Rehman Chishti gifted £12,000 trip by Saudi organisation

Woah... deja vu

Editor’s note: Thanks to everyone who got in touch with kind words after we took the Kent News Website of the Year award at the Kent Press & Broadcast Awards last week. It’s been a whirlwind week, so sorry if I haven’t got back to your message, but each and every one is appreciated. It’s still amazing to both of us at Local Authority Towers that this has gone from a fun little side project to an award-winning news venture in less than two years. Thanks for sticking with us this far, and we’ve got some exciting new things coming up. Today though, it’s an old favourite…

Rehman Chishti gifted £12,000 trip by Saudi organisation

If you’ve been reading Local Authority for a little while now, that headline might seem somewhat familiar to you. Indeed, we ran a piece with almost the exact same headline back in March.

We haven’t started replaying the greatest hits though. Instead, the MP for Gillingham and Rainham has once again been sent on another international jaunt paid for by an organisation from Saudi Arabia.

A new entry on the Register of Interests for MPs reveals that Rehman was sent to the UN in New York to speak at an event hosted by the Muslim World League, the organisation that paid for his trip, valued at a total of £12,280. This is even more than the £11,000 that was dropped on him visiting Saudi Arabia earlier in the year.

Unlike his previous trip, this was not associated with any of his parliamentary work, and indeed took place on a week when Parliament was in session. As a result, the MP missed a number of debates and votes in the House of Commons.

It goes without saying at this point that this is the latest in a long series of payments from Saudi Arabian organisations. He was investigated after he took a £2,000 per month second job from a Saudi think tank before asking a number of questions friendly to the country in parliament. The job, as well as his Saudi trips in the past, led to him being spectacularly tackled by Channel 4 at one of his ‘regular’ constituency surgeries.

Rehman Chishti speaking at the Muslim World League event.

As ever, this is nothing here to suggest any impropriety on behalf of Rehman Chishti or the organisation involved. MPs can take speaking engagements which organisations can pay for, and it has seemingly all been properly declared. Like his previous trip, there was no attempt to hide where he was, with posts about the event appearing on his social media channels.

It does raise further questions about his commitment to the role of MP for Gillingham and Rainham though if he is willing to take multiple lengthy trips paid for by overseas organisations, particularly at a time when Parliament is in session.

Surely Rehman isn’t starting to think more about his future once his time as an MP is up. But with the state of his party in the opinion polls, and an energised Labour Party in Medway snapping at his heels, one couldn’t entirely blame him.

Medway Council meeting offers a new dynamic

Last night saw the first Medway Council meeting since Labour swept to control, which meant it offered us a glimpse at how things might work under our new socialist overlords.

The format of the meeting hasn’t changed much, but some constitutional matters were at least up for debate. Labour kept their commitment to return to the Mayoral system switching back to the old ‘points back’ system, a confusing mess as opposed to just letting the party with a majority hold the position.

Following their removal under the Conservatives, supplementary public questions were also back on the agenda. The current absurd system of members of the public having to submit questions well in advance, allowing the council plenty of time to craft a response with no chance of a follow up, is hopefully on the way out.

None of which will matter much though unless more time is allocated to these items on the agenda. Meetings often fail to get through all public questions, so adding a second question for each member of the public without additional time will just lead to more people not getting any answer on the public record at all. Similarily, there is never enough time for councillors to ask questions and scrutinise the administration. Only 20 minutes is allocated for this vital element, meaning scenes like last night where only 7 of the 15 submitted questions could be answered.

Still, we did learn some more practical things from the meeting though:

• Medway Council Leader Cllr Vince Maple is leaning in heavily to the idea that while his administration will deliver ‘hope’, it’ll be ‘honest hope’ given the state of the council’s finances.

• A public question about Uber and whether or not Labour will bring back their push to ban the service received a fairly tepid response from Cllr Maple, who encouraged users to use local firms but stopped short of saying he’d ban Uber.

• Cabinet member for housing Cllr Khan said plans for a new Local Plan were moving ‘at pace’, promised to deliver ‘the right homes in the right places’, and pledged a commitment to ‘genuinely affordable homes’.

• The redevelopment of the Paddock in Chatham saw one of the first casualties of the new administration, with Cllr Curry confirming that the water feature has been removed from the plans for being too expensive.

• It was clear how much work the Conservative opposition needs to do to regroup. Few of their front brenchers were able to articulate compelling positions, but it’s a new world for them so it’ll probably take a bit longer.

• The Independent Group, at least as articulated by Deputy Leader Cllr Pearce, would rather use their time to pick fights over squabbles on social media.

Still, it’s hard to read too much into one meeting, as some many of our councillors are new, and even those that have been there a long time are still finding their feet in new roles. The next meeting is in October, so we’ll see how everyone has settled in by then.

Our first Medway Question Time went okay!

On Wednesday night, we held our first Medway Question Time event. These events are an attempt to give people more direct engagement in our democracy and civic life in our towns and will take place at locations all across Medway over the next year.

Medway Question Time at MidKent College

The first event seemed to go quite well aside from a few technical hitches, and we’re proud of the fact the discussion was frank but good-natured throughout. Attendees submitted a wide range of questions, on issues like how to regenerate our high streets, active travel, housing, Brexit, and lots more.

The event was recorded and we aim to make a version of it available shortly.

Thanks to our panel for taking part and to everyone who attended. If you have any feedback on how we can improve future events, please let us know by emailing hello@localauthority.news with your views.

Our next Medway Question Time will take place in September over in Hoo and we’ll have more details on that soon.

In brief

🎉 Medway Culture Club are planning to hold a ‘Notting Hill style carnival’. The event is set to be held next month at, er, Woodlands Youth Centre.

🩺 NHS consultants have been on strike since yesterday until tomorrow. Medway Hospital warns some non-urgent treatments may need to be cancelled.

🍺 KentOnline’s Secret Drinker has been to review the City Wall and Eagle Tavern on Rochester High Street. They weren’t impressed by either.

🏪 Londis is set to be the first retail outlet to open at Chatham Waters. The new store will be next door to Asda and across the road from Lidl.

More Authority

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Footnotes

Just want to drop a plug here for the amazing Community Centre that Second Chance Medway has in Brompton, which sadly is very underused at the moment. If you or your organisation are looking for someone to meet or host events or sessions, it might be the space for you! The centre can currently be booked. It’s very large, fully furnished, has a kitchen, and all of the other good stuff that you’d expect, and the rates are very reasonable. If you’re interested in booking or discussing the space further, get in touch with steven@2ndchancemedway.org.

Disclosure: Both myself (Ed) and Steven are involved in the operation of Second Chance Medway.

Music that soundtracked the creation of this newsletter: We’re Gonna Walk Around This City With Our Headphones On To Block Out The Noise by Nosferatu D2, Emphatically No. by Cheekface, and The Peculiar Smell of the Inevitable by Chemtrails.