Maidstone & Faversham
The County Town and its surrounding villages are once again awash with blue after two Conservative victories in last Thursday’s election. Helen Grant and Helen Whately both increased their majorities as they comfortably held the seats of Maidstone and the Weald and Faversham and Mid Kent respectively.
With 31,220 votes, Mrs Grant was nearly 22,000 ahead of her nearest rival, Labour’s Dan Wilkinson, who beat James Willis of the Liberal Democrats into second place. Stuart Jeffery from the Green Party, sporting a T-shirt with a message calling for proportional representation, came fourth with 2,172 votes, while independent Yolande Kenward who didn’t attend the count at the Kent Event Centre in Detling - polled 358.
Speaking after her victory, Mrs Grant said: “I think many people were tired of the uncertainty - that’s what I was hearing when I knocked on the door.
“Many people love Boris [Johnson], they like his leadership. Hopefully people have got used to me as the MP and want me to continue doing the work I’ve been doing for them. “It’s been a frustration for many of us that Brexit dominates in Parliament and I was sent to Westminster to focus on things like improving our schools, investing in our NHS, tackling crime and the fear of crime, looking after our environment.
“All of these things I want to get on with, but we have to get Brexit done.”
Mrs Whately was an equally comfortable winner, meanwhile, with 31,864 people backing her in the poll - a majority of 21,976 over her closest opponent.
On a disappointing night for Labour, the party’s candidate Jenny Reeves was heard expressing her joy when news filtered through of Rosie Duffield holding her seat in Canterbury.
Mrs Reeves came second in the race for Faversham and Mid Kent however, picking up 9,888 votes, more than Hannah Perkin of the Lib Dems with 6,170 and Hannah Temple from the Green Party who collected 2,103.
Independent Gary Butler, who also wasn’t present as the result was announced, won 369 votes. Responding to accusations from many, including Mr Wilkinson, that the Tory campaign had been overshadowed by smears and misinformation, Mrs Whately said: “I was really excited when I saw the three main challengers for me in the constituency were all women.
“It was great to be up against them, I was really looking forward to that being a fair and decent fight. It was a bit disappointing in practice because it didn’t always turn out to be that way and I’m sorry that at times it got a bit nasty.”