Political editor WALTER CRONXITE on some behind-the-scenes preparations for a General Election (yes, another one)
Esther Sutton: Green candidate in Croydon Central
Speculation continues to mount over whether Prime Minister Theresa Mayhem can get her Brexit plan through Parliament, and at least one of the local political parties has readied itself by selecting candidates for Croydon’s three constituencies in the event of a snap General Election.
Croydon Greens returned from their annual party conference over the weekend with three names for the ballot paper, should the Tories at Westminster implode and the whole Brexit shit-show go more tits up than it has already.
But with gaffe-prone Gavin Barwell seemingly fully occupied in “mastermining” No10’s “strategy” as the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, the Greens’ selections raises the question as to who the Conservatives might put up against Labour’s Sarah Jones in an effort to reclaim the Croydon Central seat they lost in the 2017 election.
Barwell has already given an indication that, if he were to try for a return to Parliament, it won’t be for such a marginal seat as that which he represented from 2010 to 2017.
Barwell has blotted his text book
That may open the way for Barwell’s bag-carrier, the oleaginous Mario Creatura, the Coulsdon councillor who also works in Downing Street (where he is in charge of the PM’s Twitter account; well worth £70,000 of public money, not).
But Croydon Conservatives have not yet given any indication that they might be ready by naming their choice of candidate for a seat which they have won three times out of the last four elections.
The Green Party’s Croydon candidates to contest a third General Election in little more than three years include a couple of well-known faces.
Conservationist and party official Peter Underwood, pictured right, has been picked to contest the Croydon South seat held by Tory Chris Philp. Underwood stood in Croydon South for the Greens in 2015.
Oval Tavern landlady Esther Sutton is to be the Greens’ candidate in Croydon Central, a seat she contested in 2015.
Standing in Croydon North for the Greens will be Rachel Chance, who earlier this year ran for the party in the Town Hall elections in Crystal Palace and Upper Norwood ward.
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