Fair is Worth Fighting For

Tomorrow voters will go to the polls in River Ward on what will a referendum on the Conservative Council and our current coalition government.

The Tories are the punters favourites to win, though not this bloggers - with a government elected only three months ago and a large and active membership base of Councillors. Anything short of a victory for Tories would be seen as a massive slap in the face, and would be a shot across the bows of the Medway Conservative leadership, and the potential aspiring leader who has been involved in the campaign from its very inception. The antics of Mark Reckless in Parliament will also be on the ballot paper. Could his antics depress turnout? We will find out.

Could we be in for a shock?

Labour are coming from behind in the national polls, in an area which overwhelmingly voted Conservative only three months ago (from box returns in May). Labour have no national leader and a party which is correctly reflecting on what went right and wrong with 13 years in power. Our membership base is growing, but has suffered losses as a result of being in government. True that Labour had an excellent former Councillor Bill Esterson, selected his replacement quickly, and ran an effective ground and media campaign from the outset.

Campaigning hard and a strong candidate will make all the difference, and in that, John Jones and the Labour team deserves to win under the laws of natural justice.

This blogger believes that John has the experience, judgement, character and capability to be the best Councillor of all those on the ballot paper. He however faces a public that only 3 months rejected Labour by a 10% swing. Can he recoup? This blog believes and hopes he can.

The other minority parties have no chance of winning, though they have put in a spirited effort.

From Liberal Democrat Garry Harrison, who has set up a very open and well written website, with plenty of spirited comment. He will suffer with the collapse of the party nationally in the polls and the defection of Cllr Andy Stamp to the Independents. This blog is a big fan of online campaigning and salutes his effort.

The ever affable Green Party campaigner Steven Keevil, who regularly tweets about his antics has certainly worked very hard and deserves to pick up a few votes. One to keep an eye on and potentially a PPC for a Medway seat in the future. At some point, this blogger owes Mr Keevil a pint, to show that depsite the banter, it does hold the Greens and himself in high regard.

The other candidates have stood in countless other by-elections across Medway and are solid campaigners. The English Democrats, the new party, and the distinctly seperate BNP will no doubt be keeping an eye on tomorrow, to see if the working class base sticks with Labour or moves to the right or extreme right.

Dont hold your breath.

History shows that parties of the right tend to do very badly after Labour looses a General Election because the base tends to rally with a Tory government. Of course history does not always repeat itself...

Its going to be close.