Medway, Then and Now

With all three local seats here having switched from Labour to solid Conservative wins, it's worth looking at the magnitude of the results here, in particular the shift from Red to Blue support.

Note that although the boundaries have changed, the following figures still give a good indication of the extent of that shift, especially when one puts the three together as they cover the same area between them as the former constituencies did.

Labour really are in the Land of the Lost, especially here in Kent where they no longer have any MPs! At least one local newspaper refers to the county's results as "a Tory landslide".

In south east England as a whole, there are now 74 Conservative MPs, against four each Labour (who lost 13 seats) and Liberal Democrat (who lost one seat), and one Green (new).

So, as a message to Medway Labour (who will be particularly disappointed at the loss of Jonathon Shaw's large notional majority), I repeat what I have said many times before: Medway people don't like lies and dirty tricks, and they punish those parties who practise them. Remember this lesson when it comes to next year's Medway Council elections! The other parties can expect to be dealt with in exactly the same way if they behave in their customary manner.

Here are the topline figures for each of our three constituencies, last time and this time, to indicate just how big a set of results these are:

Chatham and Aylesford

2005 – Labour majority of 2,332; turnout 60·8 %
2010 – Conservative majority of 6,069; turnout 61·6 %

Gillingham and Rainham

2005 – Labour majority of 254; turnout 64·2 %
2010 – Conservative majority of 8,680; turnout 66·0 %

Rochester and Strood

2005 – Labour majority of 213; turnout 62·7 %
2010 – Conservative majority of 9,953; turnout 64·9 %