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ConservativeMP Helen Whately, pictured with some of her supporters, could lose her seat in a review of constituency boundaries Changes ahead for Mid KentMP


MP HELEN Whately will learn by the end of the summer next year if she is to lose her seat under a boundary review shake-up.


After the passage of the Parlia- mentary Voting System and Con- stituencies Act, the four national boundary commissions are trying to equalize the size of each seat within the UK. It is also designed to reduce the


cost of having 650 MPs. In future, there would be around 600. Under the new rules, Mrs Whately’s Faversham and Mid Kent constituency will fragment into other neighbouring areas. Hers is a seat which will be deemed to “disappear”, because no single part of it will form the largest part of a new one.


Helen helps to ‘drag’ Speaker


Bercow to chair MAIDSTONE MP Helen Grant helped “drag” the newly-elected Speaker of the House of Commons into his chair.


John Bercow


(left|) was elected back to the office of Speaker as MPs returned to Westminster after the general election on June 8.


Conservatives Mrs Helen Grant –


the member for Maidstone & the Weald – and Peter Bottomley and Labour MPAlison McGovern took part in the traditional "dragging" of the Speaker from the back benches to the chair. According to reports, there had been rumours of moves to oppose the Buckingham MP, but he was re-elected unopposed on June 13. Mrs Grant Tweeted: “Huge priv-


ilege to drag John to the chair. He is an honourable and brilliant Speaker whose commitment to di- versity in Parliament is inspiring.”


Across the nation, some 59 seats


– about 32 in England – might be disposed of in this way. Asked for a comment on the boundary review, Mrs Whately re- fused to be drawn on the subject, saying that her “focus right now is on learning lessons from the elec- tion campaign”. But earlier this year she told Mid


Kent Living magazine: “I seize op- portunities when they come my way.


“There could be some pretty sig- nificant boundary changes on the way, so I intend to make good use of the time I might have.”


A local Tory observer said: “Helen has done a first class job and she has proved very popular in the constituency. “So we’ve got to do what we


need to do to try and reverse the decision.” Last September, when Faver-


sham and Mid Kent was first mooted, Mrs Whately said: “I'm honoured to represent Faversham and Mid Kent. It's a glorious con- stituency. “It's sad that the Boundary Com- mission's draft proposals would split up the Faversham and Mid Kent constituency, but the ration-


ale behind the review is to make all parliamentary constituencies a similar size, so each person's vote carries the same weight. “There is now a consultation pe-


riod, so people can give their views on the proposals. “Meanwhile, I will keep on working hard for everyone across Faversham and Mid Kent.” Under the new rules, for in- stance, a resident in the ME17 post- code would be represented by Tonbridge and Malling MP Tom Tugendhat in the newly-named and configured Tonbridge and The Weald constituency.


Lads’ larks at Tom’s expense


THOSE behind a political ‘poster prank’ in Leybourne have been identified…well, almost. The three boys behind the home-spun ‘Banksy’ style jape posed for this photo, sporting Tom Tugendhat masks, in front of the poster at the centre of the smile-raiser off the M20 near Maidstone. They thanked locals for taking


with good humour in their practi- cal joke – replacing their Tory can-


didate’s face each day of the elec- tion campaign with a celebrity face, including Mr T and Mrs Brown, from the BBC TV show Mrs Brown’s Boys. A statement from the mystery


trio reads: “We hope everyone has taken the prank for what it was, light-hearted fun. “Rest assured no criminal dam-


age was actually caused and all precautions were taken to avoid any potentially controversial char-


acters.We thinkwe picked a good bunch! “It has been amusing seeing all


the coverage on Facebook, Twitter and the Downs Mail and various blogs and watching people guess whose face we would put up each day. We are also glad Tom has taken thiswell.” For anyone still in the dark:


Tom Tugendhat was re-elected as Tory MP to the Tonbridge and Malling seat.


Maidstone East July 2017 19


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