It is said that a week is a long time in politics, so although Christmas is the traditional time for us all to remark on how the year has flown by, the seven months since the general election seem like a lifetime ago.

The decisive result means that it’s hard to believe how uncertain we all were about the expected outcome. It was one that no one could, or would, predict. This kind of confusion and uncertainty is always a boon for cartoonists, of course.

Locally, one of the big stories was the rematch, after such a short period, between Mark Reckless and Kelly Tolhurst in Rochester and Strood.

Cartoons

My cartoon took the form of one of those over-hyped boxing posters, which seems appropriate with hindsight as Ukip didn’t exactly live up to expectations.

There was also a political story in Rainham North ward that made the national news: the candidate for TUSC (no, me neither) apparently got zero votes.

Another gift for a cartoonist as it all happened as we were looking forward to seeing lots of nul points in the Eurovision Song Contest.

It wasn’t all politics, of course, there were many lighter stories to inspire your resident cartoonist, from the man who gutted his house to build a massive aquarium in it, without telling his missus, to Status Quo cancelling a gig due to a poorly tummy. Ageing rockers are an easy target, but that didn’t stop me.

There seemed to be rather a lot of cartoons about alcohol, from Dry January (I’m not bothering again next month) to a proposed distillery in Chatham and not one but two cartoons about the micropub boom.

When someone named a micropub the 10:50 From Victoria, I simply had to draw a late-running husband and the joke wrote itself.

So, I’ll raise a glass to you all and wish you a happy new year. Let’s hope we can find some things to laugh about together in 2016.

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