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This week, local democracy reporter Simon Finlay gives his take on how the Tories are feeling ahead of May's council elections…
An old journalist friend from Belfast, the late Joe Oliver, had a pithy saying to describe slippery politicians who avoided awkward questions or hid from the media.
"We'll see the f*****s in the long grass," Joe would growl, knowing that, for some at least, their comeuppance would be delivered at the ballot box.
Journalists love elections, probably more than politicians or their activists.
Not for us the drudge of leafleting, canvassing or door knocking. The hack watches from afar, trying to sieve out fact from fiction or swerving skulking mischief makers intent on practising dark arts on their rivals through the Press.
It's all larks and japes for us as there is no jeopardy.
Of course, this upcoming county council election wasn't really meant to be. If the Conservative leader Roger Gough had had his way, Kent County Council would be on the A list to an elected mayor, pioneering local government reform and no May elections.
For him, it did not work out that way. To borrow an Ulster-Scots word, a Joe Oliver favourite, Cllr Gough was "scunnered" (ie deeply, deeply hacked off).
He is getting more than a little irritated by his rivals' claims he only wanted to be part of the "devolution revolution" to avoid being put to the test at the polling stations.
The Tories have been in control of the authority - bar a brief hiatus of no overall control in the mid-1990s - for more than 50 years.
On January 30, the local government minister Jim McMahon, who would decide our county's fate, sent a letter to all Kent's political leaders saying: "I do not underestimate, and thoroughly appreciate, the collaborative work you have shown in producing this expression of interest."
Looking back on it, one wonders if Cllr Gough read that sentence with a shiver of dread and realised it was the prelude to rejection.
By the time full council met on February 13, many of the Tories in top jobs looked "scunnered", too. Their faces were tired and body posture subdued.
There was no coherent government explanation why every county in the southeast was awarded a place on the devolution priority programme, except Kent.
Depending on who one speaks to, there is a suspicion that Kent may have misread the signals from government circles about its chances of success when the White Paper dropped in mid-December.
From the outside, there was a swagger about the way KCC pushed through its decision to apply for the fast track by dint of its numerical weight at County Hall (39 for, 18 against and one abstention) on January 9.
Kent's failure was a crushing disappointment to the Tory top table.
For Cllr Gough, a highly intelligent and thoughtful man, he has lost the chance to be at the forefront of the biggest overhaul to local government in generations; rather he may leave a legacy of a struggling council about to run itself aground.
After years of neglect and underfunding by central government, none of KCC's present-day ills can sensibly be laid at his front door and he surely merits better than that.
But the facts speak. Kent Conservatives are not going to be in that pioneering first wave; they will not get new powers and resources and will not be there to shape the county's future.
They must fight an election even its own members believe will be "bloody hard".
Reform UK and the Green Party sense they are going to do well. Labour is nervous and the Lib Dems rightly remain quietly optimistic.
All will become apparent at the count on May 2. Then, we'll know who is "scunnered" and who is not.
There are plenty of ways to stay in the know when it comes to politics in Kent and Medway.
For more from Simon Finlay and the local democracy team, you can sign up to the Kent Politics Briefing newsletter, which arrives in inboxes every Friday.
You can also listen to our Kent Politics Podcast. This week’s episode welcomes a once-major figure from the world of local government in the county - former Medway Council leader Alan Jarrett.
You can listen to the podcast at IM Listening, or download it from Apple Podcasts, Spotify and TuneIn – just search for Kent Politics Podcast. New episodes are available every Friday.
And you can watch the KMTV Kent Politics Show every Friday at 5pm on Freeview channel 7 and Virgin Media channel 159.
