Saturday, November 14, 2009

Sittingbourne and Sheppey election - race hots up

The Labour party have now announced their candidate to defend our parliamentary seat in Sittingbourne and Sheppey. It is Angela Harrison, the leader of the Labour group at Swale Council. This is good in one way, that we have some local candidates in the picture, but not so good in that she would be a more formidable opponent than someone imported from outside.

It also shows how pointless it was to have a woman's only shortlist. As a senior local member, Ms Harrison may well have defeated all other Labour candidates, male and female.

Our MP, Derek Wyatt, will be standing down and Ms Harrison will be defending his majority of 79 which, with the government's unpopularity and the boundary changes, will be almost impossible.

The Conservative candidate, Gordon Henderson, was announced long ago and he has been very busy getting his face in the local paper each week. UKIP will be announcing a candidate soon. The Loonies have already announced 'Mad Mike' Young (who kindly gave me a banana at the county council count). Nothing yet from the Greens or the BNP who may well enter the race.

So that just leaves us. As I said earlier, I am hoping to be our candidate for the election to fight my local seat and will be discussing my intentions at the AGM coming soon. However I have received some details from other constituencies looking for a candidate just in case.

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