Red Kent and Kent Blues

On Twitter today, @JaeKay pointed out that in today's Kent on Sunday, Ed Miliband commented that he wanted to turn Kent red. In politics and campaigning, it helps to have optimism and ambitious targets. But while there's ambition there's also delusion. If MiliEd thinks that turning Kent red is even the faintest of possibilities, he's clearly either deluded or has never visited Kent before.

Kent is Tory. Before the election this year, Kent had a handful of (I think 3) Labour MPs, now it has none. Kent has 100% Conservative representation in Westminster. 74 of the 84 seats on Kent County Council are Conservative - the Liberal Democrats are the official opposition with a whopping 7 seats. Kent, I assure you, is Tory - and it will never go red.

While pondering the absurdity of the suggestion that someone who is actually politically astute and has actually been to Kent before might believe or suggest that Kent may go red I was reminded of a problem I encountered on the other side of the coin just recently.

While MiliEd clearly doesn't have a firm grasp of the socio-political context in Kent, I've increasingly become aware since I left uni and came back to Kent that, the Tory powers-that-be in local government here are just as single-minded: they clearly don't have a firm grasp on the socio-political context of anywhere other than Kent.

I noticed as I drove through the county a few weeks ago that practically every town, village, hamlet and vaguely pedestrianised road now has a sign up informing passers-by that it is now illegal to consume alcohol in public in that area.

To truly convey the absurdity of this, please let me paint a picture for you. This isn't happening on an inner-city setting, nor on a suburban neighbourhood street. I lived in Royal Leamington Spa while at University - a thriving yet relatively quiet affluent spa town in the West Midlands - and these signs are not just popping up in similar places in Kent. No, these no-public-drinking signs are appearing in quiet, sleepy, undisturbed parts of the countryside. They're appearing on beaches and on country roads with little more than the odd smattering of housing.

They're appearing in places which not only don't know the meaning of the words 'antisocial behaviour', but places which are never going to suffer from excessive public drinking. In fact, they're appearing in places from which we should be learning lessons on public drinking - that is relatively quiet, usually community-based and almost always harmless.

The decisions by the relevant local authorities to designate these areas as alcohol-free zones is firstly and frankly absurd given the bigger picture, taking in considerations of areas that really do suffer from alcohol-based antisocial behaviour. Secondly, they are a sign of the true face of large parts of the Conservative party that runs local authorities up and down the country - reactionary, authoritarian and 'tough on crime' for the sake of being 'tough on crime' to the point of bringing great detriment to local communities and personal freedoms.

But then again, these would be the same Tories who sit in Kent, probably never leave Kent, look around at our 96.9% white demographic in the county (compared to a figure of 88% for England as a whole) and moan about immigration. The same who look at our 397 people-per-sq-km (compared to London's 4,851) and complain that the country is filling up. Perhaps expecting our local councillors here to have some perspective of the country as a whole is a bit much to ask...