“Apart from that, I haven’t really thought about it”

What Steven asked, er, Steven Keevil, award-winning Local Authority columnist and founder of Medwayish

Steven Keevil first started writing about Medway for The Political Medway. Since then, he joined Ed on Local Authority and has interviewed a wide variety of the great and good of Medway and won Kent Columnist of the Year. Steven sat down with himself and discussed his educational journey, why he wore a tuxedo to work and if he is a member of the Labour Party.

So, interviewing yourself? Are you desperate for content?
Well, I interviewed Ed for our first Local Authority interview and my Mum for our 50th. I was thinking who I could get for the 100th, and due to doing a number of interviews for the General Election last year, it fell awkwardly just after Christmas. I flattered myself that people would be interested in hearing about me. I’m doing it myself, as Ed has no desire to talk to me at the best of times. But also happy to say we’re not desperate for content at all. We’ve got some great interviews lined up. Some people have patiently waited a year from first speaking to them. We’ve got interviews lined up until March, with plenty more after that.

Steven Keevil.

What is your involvement with Local Authority?
I do a number of things. Primarily, every week, I do this long-form interview segment. I also do smaller interviews as part of our Friday culture edition, do the lunch reviews, and act as a sort of commissioning editor for the guest-written pieces we get. Sometimes, that’s having an idea for a piece, or a review that requires somebody else to write, or liaising with somebody who has an idea for a piece.

You also host the live events.
Yes, well done, good job that somebody did their research. We first held a leaders debate in 2019, which, for some reason, Vince Maple and Alan Jarrett agreed to take part in. It was a really great experience, and the audience seemed to like it. For some reason everybody agreed to do it again in 2023. MidKent College were very generous with their space, and we did a couple of Medway Question Time events to follow up, before doing election hustings for the Police and Crime Commissioner election and then the General Election.

What are your memories of the General Election Hustings?
It was all so intense. Multiple candidates on the stage, trying to keep on top of the questions and finding a way to be fair and provide equal time to people. It was disappointing that the Conservative candidates didn’t take part. We are looking forward to doing some more MQT events in the future, and when Mayoral elections take place… well, hopefully watch this space.

Why weren’t you involved in the Local Authority launch?
Ed and I have been writing about Medway and Medway politics together in one form or another for ten years now. We had stopped being involved in party politics, and I still wanted to be doing something. Ed had been attending full council and live tweeting what was going on. This was back when Twitter was a positive thing, if you can just imagine for a moment. I suggested that we collaborate on a blog, The Political Medway, in the run-up to the General and local elections, which were occurring on the same day in 2015. We had been covering the full council meetings, and were taken seriously enough to be able to attend the count as press. Somehow, we weren’t burnt out by the whole experience and carried on doing it.

But why weren’t you involved in the launch of Local Authority?
By 2019, I was burnt out. I had some health issues, work issues, finance issues, issue issues. I had been contributing less to the blog, taking on the Contributing Editor role, getting a variety of people involved. Outside of the big events, the blog wasn’t earning any income. Ed is much better than I at keeping up with what is going on in local journalism and worked out that Substack newsletters were the way forward. I just needed a break from a lot of things.

What changed?
I had seen what a great job Ed had done. We had carried on meeting regularly, talking about what was going on and I started to think about what I could contribute. That led to me doing the long-form interviews, amongst other columns.

And winning Kent’s Columnist of the Year.
Nice of you to mention that, yes. My mindset was either taking a serious subject and treating it less than seriously or taking a comical subject and treating it seriously. That led to writing pieces like could a James Bond villain build a secret lair in Medway, and what is the Chatham Pocket?

You’ve done a number of interviews now. What Interviewers do you like?
I listen to a lot of podcasts. I really like Ways to Change the World with Krishnan Guru-Murthy, Full Disclosure with James O’Brien, and Young Again with Kirsty Young.

Who has been a good and or bad interviewee?
I’ve been lucky to interview interesting people and discover fascinating things about people connected to the area. Just a few highlights: Michi Masumi, John Daynes, Zara Carpenter and Rikard Osterlund, Bill Lewis. No disrespect to anybody I haven’t mentioned. I’ve had the pleasure to sit down with Vince Maple a few times. Billy Childish was incredibly generous with his time.

And bad interviewees?
Nobody has been bad.

But?
Understandably, some people may have never been interviewed before. Whilst some relax and get into it, others have not so much. But that’s on me, not them.

Steven ‘interviewing’ Keir Starmer. Photo: Sofia Akin

What was it like interviewing Sir Keir Starmer?
I didn’t interview him. I got to ask one question. It was an in-person experience of politicians answering the question they want to answer, not what you ask. It was fine. Nice to be invited, as they say.