The Week in Medway Politics: New mayor, not so new Cabinet

Medway MPs in Parliament

Quiet week in Parliament
Just the Queens Speech in Parliament this week, so our MPs haven’t been up to much. In the lengthy debate that began following the speech, Gilingham and Rainham MP Rehman Chishti managed to ask the Prime Minister about where the line on free speech and extremism should be drawn. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the answer was worrying vague.

Medway Council

Meet new cabinet, same as the old cabinet
This week, the Conservative administration of Medway Council announced who will be in the cabinet for the coming year. It should come as little surprise that the cabinet remains unchanged from last year, meaning Medway will continue to be represented by a cabinet that’s 100% white and 90% male. Just like Medway itself, obviously.

Meet the new mayor, different to the old mayor
This week, Medway’s new mayor and deputy mayor officially took up their positions, with Rochester West councillor Stuart Tranter and Princes Park councillor Gloria Opara taking on the respective roles. Tranter replaces previous mayor Barry Kemp in the role, who is stepping back after two years in the role, as detailed in this glowing profile from the Medway Messenger.

Political Parties

Medway Conservatives
Still missing, because after winning the Police and Crime Commissioner election, there’s not much for them to do until 2019.

Medway Labour
Utterly incredibly, it’s now been twelve 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. Yet they’d like the voters to hand them the keys to Gun Wharf.

Medway UKIP
Missing, because there’s nothing coming up that UKIP might be interested in, is there?

Medway Liberal Democrats
Usually, political parties out campaigning give you some nonsense about everything was so brilliant for them. So it’s refreshing to see such honesty from the Medway Lib Dems, who cheerily announced that they had “some” positive responses to their campaigning in Chatham.
If you’ve missed the previous dates on their tour, you’ve got one more chance to catch them as they descend on Rochester High Street at 10am this Saturday.

Medway Green Party
They haven’t done so for several weeks, so happily the Medway Greens are once again sharing stories of opposition to the proposed option for the Lower Thames Crossing.

Other News

Rehman about town
This week, Rehman Chishti managed to have his photo taken with the new mayor, the new deputy mayor, Kelly Tolhurst, a balcony of his block of flats, some children, the Gillingham stadium, the Strand, a blurry Attorney General, runners at the Race for Life, some confused cricketers, and a soggy Hempstead Fair.

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