Inside Croydon

WALTER CRONXITE, our political editor, on last night’s potentially defining meeting of the council

The body language spoke volumes.

Under pressure: council leader Tony Newman

There, sitting behind council leader Tony Newman, the Labour councillors’ heads were down, the arms folded. Facing unremitting questioning after Ofsted found that the council’s children’s services are “inadequate”, Croydon’s Labour group are not in a good place.

Julian Ellerby, the political commissar appointed on the say-so of Labour MP Steve Reed OBE to help keep Newman in check, looked agitated throughout the three hours or so of proceedings. If he wasn’t heard actually uttering the Tuckerism “clusterfuck” in the Town Hall corridors, Ellerby was sure to be thinking it. Not even the greatest of spindoctors could persuade anyone that that was a meeting that went well. And Ellerby’s barely in the Vanarama National League when it comes to spindoctoring.

Alisa Flemming emerged from the evening as the cabinet member for apologies, and an apology of a cabinet member. Supposedly with overview of the council’s work in children’s services, Flemming, the Upper Norwood councillor, has failed to impress in her three years as a cabinet member. Last night demonstrated why. Privately, nearly as many of her own party’s councillors as those who spoke from the opposition benches are saying it is time for her to go. Their anger is clear. Continue reading →