Tunbridge Wells.

Tunbridge Wells' MP has been dominating local headlines over a sustained campaign against South East Water, which left residents without supply for three days in late 2025. Mike Martin publicly demanded the CEO's resignation in December, called for the board to be sacked in January, and by March was pressing regulators to redirect a £22m fine into infrastructure upgrades rather than pocketing it as a penalty. He has since developed a detailed £44.2m resilience plan and engaged the company's shareholders -- including NatWest -- and threatened to summon executives before the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee. On the AI and copyright vote in June 2025, he broke with his party to back the government's softer alternative over Lords-backed protections for creative industries, his sole rebel vote in parliament.

Martin votes with the Liberal Democrats 99.7% of the time, making that AI vote the exception rather than a pattern. His participation rate of 60% sits below the Commons average. His strongest stances are on parliamentary scrutiny (95% aligned) and climate action (95%), and he consistently backs Lords amendments against government overrides -- including a raft of votes on the Pension Schemes Bill in April 2026, where he sided with the Lords against the government's power to direct pension fund investments. He deviates from his party most sharply on welfare reform, voting for it more often than Liberal Democrat MPs typically do. Defence and the economy dominate his speeches.

His seat on the Defence Committee -- and the Select Committee on the Armed Forces Bill -- explains why defence tops his speech topics alongside economic themes. News coverage is heavily concentrated on the water crisis, which accounts for 25 of 61 recent articles and carries the strongest average sentiment of any issue covered. Data on rebel votes and committee activity is available; some Lords amendment votes lack full debate transcripts, so the precise content of a handful of positions is inferred from voting records alone.