Steve O’Connell, a former mortgage salesman (he quit that job when he found the tax-payer paid more generously), has got his pension pot sorted, with £220,000 guaranteed income for the next four years, as the results from the London Assembly elections trickled in from Olympia.
Steve O’Connell: cushty
At least that was the case until about 50 minutes later, when someone discovered an as-yet uncounted box of votes. One box-load, though, was not be enough to swing things away from the Conservatives.
For the second time in four years, O’Connell’s cosy sinecure was saved for him by the voters of Sutton, as the Labour candidate, Marina Ahmad, won the majority of support in Croydon.
“Silent Steve” O’Connell’s majority was only marginally larger than last time. Indeed, with an improved turnout compared to the elections in 2012, both Tories and Labour saw their share of the votes reduced, with UKIP’s Peter Staveley’s vote share up 3 per cent, after another sorry showing for the third-placed LibDems.
For Ahmad, defeat may be doubly galling because, over in Wandsworth and Merton, Leonie Cooper showed that it is possible for Labour to end long-term Tory incumbency.
That seat, like Croydon and Sutton, has been a Conservative hold since City Hall opened for business in 2000, and so for the last eight years has helped to proling the humdrum political career of former MP Dick Tracey – one of the most useless sports ministers ever known (and there’s plenty of competition for that accolade).
And like Ahmad in Croydon and Sutton, Cooper needed to overcome a 10,000-vote majority from 2012. Cooper did so, and then some, winning by a 4,000-vote margin with a 11 per cent swing. It all left Ahmad to ponder what might have been.
Merton and Wandsworth and the other constituency results in favour of Labour point strongly towards Sadiq Khan being the next Mayor of London later tonight. Early indications had Khan on 44 per cent of the vote after first preference, while Tory Zac Goldsmith had just 35 per cent.
O’Connell’s eight years at City Hall have seen him enjoy the patronage of a Tory Mayor, including a little extra earner on the Metropolitan Police authority – not that do-nothing O’Connell bothered to save any of Croydon’s police stations or managed to increase the number of police on our streets. His next four years under a Labour Mayor will doubtless see him with less to do, and doing even less, if that is possible.
But the money will be good.
The as-yet unresolved imponderable is the outcome of the party list voting, with some suggestions that Labour has not done so well there as to maintain the four London-wide members they have had since 2012, and so cancelling out the Merton and Wandsworth gain.
With Croydon resident Fiona Twycross being No1 on the Labour’s list, she should have another four-year term at City Hall. She sounds eager to work with a new Mayor: “It would be a fantastic day for London if Sadiq wins.
“I think that following what’s been a divisive campaign by the Tories, it would be a decisive rejection by the people of the tactics that have tried to split communities.”
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There isn’t any need for Marina Ahmad to spend time pondering what might have been in Croydon and Sutton. The reason that Wandsworth and Merton went red is almost certainly due to the Sadiq effect in his own back yard. The lack of tactical voting by Greens and Lib Dems is why O’Connell won. Labour clearly failed to get the message across to these voters, particularly the Lib Dems in Sutton, that it was only ever going to be a two horse race.
Congratulations Steve. WALTER CRONXITE of insideCroydon did predict that you will win.
So Skeletor O’Connell is back to haunt the corridor of powers with some new pals from UKiP to ride the gravy train with. Expect lots of wind and indigestion on the agenda from those two as they over indulge.
Cronxite did not predict an increased majority. Time to give John Looney the punditry job at Inside Croydon !!!
Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
The 2012 Croydon and Sutton election result was a good one for Labour so Labour has done well to match it in terms of Labour and Tory vote shares in a higher turnout election this time. This was the biggest ever Labour vote in the local Assembly seat.
Efforts were made by Labour to persuade LibDems and Greens to vote tactically for the GLA seat. But this was not easy, particularly as the LibDems control Sutton Council and have their only London MP there.
Tactical voting would have been easier if there had been first and second preference votes for the GLA seat, as there were for Mayor. In this event Marina would probably have won.
Quotes from Steve O’Connell’s pre-election E mail dated 2nd May:
‘I know you will agree with me that Croydon Labour are … showing complete disregard, even hostility to parts of the borough.’
[Remember riot money going to central Croydon, rather than the areas worst affected by rioting!]
‘A Labour Assembly Member will simply support her Council colleagues.’
[Has Steve O’Connell ever done otherwise?]
‘Will she support libraries…?’
[Remember O’Connell’s Tories on the council handing over our libraries to Laings, who immediately passed them on!]
‘Will she oppose their plans to build on Shirley green belt ?’
[Did Steve O’Connell object to his colleagues’ plan to build flats across the middle of the open grassland of Queen’s Gardens – or Boris’s plan to take over part of Duppas Hill Park?]
‘He’ll (Sadiq) be chronically unable to work constructively with the national Conservative Government.’ [Crystal ball or psychic knowledge?]
‘We depend on the Mayor’s ability to negotiate and fight for us?’ [Who exactly is ‘US’ ?]
‘I have been your champion in City Hall ensuring the Mayor treats my boroughs as priorities.’
‘At my urging, he recently pledged £1m to Purley regeneration.’
[Isn’t all this the prejudice he said a Labour Assembly Member would have?]
And lastly, ‘Zac has a fantastic Action Plan for London.’
‘Like Boris he will be a friend of Croydon’. [Words fail me.]