And they say that our politicians are out of touch.

Someone in Croydon Conservatives – the obnoxious Mario Creatura? The self-serving Dudley Mead? Gormless Steven George? Town Hall enforcer Phil Thomas? Or florid-faced Mike Fisher? … the possibilities are never-ending – needs to be sent on a social media training course and to be given some clues about the human values of compassion and good taste, and urgently.

Because as an example of insensitivity, from Tories who seem to make callous insensitivity their stock in trade, sending out a Tweet celebrating reducing crime statistics in a week when FIVE Croydon teenagers have been victims of stabbings seems utterly crass even by their own gutter-low standards.

Such a lack of awareness, from a group of people who over the past eight years have managed to run the borough into the ground, really ought not come as any surprise.

Why, only in the past week, we’ve reported on the Croydon South MP who seriously suggested that his life was in danger when a group of constituents, including an 81-year-old OAP, arrived at his designated monthly surgery time.

But then, “Sir” Tricky Dicky Ottaway is the same Croydon MP who in the week of the 2011 Croydon riots opted to go off on a sailing holiday rather than try to help his traumatised constituents.

Earlier today, we posted a piece about Chris Philp, the millionaire Tory Party donor who is Ottaway’s anointed successor, sending out an email to residents in which he asked them to make more use of Purley Hospital. A sick joke? Or just another example of the lack of the common touch?

And then there’s Gavin Barwell, MP for Croydon Central who uses tens of thousands of pounds of public money to hire an assistant who seems to spend all his time trawling the internet to boost his boss’s profile.

Barwell is the local MP who thinks nothing of abusing local residents on Twitter, calling one a “loon” (and this from someone who boasts that he introduced mental health legislation), and who last summer managed to use Twitter to announce to the world that he was “delighted” to attend … the opening of a food bank.

There may be some merit in spending time analysing crime figures in Croydon, though after the statistical spike caused by conflagrations of August 2011, any comparison in terms of offences and arrests in the following 24-month period will, inevitably, suggest a downturn in crime.

But by any measure, a group that tries to make political capital over improved national crime figures when five local youngsters lay in hospital beds following knife attacks, has lost its moral compass. If it ever had one to begin with.

No sense. No style.  Or, just as likely, just not very good.

Coming to Croydon

• Edward Keszkiewicz art exhibition, Jan 21-Feb 1
• Cronx Brewery open day, Jan 25
• Holocaust Memorial concert, Jan 25
• STDLCC Screening: Winter Nomads, Jan 27
• Lake Conan Doyle re-naming ceremony, Feb 1
• Give and Take Day, Surrey Street, Feb 1
• Coulsdon and Purley Debating Society, Feb 3
• Babylon at the Spread Eagle Theatre, Feb 4-6
• Steve Knightly at Stanley Halls: Feb 5
• Purley Swimathon: Feb 8 and 13
• Mark Steel at Ashcroft Theatre, Feb 12
• Norwood Society talk, Upper Norwood Library, Feb 20
• Mr Pooter comes to Croydon, Feb 20-22
• Stop the Incinerator fund-raiser, Feb 24
• Coulsdon and Purley Debating Society, Mar 3
• Norwood Society talk, Upper Norwood Library, Mar 20
• Croydon Half-marathon, Mar 30

• 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