Another day, another Twitter blunder by Gavin Barwell, the MP for the Whitgift Foundation.

I’m all right Jack: Barwell doesn’t want a soup kitchen for the homeless devaluing a yuppie apartment scheme

This time he has given his backing to the council’s action to move a nightly soup kitchen from Queen’s Gardens, in his Croydon Central constituency, because feeding the needy there might undermine the value of a yuppie apartment scheme.

Inside Croydon reported yesterday how Croydon Council was “utilising all available bye laws and preventing the use of Queens Gardens for this activity” against Croydon Nightwatch, the hard-working local charity which feeds and helps hundreds of local homeless and poor, including providing a nightly soup kitchen across the road from the council’s £140 million new offices.

The council refused to answer our questions about this policy, which was revealed in a confidential officer’s report seen by Inside Croydon.

But Barwell, when quizzed on Twitter by residents disgusted by their council’s attitude, came forward with his explanation: having the poor and homeless around Queen’s Gardens does nothing for property values.

“Nightwatch does an amazing job but with Taberner House being replaced by a residential scheme need to find new location,” Barwell said via Twitter.

Barwell has form in on Twitter. In the past, he has used his Twitter account to abuse his constituents, calling one a “loon”, and this summer he clumsily expressed his “delight” at attending the opening of … a foodbank.

In the past fortnight, Barwell has been taken to task on Twitter over his poor grasp of economics, by an economics professor who called him “clueless” and “idiotic”, and he has also been exposed for trying to mislead by passing off falling numbers of Job Seeker’s Allowance claims as indicating falling levels of unemployment.

Barwell was promoted in the recent ConDem government re-shuffle to a junior role in the Tory whips’ office, but has already been complaining about the long hours and lack of sleep. Is the strain beginning to show so soon?

Barwell’s latest dropped bollock is right down there with the remark made by another Tory 20 years ago, when hereditary baronet Sir George Young described the homeless as “the sort of people you step over on the way out of the opera”.

As Paul Williams, who Tweets as @TheBoyWilliams and raised the question with Barwell, said: “#Croydon #Tories choose yuppies over charity that’ll help the vulnerable this cold winter. Hello again #NastyParty?”

And all this on the same day when Barwell’s mate, Bullingdon Boris Johnson, was talking about the IQs of cornflakes. What was going on?

Were these two public school- and Oxbridge-educated Tory posh boys competing to see who could be the more crass? Or were they just showing their true colours?

• Roller Derby get their skates on to back Nightwatch
• Let’s find some remedies for growing issue on our streets

Coming to Croydon

• Future Tech City: Nov 30
• Follow in the footsteps of Pirie: Dec 1
• Comedy in Music show: Dec 1
• Heathfield House Christmas Bazaar: Dec 1
• Croydon charity roller derby: Dec 1
• The Lives of Stanley Halls community entertainment: Dec 4
• Riot from Wrong screening: Dec 5
• CP Mums’ Winter Wonderland: Dec 6
• Cinema Ruskin: Dec 21
• Steve Knightly at Stanley Halls: Feb 5

• Inside Croydon: Croydon’s only independent news source, based in the heart of the borough – 262,183 page views (Jan-Jun 2013)
• Post your comments on this article below.
• If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, a residents’ or business association or local event, please email us with full details at inside.croydon@btinternet.com