The Week in Westminster, 24 Nov

While we tend to focus on the drama of local politics, it can be easy to forget that Medway has three MPs representing us in parliament. What are they doing? What are they saying? Our new feature will try and break that down, while also accepting that many of the workings of parliament are horribly dense and not particularly accessible. Which leads us nicely to:


Kelly, Tracey and Rehman voted Nay.
Continue reading “The Week in Westminster, 24 Nov”

Fixed Odds On Principles

For some this is the worst of the post-war British Governments, and yet Tracey Crouch, as both Sports Minister and Minister for Loneliness, was an example of what a Member of Parliament with a social conscious could do in Government.

And then on All-Saints Day she resigned.

Keevil attempts to understand how modern gambling licensing works, what FOBTs are and why it would cause a politician of principles to resign on principle. Continue reading “Fixed Odds On Principles”

Election night in Medway

For the fourth time in a little over two years, Medway has again gone to the polls, this time for a surprise General Election.

Polling stations will close at 10pm, and after that we’ll be live tweeting from the count on @MedwayPolitics. We’ll post the results on this post as quickly as we can, but it’ll probably be very late before the Medway results come in, so we won’t hold it against you if you check back in the morning.

Chatham and Aylesford result – Con HOLD
Nicole Bushill (UKIP) – 2,225
Tracey Crouch (Con) – 25,587
John Gibson (CPA) – 260
Bernard Hyde (Green) – 573
Vince Maple (Lab) – 15,129
Thomas Quinton (Lib Dem) – 1,116

Gillingham and Rainham result – Con HOLD
Paul Chaplin (Lib Dem) – 1,372
Rehman Chishti (Con) – 27,091
Martin Cook (UKIP) – 2,097
Clive Gregory (Green) – 520
Roger Peacock (CPA) – 127
Andy Stamp (Lab) – 17,661

Rochester and Strood result – Con HOLD
David Allen (UKIP) – 2,893
Steve Benson (CPA) – 169
Primerose Chiguri (Ind) – 129
Sonia Hyner (Green) – 781
Teresa Murray (Lab) – 19,382
Bart Ricketts (Lib Dem) – 1189
Kelly Tolhurst (Con) – 29,232

The Week

Yeah yeah, it’s been a while. We’re also trying a new format as the old one was a pain in the arse.

Shopmobility shafting
Shopmobility services provide a vital way of disabled people getting around town centres. However, that hasn’t stopped Medway Council spectacularly changing theirs with next to no consultation. On Thursday 25th August, it announced that the existing provision in Chatham would be closing, replaced by a new service on 1st September. The new service is located at the opposite end of Pentagon Shopping Centre to the disabled car park, and charges have been introduced, making it far more difficult for disabled people to make use of the service. Disability campaigners, Medway Labour, and Conservative Chatham & Aylesford MP Tracey Crouch are unhappy about the changes, but we don’t expect much to be done to make this right.

Rochester Riverside plans
The regeneration scheme for Rochester Riverside has been dragging on for roughly 238 years now, but things might finally be getting moving. After appointing Countryside and Hyde to proceed with the project last year, Medway Council will be showing off the plans in a generous three hour window this Tuesday. The project is set to include 1,300 homes, school, hotel, bar, restaurant, offices, retail units, and a new riverside walk. What isn’t mentioned is transport infrastructure, which given the existing congestion on Corporation Street, is conspicuous by it’s absence. If you’re interested in taking a look at the plans for yourself, they will be on display at the Corn Exchange in Rochester on Tuesday 6th September, between 5pm and 8pm

Cabinet kerfuffle
Medway Council’s ruling cabinet will meet on Tuesday to discuss business rates, and, er, not much else. Being the good little citizen journalists we are, we’d like to be there, but alas they hold these supposedly ‘public’ meetings in the middle of the working day. We’ve looked and struggled to find other councils that make their democratic processes this inaccessible (most hold such meetings around 7pm), and we’ll be doing so in more depth going forwards.

NIMBYism in action
Once again, the Medway NIMBY brigade are out in force, this time objecting to a planning application for a new bar and restaurant on New Road in Chatham. For our money, the application seems to be put together pretty well, with continuous staffing of inside and outside areas, CCTV coverage, and a fairly strict licence request. That hasn’t stopped the locals being outraged at the idea though, claiming it’ll lead to anti-social behaviour and, weirdly, diners being beaten up. The giant boarded up shop that’s currently in it’s place is, of course, absolutely fine.

MedLabHack
Back in February, the Medway Labour website was hacked, with someone sticking some malicious content into it’s code. Remarkably, the website still remains in this state, with Medway Labour having done nothing to fix the issue, take the site down, or even warn users that visiting the site puts them at risk. This whole sorry ordeal has been going for over six months now, meaning the Medway Labour website has been hacked for a longer time than Tim Peake spent on the International Space Station.

“The only thing that cunt wants is a bullet between the eyes”
Interesting times at the British Association of Shooting and Conservation, which has been locked in huge infighting between it’s members. Police have been called to meetings that threatened to get out of hand, and a new report details some remarkable tales of bullying and intimidation (such as the quote above) that took place within the organisation. What does this have to do with Medway, we hear you ask? The former chair of the BASC, who resigned in June, is none other than Alan Jarrett, the leader of Medway Council.

Car-aoke challenge
As part of the September campaign for local charity Danny’s Angels, the Medway Labour group have taken part in a car-aoke challenge. We’ll be curious to see whether the other political groups in Medway take up the challenge, and The Political Medway has offered a generous donation if representatives of all five local political parties – Conservative, Labour, UKIP, Lib Dem, Green – all take part in a joint singalong. Will they accept the challenge?

The Fortnight in Medway Politics: Referendum Special

Well.

That was something, wasn’t it?

We haven’t written an actual post about the referendum, because what can you say, really? We try and remain impartial with this site, yet this was a decision we cared greatly about, and impacts our futures in a big way.

In the next couple of days, we’ll get something up on the exact results from Medway and what it might mean, but for now, let’s do what we always do: snark mercilessly about what each of the parties have been up to in the past couple of weeks.

Medway MPs in Parliament

Neverendum
When it all came down it, our three Medway MPs managed to provide three different stances for where they stood on the referendum. Rochester and Strood MP Kelly Tolhurst decided to focus on her career by endorsing remain, which will have seemed like a horrible mistake by Friday. Gillingham and Rainham MP Rehman Chishti went for leave, which probably sets himself up nicely for this post-Brexit world. Finally, Chatham and Aylesford MP Tracey Crouch decided to vote, but not tell us how. Which is absolutely her right, but we wonder how that might go down with her constituents down the line.

Also in Parliament
Unusually, Kelly Tolhurst asked a half arsed question about the balance of privacy and security in the Investigatory Powers Bill, and asked what turned out to be her final question to David Cameron in Prime Minister’s Questions.

Medway Council

Oh, the humanity
The EU referendum saw a Medway turnout of 72.1%, and a split of 64.1% for leave to 35.9% for remain. Special shout out to the 27 Medway voters that managed to vote to both leave and remain in the EU. Various councillors and other folks weighed in on the referendum results here.

Political Parties

Medway Conservatives
The referendum bitterness reached the local Conservatives with Cllr Andrew Mackness, who acted as the election agent for Kelly Tolhurst, questioning the mandate of any MPs that supported remain. MPs like Kelly Tolhurst, for example.

Medway Labour
Utterly incredibly, it’s now been 17 weeks since the Medway Labour website was hacked, proving a security risk to user’s visiting, and they still haven’t managed to fix it. And yes, we are going to mention this every single time until they do something about it.
It’s hard to keep track of all of the animosity between Labour councillors and activists on Twitter at this point, but it’s worth noting that three councillors – Tristan Osborne, Naushabah Khan, and Andy Stamp – all called for Corbyn to step down this week. Which went down with certain activists like a cup of warm sick.

Medway UKIP
Still missing, because.. wait, why the hell would they be missing at this point?

Medway Liberal Democrats
Unsurprisingly, they aren’t thrilled about the referendum result, and dealt with it the best way they know how: a 60,000 word essay about it on their website.

Medway Green Party
The Greens are now jumpy about what the consequences are for the environment once the EU is out of the picture.
They’re also focussing on trivial issues like local homelessness too. We don’t know what’s got into them.

The Week in Medway Politics: Referendum, housebuilding, babies

Medway MPs in Parliament

Told off Chishti
Gillingham and Rainham MP Rehman Chishti got himself into trouble with Speaker John Bercow after running afoul of parliamentary procedure. It seems you can’t mention the Public Gallery in the House of Commons without a telling off, but no one says anything about your somewhat dodgy connections to Saudi Arabia.

In, out, shake it all about
On the issue of the EU referendum, all three Medway MPs seem to be taking the latter option. While Chatham and Aylesford MP has the somewhat valid excuse of maternity leave, Rehman Chishti and Rochester and Strood MP Kelly Tolhurst have no such excuses. Neither MP wants to state where they stand, with Chishti “listening” to residents on an almost daily basis, while Tolhurst keeps her head down all together. It’s unfair on their constituents that so close to the referendum, none of our MPs are willing to tell them exactly where they stand on such an important issue.

Elsewhere in Parliament
Rehman Chishti’s suspicious relationship with Saudi Arabia began gaining further attention, with a forensic analysis from Middle East Monitor. On a jaunt to the Council of Europe, Kelly Tolhurst got into a bit of a ding-dong with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.

Medway Council

Set some of Medway on fire! (part 2)
Following on from last week’s social media fail by Medway Council, their competition to allow a resident to light a beacon to celebrate the Queen’s birthday didn’t go any better. Blogger Alan Collins have covered the whole sorry saga.

No babies, thanks
Medway Council went to court (and lost) to try to get out of looking after a baby. Because that’s the kind of world we live in.

Political Parties

Medway Conservatives
Conservative Kent Police and Crime Commissioner candidate Matthew Scott was in Chatham. So there’s that.
Rochester South and Horsted councillor Rupert Turpin was outraged that Barack Obama dared to use the word “queue”, even though he’s used in on several occasions previously.

Medway Labour
The Medway Labour website was hacked eight weeks ago, proving a security risk to user’s visiting, and they still haven’t managed to fix it. Yet they’d like the voters to hand them the keys to Gun Wharf.

Medway UKIP
Still missing, because with an EU referendum, and a Police and Crime Commissioner election where they’re likely to be in the top two, they’ve got nothing to do.

Medway Liberal Democrats
Missing, because they’ve got some campaigning coming up next month and don’t want to wear themselves out too soon.

Medway Green Party
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Greens aren’t too happy that the Leader of Medway Council Alan Jarrett said it was “inevitable” that green spaces would need to be built on to meet housing demand.

The Fortnight in Medway Politics: Beacons, think tanks, tax returns

The big story

Final list of candidates for Kent Police and Crime Commissioner – full story
After months of build up, we finally received confirmation of who is, and more importantly isn’t, standing for Kent Police and Crime Commissioner. With current commissioner Ann Barnes standing down, one of six new names will be taking on the role next month.

Medway MPs in Parliament

Two jobs Chishti
There were some interesting revelations in the latest issue of Private Eye about Gillingham and Rainham MP Rehman Chishti. After taking up a £24,000 a year job for a Saudi Arabian think-tank, he led a delegation of MPs to the country. Unlike his recent football freebies, Chishti did at least register this trip correctly in the register of MPs’ interests. Curiously, he claimed to have met with “human rights groups” during the trip, which the Eye finds questionable given that the country doesn’t apparently have any such groups. Upon being asked to name the groups he had met with, Chishti refused to respond.

Elsewhere in Parliament
Rochester and Strood MP Kelly Tolhurst was very, very concerned that some Africans managed to sneak into north Kent. Following recent stories about the tax arrangements of MPs, Chatham and Aylesford MP Tracey Crouch declared there was ‘nothing of interest’ in her tax return. But then she would say that, wouldn’t she?

Medway Council

Set some of Medway on fire!
Medway Council launched a curious competition this week, inviting residents of Medway to light a giant beacon on the Great Lines to celebrate the Queen’s 90th birthday. As a staunch republican, Jennings immediately took the opportunity to enter, and after several days, is still one of only two entries. So if you’d like your chance to set fire to a little bit of Medway in the name of an antiquated class based system, head on over to Twitter and tell Medway Council why you should be allowed to light the beacon using #MedwayBeacons.

Unappy days
After five years, Medway Council has done away with it’s Love Medway app, which allowed residents and council staff to report issues such as fly tipping, broken street lights, or graffiti. Launched at a cost of £7,000, the council claimed it saved money overall, yet has decided to do away with it now. Despite some perfectly good free alternatives being available, such as FixMyStreet, the council has suggested residents go back to phoning the council to get things fixed, as if it was 1989.

Political Parties

Medway Conservatives
Once again, the two main factions of the local Conservative group engaged in their annual scrap to decide which councillor should receive the role of mayor for the following year. Despite the role being entirely meaningless, both sides will go all out to take control of it, with Rochester West councillor Stuart Tranter being the lucky recipient this year. Princes Park councillor Gloria Opara is likely to be his deputy.

Medway Labour
Remarkably, several months on, the Medway Labour website is still hacked, so it’s clear they’ve pretty much given up trying to fix it at this stage, even if leaving the old site up presents a security risk to visitors.
Following the above revelations about Rehman Chishti’s second job in Saudi Arabia, Medway Labour are concerned that he hasn’t registered this new role with the council.
If you fancy meeting a Shadow Cabinet Minister (and why wouldn’t you?), you can join Medway Labour’s ‘Curry & Chat’ evening in Rochester, which will only set you back a mere £25.

Medway UKIP
Missing, because with an EU referendum, and a Police and Crime Commissioner election where they’re likely to be in the top two, they’ve got nothing to do.

Medway Liberal Democrats
Happily, the Medway Lib Dems notify everyone of when they’ll be campaigning, so no one has to miss out on the excitement. Over the coming weeks, they’ll be out no less than five – count ’em – five times! Next Saturday you’ll find them in Rainham, and the week after that in Gillingham. After that, they’ll take a week off, before popping up on May 14 in Strood, then May 21 in Chatham, before wrapping up their campaigning for the year on May 28 in Rochester.

Medway Green Party
Unusually, they haven’t posted about the Lower Thames Crossing for a while, but they are unhappy about plans to demolish the Royal Oak pub in Frinsbury.
Rather charmingly Green, they’d also like to see pod homes built above car parks in Medway that could be sold to first time buyers for £50,000.

The Fortnight in Medway Politics: Planning, police, powerhouses

Medway MPs in Parliament

Lower Thames Crossing
The consultation on the Lower Thames Crossing closed at the end of March, so we thought we’d take a look at where our local MPs stand on an issue that has great relevance to the people of Medway. Somewhat surprisingly, most of them don’t really stand anywhere. Gillingham and Rainham MP Rehman Chishti and Chatham and Aylesford MP Tracey Crouch have made little public comment beyond sharing the consultation. Unusually, the only one to take a stand is Rochester and Strood MP Kelly Tolhurst, who came out against it, presumably because she doesn’t have to sit in the queues at Dartford every day.

Elsewhere in Parliament
It won’t be all that surprising to discover that both Rehman Chishti and Kelly Tolhurst both voted for George Osborne’s recent (and not entirely well received) budget. Additionally, in a slightly bizarre intervention following the Brussels attacks, Rehman Chishti demanded more “theological language” to fight terrorists.

Medway Council

Planning palaver
A baffling interlude courtesy of Medway Council’s planning policy this week. On Wednesday, councillors will vote on a range of planning applications, the most interesting being a proposed trampoline centre at Rainham Mark. Despite the proposed building having sat empty for a long time, the centre creating 45 jobs, consultation responses being 3 to 1 in favour, the recommendation is for the committee to refuse the application. The reason? It’s not in the right part of town, whereas the the KFC drive-thru right next door is perfectly fine. In the same week, the Cabinet looks set to wave through a plan to build a giant marina right outside of Gun Wharf.

The Kentish Powerhouse
Some curious comments from Leader of Medway Council Alan Jarrett, who told the KM that Medway is talking with other councils in Kent about powers and funding models that may be offered from central government. While there has been talk previously of other Kent County Council controlled boroughs forming larger groups, this is the first time Medway has been confirmed as taking part in such discussions.

Political Parties

Medway Conservatives
Kent Conservative Police and Crime Commissioner candidate Matthew Scott campaigned in Rainham this weekend, but otherwise, the party seems to be keeping it’s head down.

Medway Labour
Incredibly, the Medway Labour website is still hacked, despite the party being aware of the issue weeks ago.
The party are also concerned by the seeming hypocrisy between the Leader of Medway Council Alan Jarrett opposing government plans to make all schools academies, while trying to make all Medway schools convert mere weeks earlier.
Labour also hit the streets of Strood South, ostensibly to campaign to remain in the European Union, and nothing to do with a likely by-election in the ward. Interestingly, there was no sign of Strood South Conservative UKIP Independent Labour councillor Mark Joy on the campaign trail.

Medway UKIP
Not to be outdone by Matthew Scott, Kent UKIP Police and Crime Commissioner candidate Henry Bolton campaigned in both Gillingham and Chatham this weekend.

Medway Liberal Democrats
They reported some dumped bin bags to the council. Jolly good.

Medway Green Party
Unsurprisingly, they’re still unhappy about the Lower Thames Crossing, and not really sure how to deal with Kelly Tolhurst ultimately being on the same side as them.
They’re unhappy that Medway Council have begun charging for all bulky waste collections too.
They’re also unhappy about a new retail development on Medway City Estate being built without road improvements. Though if the council proposed more roads, they’d probably be unhappy about that too.

Other News

Minor Police and Crime Commissioner candidate roundup
Previously announced Independent Police and Crime Commissioner candidate Tim Garbutt may be out of the race as he seemingly didn’t check how much it costs to stand before now.
No such problems for another Independent candidate, Gurvinder Sandher, who has been hitting the campaign trail all over Kent, including a stop in Rochester this week.
We’ve covered the baffling campaign of Fergus Wilson several times before, so we won’t again in detail here, but blogger Jon Patience has been staying on top of latest events.
..and in one of the most jaw dropping twists of the campaign, English Democrat candidate Steve Uncles successfully convinced a judge to delay his trial for election fraud so he could fight this election.

The Week in Medway Politics: Sunday trading, tents, football

The big stories

Internal strife within Medway Labour as ex-UKIP councillor Mark Joy tries to join party – full story
In which the Medway Labour leadership cause an almighty row by trying to bring a former UKIP councillor into the fold.

Rehman Chishti in breach of parliamentary rules – full story
In which the Gillingham and Rainham MP doesn’t declare his football freebies, and gets a new job.

Medway MPs in Parliament

Sunday Trading
This week, MPs voted on whether or not to extend Sunday trading hours, as it still seems strange that someone can’t do their shopping at 5pm on a Sunday in 2016. In a rare outbreak of good sense, all three Medway MPs – Rehman Chishti, Chatham and Aylesford MP Tracey Crouch, and Rochester and Strood MP Kelly Tolhurst – all voted for the changes, but alas, the vote was lost overall. So no shopping at 9am on a Sunday for you.

Elsewhere in Parliament
In one of the stranger speeches of the week, Kelly Tolhurst spoke at length in parliament about being unable to get a phone line installed in her office. After weeks of buildup, Rehman Chishti’s complaints about laser pens finally came to a head, as he introduced a bill to get them banned. Finally, after Channel 4 News pushing on the Rochester and Strood by-election spending issue for a while, the Daily Mail have stepped, all guns blazing, into the fray.

Medway Council

Rochester Riverside
Not for the first time, a new developer has been chosen to deliver the 1300 home Rochester Riverside project. Countryside Properties and Hyde Housing will now begin work on the project, with work due to complete in 2028, a mere 21 years after the process began. At least it’ll help solve Medway’s next decade housing crisis.

Cabinet decisions
This week, Medway Council’s ruling cabinet met. Amongst their decisions were to formally endorse the Southern Western variation of the Lower Thames Crossing proposals, and to rescind current arrangements for Business Rates Relief for next year. Both decisions will likely not be particularly popular. You can read the full minutes from the meeting here.

Political Parties

Medway Conservatives
Still missing, presumably trying to make excuses for Cllr Franklin’s tweets.

Medway Labour
As you’d expect, Medway Labour are crowing about the laws on Sunday trading not being relaxed, because they’d rather it was impossible to get hold of things after 5pm on a Sunday.

Medway UKIP
A remarkable stance from Medway UKIP this week, who requested the council prepare tents for migrants to live in on the Great Lines. The full story also features a superb bit of Photoshop work too.
Elsewhere, former UKIP Rochester and Strood MP Mark Reckless has been selected to stand for the Welsh Assembly in coming elections. If he takes up a seat in the Assembly, will his wife – Cllr Catriona Brown-Reckless – give up her seat on Medway Council, or begin an almighty commute?

Medway Liberal Democrats
The Medway Lib Dems went on the attack this week, with a scathing statement from new chairman John Castle attacking the Tories, calling out the opposition parties on the council, and demanding a change to the scrutiny system. The fact they have no councillors to really do anything was sadly missed out.

Medway Green Party
Well, you probably won’t believe it, but they’re angry about the Lower Thames Crossing.

Other News

Ann Barnes out
After months of speculation, current Kent Police and Crime Commissioner Ann Barnes ruled herself out of the running for the upcoming elections, meaning Kent is assured a new Commissioner in May. Which makes the coming election slightly more interesting than the circus side show it had largely been up until now.

Rehman About Town
A strong photo week for Rehman, seeing him have his photo taken with some children, a giant tourism sign, Stewart from the Heritage Lottery Fund, a treadmill, an award, meeting his obligatory single resident, and despite the story above, we shit you not, a Gillingham player, and himself at the match. He also found time to highlight himself reading the local paper after they mentioned his tweets in a tiny column. We cover his whereabouts every single week and what do we get? Sheesh.