The curious politics of Hoo’s parish by-election
Plus a no-show march in Gillingham and the end of Medway’s brief Waitrose era
A parish by-election in Hoo may be framed as an independent versus independent contest, but the politics beneath look slightly different. We also report on an anti-migrant march in Gillingham that failed to materialise, and say goodbye to Medway’s brief, slightly underwhelming flirtation with Waitrose...
The curious politics of Hoo’s parish by-election
On paper, this week’s Hoo St Werburgh Parish Council by-election is straightforward enough.
Two independents, one vacancy, with voters going to the polls on Thursday.
In reality, it looks a lot more political than that.
Voters in the Hoo parish ward are being asked to choose between Peter Davis and Graham Grice after a vacancy went to a by-election rather than being filled by co-option. Both are standing as independents. But that description only gets you so far.
Davis is being publicly backed by Linda Atkinson, Chair of Rochester and Strood Reform, who has been urging people to vote for him in local Facebook groups. He has also publicly promoted Reform activity himself, including a recent Reform Medway event. None of that makes him the official Reform candidate. He is not standing under the party label. But it does make the idea that this is some neutral, non-political independent candidacy a bit difficult to swallow.
Grice, meanwhile, is not exactly hiding where he sits either. His own leaflet says he joined Independent Group Deputy Leader Michael Pearce’s 'Vote Yes' team during the neighbourhood plan referendum and promises he will stand “shoulder to shoulder” with the area’s independent councillors. Pearce has also been out publicly campaigning with him.
So while the ballot paper says independent versus independent, what voters appear to have in front of them is something closer to Pearce-backed versus Reform-backed.
Parish council elections are often treated as if they sit above party politics. Sometimes they do. Sometimes they are just local political fights wearing a slightly less obvious hat. This one looks very much like the latter.
Candidates in parish elections do not have to describe themselves as independent. They can leave the description blank. So if someone chooses to stand explicitly as an independent while being publicly backed by party figures, that is a decision, not an administrative necessity.
None of this is especially subtle. Davis’ leaflet is drenched in colours that will look extremely familiar to anyone who has seen a Reform graphic in the past year, even if the party name never appears. Grice’s leaflet is less coy about its political home, openly tying him to Pearce and the local independent bloc. One of them looks Reform-adjacent. The other, more or less, says he is part of Team Pearce.
There is a side issue with Davis’ leaflet, too. Its imprint gives his address simply as Knights Road, Hoo, rather than a full address identifying a specific contactable address as required by electoral law. Medway Council said the returning officer is not responsible for deciding whether imprint rules have been broken and said concerns about election material should instead be referred to Kent Police or the Electoral Commission. That is not the central issue here, but it is another oddity in a contest already doing quite a lot of dancing around labels.
Then there is the leaflet itself, which has the unmistakable whiff of AI-generated campaign slop about it. That is not a scandal, just a depressing sign of the times.
Still, the bigger point is clear enough. This is not really a story about who will bring 'fresh ideas' to the parish council or work hard for the village or any of the other standard leaflet mush. It is a story about how local politics now often works, with political backing, political tribes and political messages all carefully arranged so the ballot paper looks tidier than reality.
So yes, this is only a parish council by-election. But it is also a useful little window into who is trying to build influence in Hoo and how they would prefer that effort to be presented to voters.
You can find more information about the Hoo St Werburgh parish by-election, including details on how and where to vote, on Medway Council's website.
A protest in search of a crowd, again
Last month, we wrote about two hard-right organising efforts being pushed towards Medway by people from outside the area. One was the softer, more polished route, dressed up in the language of women’s safety. The other was the usual march theatre, often loud online, grand in its claims, and likely much smaller in real life.
It turns out we may even have overestimated that.
The anti-migrant march, due to take place in Gillingham on Saturday, didn't even happen after no one turned up.
Which, in fairness, does rather undermine the earlier billing. The event was advertised by a Maidstone-based activist who runs a one-man micro-party primarily on TikTok, complete with claims it would be “a big march” and that “5 group’s [sic] teaming up as one” would be descending on Medway. It was never clear who the supposed five groups were meant to be, but the grand mobilisation seems to have achieved the political equivalent of leaving everyone on read.
That matters partly because even a small far-right protest can still make people feel uncomfortable or unsafe. But it also matters because these people rely on the appearance of momentum. The point is not just to hold a march. It is to make it seem as though something is stirring, that anger is building, that the town is on the verge of rising up if only enough patriots can find the station exit.
And yet, when this latest effort reached the crucial stage of existing outside the internet, there appears to be nothing there.
That fits the pattern rather well. The same activist was behind the pitiful Rochester march we covered last year, which managed only single-figure attendance, as well as a string of other loudly promoted events that have either fizzled or failed to materialise. Medway, it turns out, has not become a hotbed of imported anti-migrant street politics. It has mostly become a place onto which people project that fantasy from elsewhere.
Ed Jennings
That should not make anyone complacent. Small hard-right organising efforts are still worth paying attention to, particularly when the more effective tactic is often not the shouty protest but the attempt to smuggle exclusionary politics into public life under softer branding. But as for this particular promised show of strength in Gillingham, the outcome seems to have been a lot simpler.
Farewell Medway's only Waitrose, we hardly knew ye
And so it ends.
Three years after Medway finally, technically, got a Waitrose, it no longer has one.
Long-time Local Authority readers may recall that this has been a bit of a thing around here. Back in 2022, we were openly campaigning for Rochester’s Casino Rooms to achieve its final form and become a Waitrose. It felt like the obvious answer. Medway had plenty of supermarkets, but no proper aspirational middle-class supermarket. No place to buy overpriced olive oil while pretending this was all completely normal.
Ed Jennings
Then, in January 2023, the dream became real. Or at least a version of it did. Waitrose took over the food hall operation inside Dobbies in Gillingham, and Medway finally got its first branch. Alright, not a full branch. Not even especially close. But there was a Waitrose logo in Medway and, for our purposes, that counted.
Ed Jennings
The problem was that the actual thing was a bit crap.
This was never a proper Waitrose in any meaningful sense. It was a small Waitrose concession inside the wider Dobbies food hall, with a limited range and only a scattering of actual Waitrose products. The idea of having a Waitrose in Medway was, in many ways, more exciting than the experience of going to this one. You could tell people Medway had a Waitrose. Actually shopping there was less convincing.
Now that arrangement has come to an end. Dobbies and Waitrose have ended their partnership after three years, with the garden centre chain rolling out a new food hall concept instead. So Medway is back where it started, again Waitrose-free.
This is not, to be clear, some targeted corporate judgment on Gillingham. The whole Dobbies-Waitrose tie-up is ending, and the same thing has happened elsewhere. But it does mean Medway’s brief flirtation with the brand is over, and our only claim to having a Waitrose has vanished as abruptly and ambiguously as it arrived.
Which leaves us once again in the familiar position of having to look elsewhere. The nearest proper Waitrose is now back to being in places like Longfield, which may or may not be a real place, or a rundown shopping centre on the outskirts of Maidstone, which is to say not really anywhere one should have to rely on for this sort of thing.
The funny part is that this may not actually be bad news in practical terms. The new Dobbies food hall seems pretty good. It is expensive, yes, but then so was Waitrose, and at least this version seems to have more personality. Rather than a thin selection of branded supermarket staples, it now has some of the sort of nice, slightly indulgent items you usually only find in farm shops. So while Medway has lost the Waitrose name, it may well have gained a better actual shop.
Which, if anything, feels like the most Medway outcome possible. We spent years joking that what this place really needed was a Waitrose. We finally got one, but only in the most compromised form imaginable, tucked inside a garden centre, offering a limited range, and never quite living up to the billing. And now even that has gone, replaced by something less prestigious but arguably more useful.
Still, next time we get the chance, and we must believe there will be a next time, Medway should hold out for the real thing rather than a few shelves of items next to the garden furniture.
Footnotes
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