EXCLUSIVE: ‘Life-long’ Palace fan is going to have to do some work to earn his £86,000 council salary, as opposition parties refuse to change date of Town Hall’s annual meeting on the night that the Eagles will be making history in their first European final. By STEVEN DOWNES
Busted: Croydon’s £86,000 per year part-time Mayor, Jason Perry, pictured this week, making his application for a refund on his flight tickets to Germany
Almost the first act of Jason Perry since he was re-elected as Croydon’s £86,000 per year Mayor was to ask for a change of date of the council’s annual meeting, set for Wednesday, May 27 – in order that he can go instead to Leipzig to see Crystal Palace play in the UEFA Conference League final.
Opposition councillors have rejected Perry’s pathetic request, describing it as “wrong”.
“The Mayor’s immediate priority should be focusing on fixing the fly-tipping and pothole epidemic in Croydon, not how to get to a football match,” Stuart King, the Labour group leader, told Inside Croydon tonight. Continue reading
It is now little more than a year since the Tory Mayor decided to end years of successful collaboration and hard work by dedicated local charities and volunteers at the Carers Support Centre and bring in outside contractors. In the past 12 months, under the new service supplier, official figures show the record of delivery looks to have fallen off a cliff.
So just how did Perry, the incompetent Mayor who hiked your Council Tax by 33% and still managed to increase council debt to £1.7billion, manage to scramble together enough votes to get re-elected last week?
It’s the eighth year that Transport for London has staged such an awareness week, and this year it has Turner Prize-winning artist Tracey Emin providing specially recorded announcements for Tube and bus stations.
TV and radio politics pundit ANDREW FISHER, right, looks at Croydon’s local election results in the context of the seismic elections that took place across Britain
It was just as bad for the Conservatives, who slumped to fifth place in Scotland, fourth place in Wales and lost 563 councillors in England, leaving them in fourth place in England, too.
Ellie Sandover, niece of Labour PM Keir Starmer, elected to council for Bensham Manor ward
ELECTION COMMENTARY: Jason Perry, Croydon’s failed Mayor, may have been handed another four years in office, but the voting numbers declared yesterday spell trouble for the borough’s other Conservatives.
