29/08/2026
Over the past week, you may have seen coverage of a decision made at Swale to ask a taxi firm to remove poppies and stickers from their cabs. The ability to challenge this decision, or a policy's unintended outcome, is completely within the gift of councillors and the wheels are very much turning on this.
What I have found repulsive is the abuse being directed at council staff by members of the public.You can disagree with the policy, you can call the outcome ridiculous if you think it is and you can also campaign for it to change. Threatening and abusing people whose job is to apply policies agreed by elected councillors isn’t acceptable. Nobody working in public service should have to put up with that.
None of this means the poppy doesn't matter. I will still buy one every November and attend our remembrance day services. I will also fight for veterans and members of our community who chose to serve, to receive the services and support they need all year round
Remembrance has to sit alongside continuing the work of building the kind of country those that sacrificed their lives hoped would exist when the fighting was over.
If politicians from across Swale can come together with this much passion over a sticker on a taxi, imagine what we could achieve if we brought that same energy to making sure 1 in 3 children aren't growing up in poverty or families aren't being forced to use foodbanks or to tackling the 10 year life expectancy difference between our richer and poorer areas.
