Five days to go!

It is said that elections are won on the doorstep, and that may well be true. Being armchair activists, it’s difficult to check up on that.
Twitter and blogs however are part of our social media present and future, and if the election was decided there, how would each of the wards be looking?

https://twitter.com/RobbieLammas/status/1120086681582034944
https://twitter.com/RobbieLammas/status/1120088390974738432
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Recap: The final full Medway Council meeting before #MedwayElects19

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.

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Redoubts

In which local historian Chris Sams digs into the past and ponders what we should be seeking to preserve..

It is a sad fact of life that you cannot save everything from your past. In 2007 my grandfather passed away and it was with heavy heart that I took responsibility for clearing out his house. It was not an easy task with a lot of the objects holding some sort of sentimental attachment or just that it had been Pop’s. The end result was that in 2016 when I moved house (from his old house to my current address) I found myself packing a lot of stuff that was Pop’s and I had to be brutal with what came with us and what was going to have to be discarded. By contrast when my other grandfather died in 2014 my Mother cleared the house and the majority of the belongings were discarded save for a few keep sakes.

The same is true for heritage sites and local authorities.

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iFAQ: Brexit and the local elections

With local elections rapidly approaching, but the country still discussing little other than Brexit, we decided to ask all councillors standing for re-election what impact Brexit was likely to have on the elections and their campaigns.

As usual, we told all of them that we would publish their responses unedited. You can find them below in the order they were received.

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