In which our intrepid reporter continues to look at the state of children’s social care in Medway following another damning report..
In case you hadn’t heard, Medway Council has not magically been able to improve children’s social care services in three months, following ten years of austerity.
However, the council is not off the hook and will continue to provide social care for children in the towns. On top of that, the big guns that have been sent in to help the council clean up its act and will stay for at least another six months.
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
It is General Election day across the country, but most importantly for us, here in Medway.
Across the authority, voters have the chance to elect the three MPs that will represent us in Parliament for the next fivefourthreetwo however many years until we do this again.
Polling stations are now open and remain open until 10pm.
If you have received your polling card, you will know where you need to go to vote. If you are registered to vote but have not received your card, you do not need it to vote. Just go to your polling station, confirm your name and address, and you will be allowed to vote. No ID is required.
If you do not know the location of your polling station, you can call Medway Council on 01634 332030 and they will tell you where to go.
If you have a postal vote, but did not remember to return it in time, you can drop it in to your polling station up until polls close at 10pm.
You may find people outside of your polling station who ask to see your polling card. These people are activists for political parties and you absolutely do not have to engage with them.
To find a list of your candidates, Medway Elects have a handy tool where you enter your postcode and it brings up their details.
Once the polls close at 10pm, we will begin our #MedwayElects19 coverage through the night as the results come in, so be sure to check back later for that.
In which Anna McGovern, the Chair of Medway Youth Council, looks at the relevant issues for young people in this General Election..
Thursday 12th December will be a crucial day in the UK’s political sphere. It is the General Election – a day in which the people vote for who they want to represent them in Parliament. A total of 650 candidates will be elected as Members of Parliament (MPs) to decide laws and policies governing the UK. Individuals vote for the candidate they wish to represent them within their constituency on a Parliamentary scale. Many of these candidates will belong to a political party, but some candidates do stand independently. Current polls suggest a Conservative lead, with the Electoral Calculus website outlining an 82% likelihood that there will be a Conservative majority. But I tend to take these polls with a slight pinch of salt, because you can never truly know what to expect until the election result is announced to the UK. Individuals will be voting for their preferred candidate (or, in some cases, the “best” out of a bad bunch) within their constituency for the General Election.
In which Mina da Rui quizzes our Medway parliamentary candidates on animal welfare issues, and analyses their responses..
Instead of our regular style of iFAQ, we’ve tried something a little different this week. There’s plenty of interesting subjects we know little about, and unlike Michael Gove, we are now sick of experts. As such, every now and again, we’re going to ask people who know particular subjects to pose questions to our politicians and analyse their responses. For this first edition, we invited Mina da Rui, former Animal Welfare Party candidate, to pose questions to our Medway parliamentary candidates on, well, animal welfare issues. Their responses, along with Mina’s analysis are below..
In which Caitlin Webb tries to work through all of the different factors that go in to casting a vote at a General Election..
This has been called the most important vote in a lifetime, sound familiar? Feels like every time we go to the polling station, it’s to make a do-or-die decision. So deciding who to vote for is pretty important. There’s also the fact that people who have been living in this country for decades, people who have been cheated by the judicial system and 17-year-olds can’t vote, that drives me to put a cross in the box. But who will win my vote?
In which Lauren Heritage examines each party manifesto to see what each is pledging in terms of mental health..
Next month on December 12th we all head to the polls again for what feels like the 26th time in a year, for another General Election *insert screaming with joy gif*
The main parties are represented in Medway along with some independent candidates for your selection. Mental Health remains a hot topic both socially and politically and all parties will need to be making strong pledges in this area to win votes.
So what are the parties promising in their manifestos and what do I think of them? The focus of this article is to see how Labour, Conservatives, Lib Dems, Green and UKIP (at the time of writing The Brexit Party had not presented any mental health policy) are focusing on mental health and then review the policies.
It’s election time and it’s not unlikely another one is possible next year as well! As elections ever more become social media battles, PPCs promote themselves to anybody who has a pulse and is willing to fake a smile. With that in mind, it’s worth looking at guidance regarding safeguarding and the sharing of images of children online.
This isn’t about if you should share pictures of children online, but if you are interested in that, The Independent covered it here.
The following piece was inspired by a social media post by Rehman Chishti MP. The editing, as will become clear, is by us.
In which former Medway councillor Anne-Claire Howard ponders why female MPs are stepping down in this General Election..
The first question is, are many women MPs standing down? More than men? If that’s the case, are they long standing MPs? And what reasons are they invoking? And are they of all parties, ethnic origin, or ages? It’s a little easy to make all-encompassing statements like this, so I did a little research.
First of all, of the 58 politicians who are stepping down, 18 are women. “Well, that’s not so bad”, I hear you say. No, that’s not so bad. It’s basically the same proportion as there are female MPs in the house. This in itself is an issue, but not the topic of this piece. So proportionally as many women are standing down as men. But many of these women are relatively young and relatively recently elected compared to their male peers. That is more of a concern.
Medway was recently awarded a £170m grant from the Housing Infrastructure Fund to unlock future housing developments on the Hoo peninsula. While homes are desperately needed in Medway, these developments are very unpopular around the peninsula due to a perception of over-development. As such we decided to ask if this was the best use of the funding, or could it have been better spent in other parts of Medway.
It was recently announced that Medway has been awarded £170m from the Housing Infrastructure Fund to unlock future developments on the Hoo peninsula. Do you feel that this is the best use of this money, or do you feel that other parts of Medway could have benefited from access to these funds? If so, how?
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.
