Cllr Mike is running...

Well after weeks of intrigue, innuendo and investigative mutterings in Gun Wharf the multititled Cllr Mike has now put his copper hat in the ring for the Sheriff top-job. 

Was he reading....?

This blog has been leading the charge, without handcuffs, for the Portfolio Holder for Community Safety and Customer Contact, and, Medway Community Safety Partnership Chair (breath) to announce his position on the role and put an end to the speculation. 

It is welcome to see him taking the advice of the opposition

We speculate however that Cllr Mike may be playing a clever move; ever the fox-like chess player; we think he may be pitching his deep blue tent firmly for the deputy job which will certainly not be a part-time undertaking if the Colonel takes the top job.

The big question on the lips of many is whether Cllr Mike can now continue to put the independent interests of Medway citizens first as Chair of the MSP, whilst also canvassing across the whole of Kent for this position; first as the Tory nominee and secondly as candidate for November 15th. 

The public will want a full-time pair of eyes on crime in Medway and not an individual with an eye on a bigger job elsewhere. Mike therefore should think about his position and dedicate himself full time to getting job. A foot in both camps and roles will look disengenious. 

All eyes are now the great and the 'white-haired' good on Kent County Council; will the blue-rinsers in Kent County Hall support a Medway Conservative candidate? I suspect they will find this difficult. Secondly eyes will be on the ever gregrarious Cllr 'River' MacKinlay, to see whether another Medway Tory will put his truncheon on the table for the top job

Medway is suffering at the moment; as Medway Tory factions play a death dance with each other over Council positions and police sheriffs we are seeing significant cuts to Police budgets of up to 20% and a rise in opportunistic theft; we are seeing crime statistics which were heading downward from 1997-2010 flatlining as upto 500 front line officers are being cut from the thin blue line

The Police are also threatened with privatisation as G4S and other private-providers move into police stations. The profit motive does not sit well with a force which is the last line of defence for individual liberty.

Meanwhile Labour will move ahead with its ballot for our candidate. I am hoping for a strong woman; who can show part-time Collins and sunset Mike a thing or two about managing law and order.

Mid-term blues hit early

With open hostility in the ruling group surrounding positions and the number of officer departures I suspect the hand-quivering clustershambolic leadership of Chambers and Jarrett must be on the close.

All eyes for this week will be on Full Council on Thursday night where we will finally get a confirmation on the Mayor and Deputy Mayor and on the discussion around member allowances. 

Medway Labour of course had a consistent policy on both these issues last year which we believed reflected the public interest; namely a return to the fair points-based system around mayoralty selection, which takes the pathetic partisanship (observed in the Conservative Group this year) out of the Queen's appointed representative for Medway; and a cut of the Conservative party chairman & deputy chairman perks who we believe are 'lapping the cream' of public money whilst the majority of Medway taxpayers continue to pay huge sums of Council tax for poor political leadership.

It is of course good to note that members will be taking a pay cut this year, as per the recommendations of the independent panel, but this does not go far enough in my mind and what we need is specific focus on those mid-level takers of public money.

We do not need so many Tories on the payroll at Gun Wharf. 

The other points to note from the meeting come from the public and member questions for the evening. A number of noticeable themes emerge

The first is that the Tory attempt to introduce a 'fake' Freedom Pass, as promised in their local manifesto in 2011, has clearly backfired badly. The Tories have a terrible record on the Freedom Pass having spent most of 2010 opposing any form of public subsidy for bus travel for young people because of cost, seemingly taken out of a hat, and pubicly lambasting the opposition Labour Party for proposing the idea. In 2011, the Tories took the Freedom Pass and audaciously added it to their local manifesto and claimed Labour were opposed; but the budget in 2011/12 only allocated a pathetic sum to the scheme, and so Labour called the Tory rat out. 

Rightly so, as we now have a scheme which to huge numbers of parents is woefully substandard; and I expect many more will continue to articulate not only the rank Conservative hypocrisy but also why we continue to suffer a worse deal then our neighbours in Gravesham, Sittingbourne and Maidstone who have a Conservative-controlled County Council.

Roads and re-surfacing also make an appearance with the announced overspend of £1.2m on the Stoke Crossing, dubbed the 'Bridge to Nowhere' by the press. With Tory-leaning Parish Chairman and Councillor's citing the money could have been better spent elsewhere, and the public outraged at the scale of spend whilst residential road budgets are seemingly 'gerrymandered' into Tory wards with a number of roads slipping budget cycles, this will prove controvertial.  We all know the Tories have spent millions on road schemes in Chatham no one voted for or wanted, and that have gone millions overbudget; taking money from what could have been spent on residential roads. 

Tories will no doubt spread the blame; who will it be this month... I cant wait. 

A number of other questions relate to the botched care home closures and privatisations which have been totally mishandled by the administration, and which descended into a farce, when the Council refused to extend the consultation on a proposal from Medway Health to take on the closing Balfour Centre. The Tories also ignored local campaigns calling for a limited partnership and stakeholder co-operative model of management favouring overt privatisation. We now go into the future with no public care home provision as a number of privately-owned homes continue to fail CQC reviews. 

The way in which the cabinet managed the Balfour process was nothing short of incompetent; as standard from Medway Tories. 

Marlowe Park and the campaign by Cllr Igwe to safeguard this facility is also on the table; Cllr Igwe led the campaign and called-in the manner in which the Medway PCT communicated and acted. 

Lastly the Community Safety Plan is due to be discussed; now that Cllr OBrien has returned from his 'fact-finding' tour of Kent it is interesting to note the precious little change in the document that all these visits were apparently tasked. Given Medway has seen a massive reduction in crime from 1997-2010 there will surely be commentary around the cuts to PCSOs, cuts to Police numbers and the real concern that opportunistic theft and crime is increasing across our towns. We may also get an announcement on whether our multitiled Cllr Mike will be standing for Police Commissioner on the back of his record as Medway CSP Chair. Then again; we may not.

A busy night ahead. 

Is Cllr Mike running?

The burning issue on the lips of a number of politico's, journalists and associated hangers-on this week is whether Cllr Mike O'Brien; the multititular man of many roles still has his hat in the running for the Kent Police Commissioner role.

Cllr OBrien had been spending a number of weeks gallivanting around the weald of Kent shaking hands with the be-suited great and the good from Ashford, Sevenoaks and beyond. It was billed as 'Fact Finding' meetings with the other Community Safety Partnership Chair's and exchanging best practice; but to a casual observer it just so happened to coincide with his apparent declared status as a Police Commissioner candidate.

The joke at the time was that lesser spotted O'Brien was more likely to be seen in the Weald of Kent than the Rainham ‘flats’.

His posts of late have however been more closer to home; with the exception of explaining the Afghanistan transition to his Rainham audience more concerned about pot-holes, he has veered off policing onto other topics of interest; including his recent photographed visit during Holy Week to Rochester Cathedral which sits 3 miles from his ward and which, this blog suspects, he has attended on more than one occasion.

It is interesting to note the change in tone because leaks from one Tory camp indicate that Cllr O'Brien lost the RSCCA vote nomination for Commissioner to his leadership arch-nemesis; a vote our Mike needed to win to have credibility with Kent colleagues, and for his name to be touted for the Deputy role, should part-timer Tim 'The Colonel' Collins get the much coveted top-job.

The vote being lost means any such attempt to secure the Police Commissioner or Deputy title would result in two candidates from Medway Conservatives; little respected in the hallowed halls of Kent County Hall, despite all the faux bonhomie between the neighboring Tory run authorities.

The rumor mill was on overload last week within even yours truly being asked to give comment on any potential withdrawal.

I of course only get leaks from the Tory Group, who are at present, playing factional games on O&S posts and the coveted Education Portfolio which, as this blog understands, is under the leadership spotlight. The candidacy, or otherwise, of Cllr Mike is not a big item at present, so I could not pose a comment.

The public know the Tory factional splits run deep to the point of causing organizational inertia on decision-making which is why, despite all the observed hand-wringing of Cllr Chambers, its time for change.

Cllr Mike should do the sensible thing; instead of allowing the rumours and whispers to spread. He should either declare his nomination or say why he stepped back; letting the rumour mill swirl only makes him appear weak to events.

Its time to tell us whether this title is one too far.