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.

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