Running the gauntlet

Another productive day meeting new members and working on a few issues in the ward which should come to fruition at full council in a few weeks.

One thing that is noticeable since 2010 is that there is a real energy and vibe to the Labour campaign locally; be that because we are making a major impact, morale is high with the polls, but because change is afoot. We have some great new leadership and talent coming through; professional, educated and good calibre.

A truly exciting time to be at the thick of it all.

This is not just the same old rhetoric; a Political party in opposition does tend to use the period out of office to renew. Out of office it is easier not to offend people and also easier to challenge those in office. When you have an inept administration with poor calibre and dated cabinet members; senior officers leaving in droves; and a leadership two-some in Chambers and Jarrett equivalent to Laurel & Hardy; it creates an environment in which persuading people as to the utter incompetence of the local Conservatives requires little effort.

Medway Labour is on the verge of a programme of renewal which will cement it as the only party of aspiring power in Medway. When the time comes to step up it will have a transformative programme with a truly progressive agenda.

Meanwhile the ConDem coalition is looking depressed, stressed and datad; The mafia like grip the ruling Tory claque holds authority over its lemming-like back benchers is the most comical of all. Some real intelligence and capability has to slavishy bend over to neophytic incapability; it would be comical if this third-rate band of cabinet alsorans could not see the wood for trees but they dont. How many senior officers will have to resign for them to grip that it is them that is the problem; they have no strategic direction and even less capability. How many more papers will have to be evicted? Journalists sanctioned via complaints to editors? How many programme budgets overblown? How many cabinet member gaffes? How many millions of taxpayers pounds wasted?

The backbenchers need to step up. We have a seeming abundance of weakness and incapability on the Tory backbenchers to stand up and do anything but prostate themselves to hand-quivering cabinet weakness.

Moving on from incompetence in office to those that are about loose all vestiges of office; The Medway Lib Dems do not present a true opposition. A party which is so factionalised it became a rump in Gillingham before 2010; a period of time they could have used to build a proper centre-left alternative, became a fiefdom to the election of a Parliamentary candidate who stood no chance of winning, and who then fell out in a public spat which painted them as homophobic, intolerant and tired. Instead of building up a local election base in areas of Rochester, Chatham and Strood which could have positioned they spent inordinate amount of energy on a futile gesture of vote packing in Gillingham. The election of poor leadership has done immense damage; they seem all but certain to make a major strategic error at the next election in fighting Labour against the tide, instead of trying to build a base to challenge the Tories in Rainham and the outer areas of the towns for 2019.

Lets be generous; The 'Medway' Lib Dems are the electoral equivalent of a quivering corpse

TUSC has evaporated into moaning at inactive male-only Trade Union meetings that represent nobody in the real world. The Greens have no grassroots or local branch structure and seem locally to be a collection of rather pleasant, but politically inactive mates without any strategy. The English Democrats are nothing more then the next poorly attended branch of the BNP as two of their former members have all but acknowledged. In all; there is no realistic prospect of opposition from any of the above.

I believe in local democracy which is why we need capability in office and out. The Medway public deserve pluralism and choice which is why the news UKIP is to field candidates in Medway for Parliamentary and Council elections is welcome for democracy.

I would never endorse or support a UKIP ticket but by goodness they have an opportunity, if any of them reading, had the capability to lead. You could hoover up votes in the 'Conservative-leaving' fiefdoms across the towns and step over the rigor mortis riven Lib Dems.

I will run the gauntlet now; I predict in 2015 that Medway will become a two-party race between an increasingly out-of-touch Tory group, in office but not in power, and a newly resurgent Labour Party under a more dynamic structure and approach.

Despite what some right-wingers say UKIP has a real opportunity to capitalise in 2015 and build a truly right wing and ideologically pure base; will they become the next third party in Medway? A real possibility exists.

The future for our towns is cast but for how long?