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THIS year the ‘Harley Medical Group poll finds many UK adults confess that a politician's appearance influences the way they vote, and Brown comes out bottom of the pile for style.’

The countries Politicians need to worry more about how they look, as our modern age society has decided that all three could benefit from plastic surgery, especially on the bags under their eyes.

Liz Dale, director at the Harley Medical Group, commented: "With so little between the candidates, everything counts at this stage and the visual impression they convey is key. We all know experience carries a certain weight but today's results show people like a youthful face, with 43% of respondents saying this is important to them.

She later added: “Famously when Nixon and Kennedy went head to head in their presidential debate, Kennedy's tanned, boyish looks helped him win the day and ultimately the election, despite Nixon taking the debate."

With David Cameron and his wife Samantha being voted the politician and politician’s wife the public would most like to have an affair with, it comes as no surprise that in years to come politicians may start thinking about getting a personal stylist.

WITH the results out, the country is in its first hung parliament since 1974. We spoke to students at Canterbury Christ Church to see weather they voted, what they think of the results, and the thought of a future with a coalition government.

Beci Keys and Jamie Smith

MP for Canterbury Julian Brazier




No surprise after yesterday's elections

Canterbury remains a faithful region for conservatives as Julian Brazier keeps his seat in the House of Commons. The electorate in Canterbury showed once again its political preference and voted in consequence. As in all the constituencies throughout the country, in Canterbury was no time for anything else than counting votes. And, after a white night the results put Conservatives at the top, with 44.8 per cent of the votes. Liberal Democrats came second with 32.5 per cent while by now former government party, Labour are third with a share of just 16.1 per cent.

Even if Julian Brazier, MP for Canterbury since 1992 won with a secure margin, receiving an impressive number of 22,050 votes, the conservatives lost 5,4 per cent to Lib Dems' Guy Voizey who was voted by 16,000 people. Click here to see a detailed situation over Canterbury elections.

Kent map is entirely blue

The same conservative victory could be seen in all Kent. In fact, every seat in the next Parliament is now held by the Conservative Party. In Dartford, the electoral battle has been won by Gareth Johnson with over 10,000 votes. Sittingbourne and Sheppey saw the biggest swing to the Conservatives in Kent at 12.7 per cent, which had been listed as Labour's top target seat. Therefore, Tory candidate Gordon Henderson has been attributed with 50 per cent of the votes, while the Labour Angela Harrison was down by more than a half, 24.6 per cent.

The Tories also seized power from Labour in Chatham and Aylesford, where Labour's Minister for the South East Jonathan Shaw was ousted by Tory candidate Tracey Crouch in a 11.05 per cent swing to the Conservatives.
Ms Crouch said: "It shows that people desperately want change in Chatham and Aylesford and across Kent. Kent has turned entirely Conservative, so it is a good result."

Julian Brazier clashes with tuition fees in his new parliamentary term

Conservative MP for Canterbury in the last four Parliaments, Julian Brazier declared in March that he stands for the students in Canterbury, but suggested calm and balance in tackling the expected rise in tuition fees, in what meant one of the hottest topics of the electoral campaign:

MEDIA students at Canterbury Christ Church University were used to help BBC Radio Kent conduct a political experiment. The experiment was to see whether Visual performances by the candidates in the first live television debates in the UK, made more of an impact on the audience rather then what they said.

Second years Caroline Elvin, 20, Jamie Harris, 20 and Samuel Francis, 19 studying Multimedia Journalism were asked to watch the live debate whilst first years Dan, and Katie also Journalism students were asked to listen to the debate.

The trial was based on the first ever television political debate in 1960 between Richard Nixon and John F Kennedy where the outcome saw those who watched the debate support Kennedy, whilst those who listened on the radio backed Nixon.

Jamie Harris explained his involvement in the visual trial;

"It was a lot of fun actually. It was interesting to see all the changes but its important to state that we have the internet now".

To hear the outcome of BBC's experiement play the following video.

With Election day coming close we ask a few of you who you will be supporting:

WITH the football season finishing around Kent, there were still massive prizes to play for. Dover Athletic had the chance for a play-off final, whilst Herne Bay and Sevenoaks Town contested the Premier Division Cup in the Kent League.

Dover Athletic failed to gain promotion from the Blue Square South despite gaining a favourable draw in the play-offs. Dover suffered a shock defeat away to Woking in the first leg of the tie and failed to overturn the deficit with a painfully tense 0-0 draw in the second leg at the crabble. The 'Whites' pushed for a result and were unlucky to hit the woodwork four times in a one sided affair.

Dover boss Andy Hessenthaler was disappointed with the result but looked at the positives;

“I’m disappointed that we have lost in the play-offs but now we have got to go and try to win the league next season”.

So despite Dover’s disappointment in the play-offs, it has been a terrific season at the Crabble and Kent will look forward to an exciting season next time around.

The Kent League finished last week with only a few loose ends to tie up in the league, but a massive cup final between Sevenoaks Town and league runners up Herne Bay.

Pre-season favourites Faversham Town strolled to success in the League with captain and centre-back Lee Shearer, the player of the season, finishing with 15 goals.

With the Premier Division Cup still up for grabs both teams were looking for a glamorous end of the season.

In a thrilling encounter between two evenly matched teams, Herne Bay relied on a late equalliser and extra-time to lift the Premier Division Cup. Stuart King was the hero for ‘Bay’ who claimed their only silverware of the season.

King gave the away side the lead on 24 minutes, only to be cancelled out 10 minutes later by ‘Oaks’ striker Billy Shinners. Sevenoaks hat-trick hero from last week Alfred Keroma, gave the home side a shock lead with 15 minutes remaining in normal time only for King to level with eight minutes to go. Sevenoaks were further disappointed as captain Ward was shown a second yellow with seconds remaining, giving Herne Bay a clear advantage going into extra time. Match winner King, scored the winning goal just after half-time in extra-time as the pressure finally paid off.

For many it’s unsurprising that Faversham Town and Herne Bay finished the season as the top two teams in the league. Deal Town manager Derek Hares said;

“It does not surprise me that Herne Bay and Faversham finished up there, they have a strong base at their clubs and have solid support from the Chairman and the two boards”.

The preparations and friendly’s for next season will begin in August and Kent League managers are already looking towards next season. Hares added;

“It’s important that we get a good pre-season under our belts to make sure that we can keep pace in the league. We have not got the finances that other clubs like Faversham have got, so it will be hard to attract players here, but we have a fantastic squad and if we keep them altogether we can do well”.

Dover Athletic manager Andy Hessenthaler has faced disappointment for his first time as manager, with his side failing to win promotion at the first time of asking. There is constant speculation linking Hessenthaler with the Gillingham job and next season is not so certain for the Crabble club.

ORIGINALLY only two were meant to win the event but with so many showing a ‘talent for story telling’ Andrew McGuinness and Danny Rhodes, the mentors for this event, decided to pick two winners each rather then one.

Emmi Itaranta, Rebecca Seery, Chris Bennett and Denny Flowers, are the four lucky winners who will receive the one-to-one critical and professional support during 2010.

The deadline for the Competition was on 26th February 2010. Andrew McGuinness said;

“The standard of writing was generally so good that choosing the mentees for the scheme proved extremely difficult.

The Kilkenny County and Borough Councils member then said;

“We received complete short stories and opening excerpts from novellas and novels in many genres, including science fiction, fantasy, historical fiction, romance, thriller, comedy and stories for children. Some writers were relatively new to writing and others were more experienced, but all showed a talent for storytelling".

He later added; “It’s uplifting to know that so many across the district are putting pen to paper and fingers to keyboards, and we wish all the writers the very best for their continued work.”

As well as the winners there were six runner up authors whose works were highly recommended. They were Matthew Carbery, Katie Jane Hogben, Tracy Kelly, Charlotte Matthews, Kaz Russell and Richard Turney.

The Scheme is funded by Canterbury City Council and managed by the Canterbury Festival, Kent’s International Arts Festival that takes place later this year.

If you want any more information on this visit the Write Directions website: http://www.write-here.net/main.cfm?objectid=16

For any more information on the Canterbury Councils Arts Festival click here: http://www.canterburyfestival.co.uk/home.asp