General Election results for MedwayThis year's General Election in the three parloamentary constituencies that between them encompass the Medway Council area was interesting, in that it had not only the three main national parties standing in all three constituencies (Chatham and Aylesford, Gillingham, and Medway), but also the UK Independence Party.
On top of that, there was one independent and one English Democrat—a not very well known, recently-created party—indeed, hardly anyone we met during the campaign had heard of them.
The three results were notable in that, although Labour held onto all three seats, they barely managed to do so in two cases (Gillingham and Medway, both of which had several recounts) and their majority was considerably reduced in the third (Chatham and Aylesford), down there from 4,340 to 2,332—almost halved since the previous General Election of 2001.
The voting (and turnout) was as follows:
| Constituency | Turnout | Con | Labour | LibDem | UKIP | EngDem | Ind |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chatham and Aylesford | 60·8% | 16,055 | 18,387 | 5,744 | 1,226 | 668 | — |
| Gillinghsm | 64·2% | 18,367 | 18,621 | 6,734 | 1,191 | — | 254 |
| Medway | 62·7% | 17,120 | 17,333 | 5,152 | 1,488 | — | — |
These results must have sent shock-waves through the three Labour constituency parties, and the writing is very much on the wall for their three returned MPs. The trend is unmistakable: none of them is likely to survive next time!
It has been stated by political commentators that the out-of-date parliamentary boundaries strongly favoured Labour, and it would be of interest to estimate what the results might have been if the boundaries had been updated in time for this election, both nationally and specifically in these three constituencies...
Another outcome here in all three seats is that the Liberal Democrat results were very much third-place—barely a third the number of votes that were cast for each of the Conservative and Labour candidates. This takes nothing away from their successes elsewhere, and well done to them for those, but it is now obvious that they are little more than a fringe party here. Just as they have only a tenth of the seats on Medway Council, the number of votes they received in our three constituencies wasn't much more than 13% of the total votes cast here.