Medway's Election Choices in 2011

Well, this is a complex story of 55 seats in 22 wards, and we aren't yet in a position to know who all the selected candidates are. However, Labour's premier local blogger has been trying to suggest that Labour have been up-front and open about who their candidates are going to be.

Funny that: the first information I found on any of them was at our own Alan Collins's site, and the disclosed names back then were for just two wards...

Perhaps the most marginal wards in Medway are Strood North and Strood South. The Conservatives hold five of the six seats (there are three in each of those wards) and the sixth was taken by Labour's Stephen Hubbard by just sixteen votes, and only as a result of a very dirty and dishonest campaign that included unfounded claims (that he cannot back up) that the council's Conservative Administration was planning to reduce waste collection to a fortnightly schedule. I have the evidence of that campaign on file...

So, what are Labour's chances this time? Probably not all that good; though it could have given them a very slight edge to have announced their candidates first. That hasn't happened, and I for one cannot fathom why. Others are just as puzzled.

Beyond that, until very recently (i.e. days ago) their websites were apparently showing candidates known to have been selected for one place still being shown (in many cases now incorrectly) as standing where they were positioned in the 2007 local elections(!) I could name names if necessary...

Still, a range of sources has been useful in suggesting the most likely line-ups, and now all confirmed thanks to Alan Collins in the comments, as follows:

Strood North

• Stephen Hubbard)
• Alex Paterson (who? Oh, a "schools campaigner", it turns out, like Sam Whittington: yes, another of them, but this one doesn't seem to have been at all prominent or even visible to the general public)
• Linda Robson
  

Now, I well remember Linda Robson, whom I thought of as something like Medway's answer to Lorraine Chase. Indeed, I even fancied the idea of re-making one of those Campari adverts with her, including a modified version of the famous exchange:

Me: "You truly wafted here from paradise."
LR: "Nah, Luton Arches!"

Strood South

• Isaac Igwe (who, again?)
• Mark Jones
• Derek Munton Robert Heathfield
  

This isn't actually a very impressive line-up, allowing for the new names of whom no-one seems to have heard before. Derek Munton, whom I personally like, has always had difficulty in expressing himself clearly, and that was demonstrated again when he attempted to ask a question at a Council meeting last week.

I really don't think he has what it will take to make a real impact in the present age. He has lost every local election in which he has stood during this past decade, in this same ward in 2003 and 2007 (with no other party opposing the Conservatives on the latter occasion), and really is yesterday's man. At least we now know he isn't standing in either of these two wards

Similar things could be said about other old Labour hands who are apparently seeking to make a come-back. They just don't have what it will take. Even worse, they don't have any known new, younger folk in most of Medway. That has to be a depressingly desperate situation for Medway Labour: has-beens or unknowns as their only choices in even the most critical and marginal of wards.

Don't get me wrong: there is good use for some of the more senior folk on any Council, including Medway; but only if they are good for the job. Very few of Labour's more senior current or former councillors have been so, at least during the past decade when I have known them and witnessed their activity. The late Fred Bacon and John Shaw are probably the only two I could say, with hand on heart, were worth having on Medway Council during that period.

I think this might be why Labour's Strood candidates haven't been publicised: they know they just don't have the material, and could easily end up the object of open ridicule by commentators from all over the Medway blogosphere and (in a different form) the local media.

Meanwhile, Conservative selections are now almost all complete, and the full set of candidates are expected to be announced all together, within (probably) the next week or so.

In the weeks and months to come, I shall be looking at other aspects of the 2011 local Medway Elections, and hopefully provide a full but accessible summary of all 22 wards around next February or March.