It has been quite a week in Medway politics..
The Week in Medway Politics, 10 Feb
The Week in Westminster, 9 Feb
Local Government Finance
This included a further £1.3bn cut to council budgets and above inflation council tax rises for 2019/20
Tracey Crouch MP voted Yes
Kelly Tolhurst MP voted Yes
Cllr Rehman Chishti MP Voted Yes
Continue reading “The Week in Westminster, 9 Feb” Political Figures: Ballot Roulette
Once a month we are going to hand over to our friends at Medway Elects, who are going to dig into the Medway data and, using wizardry, work out where are right now.
Voting is a complicated matter. You walk into the polling station, pick up your ballot paper (after providing absolutely zero evidence you are who you say you are), enter the polling booth, mark a cross next to the candidate or party you want to win, drop your ballot paper into the ballot box and then leave. Job done.
But sometimes, the instructions on a ballot paper can be too complicated to follow. The part where it says “vote for only one candidate” is generally assumed. But it’s not always there, and not everyone seems to notice.
With one exception (in Cuxton and Halling), voters in Medway this coming May will be voting for more than one councillor, so will have more than one vote. In the nine wards which elect two councillors, voters will be able to vote for two candidates, and in the twelve wards which elect three councillors, voters will be able to vote for three candidates.
As a veteran of three full council election counts, I can say with confidence that a significant proportion of voters either deliberately ignore this instruction, or simply do not read it, assuming they only have one vote. Others will vote for three candidates, but not necessarily all from the same party (sometimes parties will not field a full slate of candidates in a ward, or there may be independent candidates standing on their own). Voters are, of course, free to vote as they wish, but this can have a strange effect on the final result.
Continue reading “Political Figures: Ballot Roulette”Medway Tories suspend councillor three years late
In January 2016, we published an article on Luton and Wayfield Conservative councillor Michael Franklin’s offensive tweeting. Throughout 2015, Cllr Franklin published and shared a number of Islamophobic, transphobic, and racist tweets on his personal Twitter account. Following our article, the issue was raised at a full council meeting, and gained some wider media attention, and a new social media policy for councillors was introduced.
Crucially though, no action was taken against Cllr Franklin for his actions.
Until he found himself suspended from the Conservative party, three years later.
So what changed to make the party take action now when they didn’t in the previous three years?
Continue reading “Medway Tories suspend councillor three years late”Voice of the Opposition: February
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.
Despite the excellent efforts of the Political Medway website and our own Medway Labour Facebook Live feeds, it is difficult for those who are interested to see everything that is going on at Medway Council. I want to highlight a few issues which Medway Labour councillors have been raising over the past few weeks:
Labouring against costly concerts
In which Labour councillor for Rochester West Alex Paterson examines what might be going wrong with the Castle Concerts.
I’d like to think that I’m not a frustrated anything.
By that I mean that, unlike so many in the current Tory administration, I’m not a frustrated businessman looking for a bigger budget to play with. I’m not a frustrated teacher who thinks they can show local heads a thing or two about running a school. And I’m not a frustrated impresario trying to put on a show.
I’ve always been suspicious of those people. Which is, I think, always a good starting point.
Of course, life experience is a vital part of being a councillor, but only in so far as it informs the scrutiny you are able to put the officers (whose job it is to actually do these things) under.
Whether it’s because of my background in newspapers or just a knack, one thing in life that I’ve found I’m particularly good at is asking questions. More importantly, I’ll listen to what I’m being told and, if it doesn’t address the question, I’ll ask another until I get an answer.
It sounds simple enough. But if it’s so simple, why do so few Tories on our Overview and Scrutiny committees ever do it?
Continue reading “Labouring against costly concerts”iFAQ: A more accessible Cabinet?
We’re not going to lie. It’s a fairly short iFAQ this week. We sent the below question to the leaders of both the Conservative and Labour council groups, being the most likely to hold power in Medway following the upcoming elections.
For many of us engaged in local politics who also have full time jobs, attending Medway Council Cabinet meetings is impossible much of the time. Would you consider moving Cabinet to a more accessible time for the public to attend, in line with other local authorities?
Continue reading “iFAQ: A more accessible Cabinet?”The Week in Medway Politics, 3 Feb
The Week in Westminster, 2 Feb
“and is conscious of the serious risks arising for the United Kingdom from exit without a withdrawal agreement…’
Tracey Crouch MP voted No
Kelly Tolhurst MP voted No
Rehman Chishti MP voted No
Tracey Crouch MP voted Yes
Kelly Tolhurst MP voted Yes
Rehman Chishti MP voted Yes
Virtual Doorstep: 13 weeks 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?