I didn't bother refuting bluethruandthru's naive assumptions about Kent point by point. However, the following ten points might be an eye opener for anyone with little knowledge of this noble county.
1. Kent used to be called the Garden of England; it's now often jokingly referred to as the Patio of England.
2. The Dover Straits are reportedly the busiest shipping lanes in the world, with the Port of Dover playing a pivotal role in the UK's economy.
3. To service all that commercial and tourist traffic, two motorways and one high-speed rail line were bludgeoned through the county's areas of outstanding national beauty.
4. The lay-bys on the A20 are constantly littered with piss bottles, excrement and general ordure from lorry drivers camping out overnight.
5. When the frogs take their annual ferry strikes, Operation Stack brings great tracts of Kent to a standstill.
And despite the motorways being used as temporary car park for thousands of British and continental trucks during Stack, the government refuses to share any of the tab for policing. So the bill falls to local council taxpayers instead.
7. Ditto with the asylum seekers and other assorted waifs who have to be accommodated by Dover and nearby towns. The volume of violent crimes and sexual offences is swollen by unchecked migration of people with criminal records. There's as much chance of a Saturday night Shia v Sunni Muslim ruckus in Dover as there is in Iraq.
8. Whilst much of Kent is prosperous, substantial parts are economically deprived.
9. Some of the seaside towns are used as dumping grounds by the London boroughs for social problem cases. Margate suffers more than most because of its cheap housing stock.
10. Kent has absorbed more than its fair share of housing development. Ashford and Northfleet in particular are massive expansion areas. Meanwhile, thanks to the mushrooming population, every town and village has its arm twisted to cram in more houses or suffer hidden financial penalties.
To sum up, anyone who says Kent doesn't do its bit for the country is being totally ignorant.