It's about politics in Medway
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?
In which we launch a new monthly recap:
Medway Council & Freedom of Information!
What Do They Know?
Do they Know Things?
Lets Find Out! *
In which Thomas Baldock shares his experience of being involved with the Medway Youth Council.
Being under the voting age was frustrating for me, I felt that young people’s voices were mute, that we didn’t have the opportunity to make changes because our elected representatives didn’t need to listen to us just yet. That was until I joined the Medway Youth Council. This organisation is a-political in that there is no party political or ideological viewpoint that we follow; this in many ways can give us the freedom to act in a pragmatic way to best serve the interests of young people in Medway.
Continue reading “Just Because We Can’t Vote Does Not Mean We Can’t Change Things”In which local historian Chris Sams digs into the past to find a parallel with the present..
In recent weeks the Medway political scene has been rocked by the discovery of Councillor Franklin’s suspension from his post and even the Conservative party for the Retweeting of Islamophobic posts but he is not the first person to be thrown out of somewhere for overtly or subtly racist propaganda during a social and racially divisive period.
Continue reading “Franklin v Joyce”
Due to unforeseen, er, ‘technical problems’, we don’t have one of our usual inFrequently Answered Questions posts this week. To fill the gap though, we decided to answer some of the questions we’ve previously sent to councillors ourselves because we also have opinions you know and we are never above making this about us. We look forward to you telling us how wrong we are in the comments below.
Continue reading “iFAQs: The view from the gallery”
In which none of the Medway MPs resigned the whip and joined The Independent Group.
Continue reading “The Week in Westminster, 23 Feb”
Last night saw the 2019 Medway Council budget meeting. If you weren’t one of the handful of members of public in the gallery, you might have missed out on all of the exciting local politics action like us all being kicked out of the meeting. Here, thanks to the power of embedded tweets, we bring you the highlights of last night’s live Twitter coverage of proceedings.
Continue reading “Medway Council Budget Smackdownapalozza 2019”In which we ask Steve Dyke to give us the green view from Strood..
This is a personal vision for the place I have lived in for fifty plus years. ‘Strood’ is used here as shorthand for the urban area west/north of the River Medway, bounded by the M2, the A289 bypass and the river itself. It therefore includes Frindsbury, Wainscott and other former hamlets.
If you do not know the area you may associate it with the A2 or the Medway Tunnel, perhaps with Medway City Estate or one of our three McDonalds drive-thrus. Now a dormitory town with some light industry and retail, its physical separation from the other Medway Towns gives it a distinctive character as far as I am concerned. Please don’t tell me I live in Rochester.
If asked to choose a colour to represent Strood you may well pick grey, which is often the predominant colour in the town.
However a satellite map of the area shows splashes of green, such as the open spaces of Rede Common, Broomhill Park and Church Green, as well as recreation grounds, school fields, cemeteries and churchyards. Walk the area and you find nature in unexpected or unplanned places: down half-forgotten alleyways or within derelict sites, on railway embankments and the margins of housing estates.
Continue reading “Regreening Strood”Once a month we will be offering the Leaders of both Medway Council and the official opposition the opportunity to talk unedited about.. well, Medway politics. Today we hear from Alan Jarrett, Leader of Medway Council and the Conservative Group.
‘Going forward I promise that we will protect Medway from those who seek to close down facilities and services; against those who belittle Medway and its hard-working people; and against those who snub our military heritage and insult our monarchy.’
Recently I said “the first casualty of an election is the truth!” That followed the distribution of a scurrilous leaflet from Labour claiming that no investment had been made in Chatham. Utter nonsense!
In reality there has been massive investment in Chatham: the new bus station; Chatham Placemaking; investment in the railway station; scoping and planning preparation for new housing at Chatham Waterfront and Whiffens Avenue; Chatham Community Hub and library; improved green spaces along the river front including a new riverside walk; and the Command of the Heights project to open up the Great Barrier Ditch to connect the waterfront to Fort Amherst They really should have gone to Specsavers!
Continue reading “Voice of the Leader: February”