November saw more articles viewed on this website than any other month so far in 2015, as Inside Croydon’s loyal reader was looking for more news about the Labour Party’s little local difficulties, growing concerns about the borough’s schools, and the latest episode from Winston McKenzie, now “ex-UKIP”.
We were also the first to report the inter-galactic piss-take from South Norwood’s most active publicists (which other publications seemed to take sooo very seriously). Beam us up, Scotty:
Lord Harris: carpet salesman turned educational carpet bagger
1, Hundreds of teachers leaving Harris academies each year
A Guardian newspaper report sourced by the Anti-Academies Alliance, from a Freedom of Information request, had troubling implications from what are meant to be some of the best state schools in Croydon, where the personnel turnover in the staff room might suggest that not all is as happy as it ought to be.
2, Benn’s attempt at Labour purge highlights support for WEP
First published at the end of October, this was a story of crass hypocrisy which continued to fascinate our loyal reader, as the subject of The Hon Emily Benn’s complaint, Andrew Fisher, the political adviser to Jeremy Corbyn, was first suspended by the Labour Party, then given a very stern talking to. To date, no action has been taken over The Hon Emily’s own dalliances with other parties.
3, Norwood Junction ready for take-off with new station name
Well, if the council leadership will insist on coming up with yet more plainly ridiculous suggestions – we’re surely just a few months away from another city status waste of time – then Messrs Newman and Elvery ought to expect to have the piss taken out of them by those fine people at the South Norwood Tourist Board. Even the Daily Wail followed up on this, the latest instance of Croydon’s leadership creating their very own Black Hole.
4, GCSE results show academies struggling to make the grades
See (1) above… It would appear that the propaganda coming from the big academy operators may not be entirely reliable when it comes to the actual results that some of these schools are delivering.
5, Council closes CALAT’s Coulsdon centre as austerity bites
After (1) and (4) above, more education issues, this time in adult education. This will be one of a sequence of council cuts stories which will continue as long as local authorities are being expected to do Gideon Osborne’s austerity dirty work for him. Though the Labour council’s decision to make its cut in the south of the borough – which is mostly Tory-voting – appears a touch on the cynical side.
6, Questions to be asked over £1.5m-worth of Viridor ‘gifts’
Huge response to this story of questionable donations in the constituencies of three LibDem government ministers from incinerator-operators Viridor.
7, Ruskin Square considered for HMRC’s new tax supercentre
Some good news, for Croydon, though what our town centre wins on the swings, some other poor bastards will be losing on the roundabouts, as the government’s tax department wields the axe on hundreds of local offices, and thousands of jobs.
8, Library staff in walk-out as shelves are stripped of books
Another cuts story, this time of the ham-fisted library “consultation” in Lambeth’s “co-operative” council, which impacts Croydon because of the unique joint operation of Upper Norwood Library, whose fate seems under particular threat.
Winston McKenzie: finally got the message
9, Crystal Palace Triangle’s businesses show off their indies
We don’t do “headline of the month” competitions, but if we did, then this little number, submitted by Inside Croydon’s loyal reader for a story about this coming weekend’s Small Business Saturday might just nick it.
10, Winston McKenzie quits UKIP, accuses them of racism
UKIP? Racist? Who knew? Seems to have taken Croydon’s most flamboyant politician and serial election loser longer than many to twig. In the words of Winston McKenzie: Chump!
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I’d been hoping to see Emily Benn and Winston Mckenzie in the same article to prove to friends outside the borough that Croydon is a political hotbed. Thank you