Cllr Teresa Murray Letter

The responses to the Boundary Commission have been well aired but one from the former Labour Parliamentary candidate for Rochester & Strood is particularly important.

It is worth remembering that the Medway Labour and Medway Liberal Democrat position is to effectively support the impartial recommendation of the Boundary Commission.

It is not seeking to make partisan gain; only the Conservatives are seeking to gerrymander wards.

Dear Editor,

Please add this to the Letters Page in the Medway Messenger.

I saw that in Friday’s Medway Messenger last week that a former Councillor, Mrs Goulden joined local Tories in rejecting the Electoral Boundary Commission proposals

What the Commission have suggested after working within the government’s guidelines, is that the centre of Chatham and Rochester are recombined as they used to be and that central Gillingham is put with Luton to make another town centre constituency.

It is difficult to see how this doesn’t make a good deal of sense.

Their proposals result in two strong constituencies in the centre of the Medway Towns recognising the heart of our urban areas.

The Boundary Commission could see how preposterous it is to stay with the present boundary where some of the centre parts of the Medway towns are combined with the village of Aylesford to form the Chatham and Aylesford constituency. Furthermore, the wards they want to move in the direction of the North Downs have common boundaries with Tonbridge and Malling.

Medway council have spent a lot of council tax payers’ money promoting the town centres of Medway, submitting an application for World Heritage Status and campaigning for a City of Medway.

Real Regeneration, so badly needed just now when unemployment is high and local businesses are suffering, depends on developing strong centres in Medway and renewing the old industrial unused sites.

The Labour party is in fact simply agreeing with the findings of the independent Boundary Commission whilst working to support people in the hearts our towns in their struggle to survive these difficult economic times.

Having more sensible parliamentary boundaries that recognise our historic identities won’t solve all of the problems but it will help potential investors and developers to understand where most people live and plan new infrastructure accordingly.

From

Cllr Teresa Murray

Labour Parliamentary Candidate for Rochester & Strood

Boundary Changes

It seems the boundary reviews are taking the attention of Conservative Councillors of late with many jumping over themselves to declare how municipal identity is being eroded by the Boundary Commission proposals.

The proposals which come as a direct result of Cameron Conservative meddling in the number of MPs have led to movements of several wards in Medway.

The independent boundary commission result, though never ideal because of the required size of constituencies, is on balance a sensible outcome.

It is therefore ironic that Cameron's proposal have led to what can only be described as a desperate scrabble by Medway Conservatives to try and gerrymander, and it is gerrymander, the independent proposal into something which guarantees the return of Conservative MPs; at direct expense of the people of Medway.

I have been particularly interested to read and listen to the core arguments of Conservatives, which are essientially based on loose historical and economic affiliation between neighbourhoods.

The Tory argument is primarily based on local identity and affiliation but that is also the biggest flaw in that same position. Not only because it exposes them for the pure partisan instincts they pretend to stand above, but it also fundamentally misunderstands what a constituency has become.

The current constituencies so lamented by Tories as a paradigm of identity are arguably poorly constructed. It isnt just that people living in Chatham Dockyard and Brompton have voted for the MP in Rochester & Strood. It isnt just that the people of Aylesford have arguably nothing to do with the people of Chatham, and vice versa. Or, indeed, that those in Halling and Cuxton have very different concerns to those in Hoo or Horsted.

We currently have an imperfect situation which is not actually related to identity in its strict sense. Our existing constituencies are fundamentally imperfect constructs which are only loosely related to shared historical relations

Another argument I have read is about shared services; but that argument is also flawed. People dont just eat in restaurants and shops that happen to be within the constituency. A person in Chatham may share an Asda with that of Rochester. A person in Rochester East who has a below average income may share the same social problems of those in Luton & Wayfield in the same income bracket; though they sit in different areas the problems they have are not based or even identified by those with those problems on artificial Parliamentary boundaries. If any, the identity is based on local authority, but even that only impacts on issues of direct reciprocation.

The Tory position is an exagerated artificial political construct which ignores issues of socio-economic status, culture and religion. Indeed its categorisation purely on the basis of local geographical affiliation is flawed.

Chatham & Aylesford epitomises that point; two utterly different areas merged into one... two areas with two different Council arrangements, transport and local geography. They share very little with each other but they have been placed together because of political imperatives

Constituencies are now of such a size across the United Kingdom that they are more like a collection of areas as opposed to those with a geographical or political affiliation with each other (with a few notable exeptions like the Isle of White). The spread of technology, transport and the scalibility of distance has left the Medway Tory argument exposed as out of its time.

The Tory arguments about Boundaries are therefore not really about shared schooling, vet services and retail facilities, it is simply and purely a reflection of partisan conivance for the political gerrymander they seek, and nothing more. This is not about shared identity, because even if there was such a thing in an area, they are happy to ignore the identities of those who happen to vote the right way... Aylesford linked with Chatham?.

The objections are therefore politically convenient and contrived. They ignore much larger identity differences for the sake of electoral gain. Pure and simple.

The Labour position is to support the independent recommendations as imperfect but the best outcome, we take a natural argument over our pooled identity to rename constituencies to the idea espoused below by Councillor Jarrett.

This position is not unique and can be seen across the country; from Liverpool, Portsmouth, Norwich, Sunderland, Newcastle and many other areas of the UK represented by Labour, Conservatives, Liberals and independents.

The below is from Medway Conservative, Deputy Leader Alan Jarrett;

"There are many benefits to be gained from city status. It would bring greater and wider recognition to Medway and as such would do even more to put us firmly on the national and international map.

There are financial benefits that can flow from this, and you only have to ask other towns which have achieved this accolade in the recent past to realise that it is not something to be taken lightly.Wolverhampton and Brighton - to name but two - have seen big improvements since becoming cities.Of course there will be those who disagree.

Certainly some have expressed concerns that our five towns - Strood, Rochester, Chatham, Gillingham and Rainham - will lose their identities. But this has not happened since the formation of Medway as a municipal area 13 years ago.

Then there are those that say that Medway is not a place but a river. It is, of course, both. The Medway Towns has long been recognised as an area and increasingly over the years Medway has achieved that same recognition.

The widespread acceptance of Medway as a place is now palpable. Even this newspaper has long since rightly adopted the name. Paradoxically some of those opposing Medway as a city also use the name Medway in their own title!"

The Tory boundary change arguments are not only incoherent, vacuous and without historical merit they also do the exact opposite of what they preach. Medway is either accepted as a place that 'is now palpable' or it is not.

The creation of three renamed constituencies is actually a consistent and fair position that accepts the political imposed realities of constituency size and our future aspiration to be a true city.

It accepts the independent recommendations of non-partisan actors but it also seeks to re-affirm the position of both administration and opposition that our shared identity as a place is in Medway.

It is time Tories stopped playing partisan games with the boundaries; accept the independent recommendations and move on.

Boundary Changes

The English Boundary Commission published its draft recommendations to MPs at 12.30pm today, with an embargo for midnight.

Not surprisingly when you release anything secret to a gaggle of politicians it leaked like a sieve.

The other early observations are which MPs see their seats dissappear. A lot of early comment was around Vince Cable, whose seat is apparently merged with Zac Goldsmith in the new Richmond and Twickenham seat. A closer look suggests that most of his seat actually ends up in the new Teddington and Hanworth seat, which will notionally have a 11% Lib Dem majority… so Vince has a more vulnerable majority, but is not left seatless! George Osborne’s Tatton seat is no more… but forms the core of the new Northwich seat, which has a comfy 27% majority. Just because a seat’s name disappears or is merged with another, doesn’t mean they are left without a seat! Elsewhere of course, there are 50 MPs who really are losing their seats.

In Medway we have seen what I can honestly say was not predicted by anyone - it seems the wonks in the Boundary Commission have made some quite odd ward moves.

The present Chatham & Aylesford seat would acquire the three-member Conservative marginal Rochester South & Horsted ward from Rochester & Strood and in a peculiar twist, the two-councillor Safe Conservative Hempstead & Wigmore ward. Chatham & Aylesford would gain two wards from Tonbridge & Malling: East Malling, and West Malling & Leybourne. This would give Tracey Crouch a majority of 10,000-12,000 if the election were hold today.

Rochester & Strood would loose Rochester South & Horsted but gain the safe Labour seat of Chatham Central ward. This would cut Mark Reckless MPs majority from 10,000 to 8,000 if the election were repeated. All other wards remain in the constituency despite the speculation.

Gillingham & Rainham would loose Hempstead & Wigmore but gain Luton & Wayfield in what is an extremely odd move. It would have made more sense to transfer the River ward into Gillingham given its historical link with Brompton. We now have a peculiar situation where Chatham Highstreet and Dockyard are both in Rochester Constituency and Luton in Gillingham. This would cut the majority of Rehman Chisthi from 9,000 to 7,500 if the election were held today.

I suspect a few people will be representing that position.

Boundary Review

The modelling of a potential outcome of the forthcoming Parliamentary Boundary Review by Lewis Baston is being put online region by region on the Democratic Audit website. It shows which individual wards go into which of the seats Lewis has modelled.

Both the Medway News and Medway Messenger have picked up on the potential boundary changes in Medway over the last fortnight (see press report), which may see a major change in composition of all the three Medway seats, but specifically in the Rochester & Strood and Chatham & Aylesford constituencies.

The press have not presented good diagrams, or actually reported the Democratic Audit position entirely accurately however which was a little dissapointing.

It is worth pointing out that the Democratic Audit proposal is one suggested idea for Medway. There are also a number of other alternatives which actually resolve boundary issues with less movement of wards. Obviously these positions will be factored into any outcome. The Democrat Audit team also has close links with Liverpool University and has published in the Guardian which suggests left-leaning. A scientist would factor in potential bias.

At the moment the independent Boundary Commission for England are working on the new seats across the Country within a set tight timescale. We know that existing European Union regional borders will be maintained and that the South East region will loose one seat. We also know that existing geographical, cultural and where possible Local Administration borders have to be respected, but not necessarily followed.

The example by Democratic Audit is one such example for Medway which will see the Conservative-leaning Hoo peninsula and Isle of Grain moved into the marginal Gravesham constituency. This has historic precendence from prior to the 1970s where the wider 'Peninsula' was not part of the Medway area, and indeed in former years was not part of the prior Rochester & Chatham constituency.

The new constituency would see the urban Rochester and Chatham areas merge with Cuxton and Halling also moving to Gravesham or a new central Kent seat. Gillingham would swallow up the River Ward and Brompton which is likely to be broken into two over the next decade with regeneration works (though this is not factored into the final result). Brompton has historic links with Gillingham.

On these boundary changes Chatham and Aylesford MP Tracey Crouch would likely move into a new safer Conservative Kent seat, and loose any formal representation for citizens within the Medway Unitary Authority, who tend to reflect her Labour voting opposition. Mark Reckless MP would formerly represent the new uber-marginal seat of Rochester & Chatham, whilst Rehman Chisthi would sit on broadly the same seat as before, with a marginally safer position.

Whilst on the face of it this would result in a more likely Labour win in Rochester & Chatham in 2015 it may not be in the medium-long term interests of Labour in Medway to loose three marginal seats in favour of one Labour-leaning marginal and two Conservative safer seats. The party nationally will therefore negotiate on the basis of national interest not only for the Labour supporter but also to ensure that we do not see an entrenched democratic skew, based on seat boundaries, towards a Conservative Government.

An example of this would be the difference within parties as well; would Gravesham Labour, who have just won the Council, want to have a safer Conservative area added to the Council and/or Parliamentary seat. Parochial Labour Parties and CLPs will have a say, but a national policy position is the likely result. A united negotiating position is also a sensible course when engaged in Boundary Commission consultation, so I suspect the wishes of local Parties may not actually be as signficant as people assume. The same will happen, in reverse, in Conservative Associations, be that there concerns maybe more personality driven, given most wards in Kent have a Tory vote to a larger or lesser extent.

In addition, the Democratic Audit position does not respect potential City Status which is understandable currently, but not over the course of the Boundary Commission review. It would be very odd situation of wards being within a Medway City but being represented by an MP from a neighbouring urban area. Gravesham Council is also borough council and not unitary based model, so moving Councillors from one to another could be complicated and they would loose influence or in the case of some existing Councillors, loose their seats. Medway Council would also not want to loose the Peninsula as a tax-base and/or as a revenue generator for major industrial projects which pay subsidy into the Council. A number of future regeneration schemes also require close links with the Peninsula.

That is not to say that the Peninsula wards wont continue to be Medway Councillors and have a Gravesham MP. The Aylesford area within Tracey Crouch's seat does cross local government boundaries; but it is akward.

Add into this the current Conservative Party membership being skewed, according to anecdotal evidence, with the majority of members on the Peninsula, they are likely to fight tooth-and-nail to remain in the Medway area because they remain a financial resource base for the Medway Conservatives. The Medway Tories would not favour the Democratic Audit position, the Gravesham Tories will see it as an opportunity to gain finance and resource.

Add into the mix the fact the Conservative whips dislike the current incumbent in Rochester & Strood, and you could see some interesting negotiations and squabbles amongst Conservatives.

I therefore suspect proposals will be fought over tooth-and-nail. For my part I have no interest in getting engaged.

The timeframe for these boundary changes is tight. By this Autumn we will have the initial boundaries reviewed for consultation. Next year we will see formal consultation and reviews engaged (hopefully in full public) with a final outcome in 2013.