Medway Predicts 2023

In which our crack election analysis panel predicts who will win take control of Medway next month

With the local elections almost upon us, it felt like the right time to put together predictions for who will get elected, which party will be the largest group running the council, and what the voter turnout might be. In our former guise, we did exercise in 2019 and 2015. In 2019, we correctly predicted that the Conservatives would gain a majority, but under-estimated by how much.

Having already stated how well I thought the current Conservative group would do this time, I invited a motley group of local political nerds and reluctant candidates to discuss predictions for 2023.

To form our panel, we invited Conservative candidate Craig Liddell, Labour activist Toby Forster, Green Party candidate Trish Marchant, Liberal Democrat candidate and MedwayElects founder Alan Collins, and former coalition government apologist and Local Authority founder Ed Jennings.

The Medway Predicts panel. From left to right: Conservative candidate Craig Liddell, Local Authority founder Ed Jennings, Green Party candidate Trish Marchant, Labour Party activist Toby Forster, and Liberal Democrat candidate and MedwayElects founder Alan Collins.

Having plied them with MSG, we went through the wards in alphabetical order and debated how we thought it might go on election night. For each ward, if the panel couldn’t unanimously agree on the outcome, we went with the majority view.

Will Medway once again buck national trends? Will voters who are unhappy with the Conservatives nationally still vote Conservative locally? Let’s find out what the wisdom of our panel predicts.