Post your summer events below...

What other events can we look forward to this summer? Slade School's summer fete is always one not to miss in the centre of town. Then there's the Tonbridge Summer carnival and festival, Dragon boats I'm told will be back complete with music from Haiwai 5-0 (Why??!) I think the SIBA Beer and Cider Festival will be coming back again in July. There's another weekend of musical delights at the Castle and there's sure to be lots more. Post them below....

Bakehouse @ 124 opening tonight....

There's a new café and artisan bakery (what's one of them? Ed.) called, quite appropriately, The Bakehouse at 124, which is at 124 High Street, opening in Tonbridge tonight and I'm invited to the grand opening. You know how it is, me, the Mayor of Tonbridge, the new MP, Tom to his mates, and a few other select folk from the glitter and literati of the town. All of us tucking in to that lovely fluffy bread and hopefully necking one or two glasses of fizz. I don't want to sound ungrateful but I do hope that there are at least some tasty canapés being handed out as well. A man cannot live on bread and wine alone you know! Mind you they better get a move on as the new café still looked half finished when I looked in earlier this week. I think there will have been a flurry of activity this week to get it ready for tonight. It'll be a bit like one of those DIY programs where Handy Andy and his team work like crazy to some appropriately fast tempo music and put up the final shelf at exactly the moment the Mayor walks in!  Good luck to them because it's gonna be tough going in this big bad world of retail you're letting yourselves in for...

What not to wear at the school prom!

I just posted this about dress codes at school proms after having read this article in the Telegraph about a Canadian girl being given detention for wearing an "inappropriate" dress, which was full length but showed off her upper arms, back and shoulders (and tattoo.) As the school prom season is upon us in Tonbridge I thought that I'd share my comment. I'm sure it may provoke some similar and totally opposite views from some of you:

This is what I wrote:
"If the dress codes are anything like as stringent as they are at my daughter's school then surely going to the prom and other events is a chance to let rip. I do wish schools would butt out, to use a great Americanism, when it comes to what especially the over 16s can wear in or out of school. Someone's idea of "appropriate" is always wildly different from someone else's. So let the young adults, for that's what they are, decide for themselves. Teenagers have, and always will, want to shock us boring grown ups and long let it be so!..."

More people didn't vote Conservative than voted for them in Tonbridge and Malling....

So our new MP, Tom Tugenhat, as expected, comfortably took the seat of Tonbridge and Malling which also, btw, includes Edenbridge, where, incidentally, I used to play golf when I first moved to this area. But that's by the by! His victory was pretty emphatic which sort of half rhymes with Tugenhatic, which is also by the by.
Enough of this nonsense and let's analyse those figures in a little more detail shall we. His party, The Conservatives, polled 31,887 which was 59.1% of the votes. The other parties, between them, polled less than that at 21,783 or 40.6% of the vote. So that's pretty emphatic isn't it? But what about the ones who didn't vote? These will be a mixture young people who didn't register to vote in time, people who couldn't make it to the polling station and, of course, people who just couldn't be bothered, a whole host of reasons. The turn out was 73.8% which is generally considered high. That said in the recent Scottish Independence referendum the turn out was about 95% so, you see, it is possible for more people to vote when they really feel it counts. Maybe Russell Brand had a point afterall! So, taking the ones eligible to vote who didn't bother into account the picture looks different again. The 24.2% of voters who didn't exercise their democratic right for whatever reason represent 12,988 people. Are you keeping up with me? So if we add those to the non-Tory voters that's actually 34,771 people. So, in fact, more people who were eligible to vote didn't vote for Mr. Tugenhat than voted for him and he needs to remember that.
I'm now off to munch, a cry into, my tripe and black pudding sandwiches again!...

Tom Tugenhat's web site....

Here's a link to our new MP for Tonbridge, Malling and, let's not forget, Edenbridge ,Tom Tugenhat's web site. Let's hope he carries out what he said he would do. We're all counting on you mate whether or not we voted for you. Tom's web site

2015 Election results for Tonbridge

That's a huge majority of 23,734 from the next nearest candidate and Labour did even worse. The lib Dems? Let's not even go there. Blimey though what a turn up for the books the whole thing was. People have been telling me this morning how they've been predicting the whole thing. Funny how no one mentioned it before and that they could see into the future better than the professional opinion pollsters isn't it!
Feeling like a disenfranchised northerner marooned in the leafy south east, I guess I'll toddle off home any minute for me tea of tripe and black pudding sandwiches! If the Missus is home we might watch a bit of telly if we've enough money for the lecky meter. Here's the result in full:

Tonbridge and Malling

• Tom Tugendhat (Con) 31,887
• Rob Izzard (Ukip) 8,153
• Claire Leigh (Lab) 7,604
• Mary Varrall (Lib Dem) 3,660
• Howard Porter (Green) 2,366