By our political editor, WALTER CRONXITE
Local Labour official Melanie Felton was this afternoon named as the party’s candidate for the Park Hill and Whitgift council by-election. The public vote will take place on May 2, the same date as the London Mayoral and GLA elections.
In the now traditional style of Croydon and London Labour, party members in the ward had no say in the selection.
There was no meeting to discuss or agree any candidate shortlist. There wasn’t even any meeting to make the final selection.
In the, by now, routine anti-democratic practice in Keir Starmer and David Evans’ Labour Party, no voting tally was declared. Nor were other candidates named as having put themselves forward. If, indeed, any bothered.
Members in the ward were not even afforded the modest courtesy of an emailed notification of the identity of the imposed candidate they will be expected to campaign and vote for (though given the issues around email addresses in the Croydon East CLP…). Felten’s selection was flopped out on Twatter.
This all had more than a whiff of foregone conclusion about it.
Labour sources told Inside Croydon, “It was the shortest of short lists.”
The whole process was rushed through this week by London Labour executive officials, who said that they conducted interviews with candidates via Zoom last night.
Early efforts: Melanie Felten (centre) was campaigning in Park Hill on Tuesday, with Mrs Anonyvoter (right)
Perhaps it was just pure coincidence, but Felten was out canvassing in Park Hill on Tuesday night, accompanied by “Mrs Anonyvoter” herself, Maddie Henson, another to have been selected to run for public office recently by Labour’s entirely opaque system. And using her own, proprietary software, too.
The Labour hierarchy appears unconcerned that Felten is the secretary (albeit interim) of the Croydon East Constituency Labour Party which is currently the subject of a Met Police fraud investigation over the way officials handled members’ confidential data and votes in their parliamentary selections last November.
Felten is described by comrades as “determined and efficient”, although it has been suggested that in the past she has written articles strongly critical of rubbish Labour councillors.
Oval Road resident Felten was installed as Croydon East CLP secretary last October by London Region. Despite promises, there has been no general meeting of the CLP held since then for members to elect their own officials.
The by-election in the single-seat Park Hill and Whitgift ward has been called because the sitting Tory councillor, Jade Appleton, has resigned after three years because she has more important things to do. The Conservatives had already selected their candidate, Andrew Price, before Appleton made her resignation public.
Park Hill and Whitgift is seen as a safe Tory ward, Appleton having polled 54% of the votes cast at the local elections in 2022, at a time of peak #Partygate disaffection.
The safeness of the ward might explain why Trump-supporting Susan Hall is due to pay a visit there on Saturday as part of her teetering, mind-blowingly-awful mayoral campaign.
Park Hill and Whitgift is one of two ward by-elections being held in Croydon on May 2, the day of the London elections. The other is in safe Labour territory in Woodside.
Read more: Scotland Yard’s cyber crime unit investigating Croydon Labour
Read more:#TheLabourFiles: MP Reed, Evans and the Croydon connection
Read more: Anonyvoter’s co-owner wins Labour vote held on Anonyvoter
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ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: In January 2024, Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for a SEVENTH successive year in the annual round-up of civic cock-ups in Private Eye magazine
So she’s been rewarded for helping oversee a process that was so woeful that it ended up in a police investigation?! This is just brazen!
Yep.
As Labour won’t trust their own members, us voters should not trust them.
It seems no party can be trusted to let its members have their say. It does not bode well for the future.
No party? Just the Labour Party?, John
“Members in the ward were not even afforded the modest courtesy of an emailed notification of the identity of the imposed candidate they will be expected to campaign and vote for…”
To be fair they did email to ask if I wanted to stand but I had to tell them that (in the immortal words of Adam Deacon) I was on bigger tings.