The administration, the opposition, and the unexpected by-election
Seven months until local elections, and it's all to play for.
Medway is facing local elections next year, at a time of great political uncertainty, both locally and nationally. As such, on the first Wednesday of the month, I send out a newsletter to paid supporters setting out where we are, and where we appear to be heading. Join me as I try to unpack what is happening in our local politics.
Seven months today, the local elections in Medway will be over.
We all go to the polls on May 4th, and by this time on the 5th, assuming nothing unexpected occurs, we’ll have a full set of results and an idea of our council's shape for the next few years.
The administration
Predicting elections is a fool’s errand, of course, and I’m inclined to hedge my bets on this sort of thing. Up until recently, the prevailing political wind and the boundary changes in Medway made it fairly likely that we could shift from Conservative control after two decades. Medway Labour has been putting in the groundwork to take the council, and it was looking good for them.
And then the Trussterfuck of the last couple of weeks happened.
Nationally, polling for the Conservatives is in the kind of territory that leads to a wipeout. It doesn’t feel like something that is easily recoverable either. It feels terminal.
Now, local elections certainly aren’t national elections. There are a million other factors at play in local elections, but in an environment that was already looking challenging to the incumbents, it’s now feeling more and more likely that we are heading toward a shift in the control of our council next year.
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