Silent Steve O’Connell, the London Assembly Member for Croydon and Sutton, is cutting an increasingly ludicrous figure around City Hall as he winds down towards his retirement to dozy Dorset.
Clueless: Silent Steve O’Connell doesn’t know much about a great deal
O’Connell, who is also a Tory councillor for Kenley ward, is lampooned in the latest edition of Private Eye magazine for his numbskullish question, submitted to Mayor Sadiq Khan, about crime rates on the Tube in… Croydon.
It’s good to see that Britain’s premier satirical magazine is keeping a close eye (no pun intended) on the pages of Croydon’s premier news website, as we reported O’Connell’s lack of a grasp of the available modes of public transport in the borough last week. O’Connell has only been a councillor in the borough for 17 years, so might have been expected to know by now that there is no Tube service to Croydon.
But O’Connell’s displays of dimwittery are not confined to his own borough and transport issues. The convinced Brexiteer doesn’t know much about national politics either.
In a rare break from tweeting gifs of wolves howling and news about the artificial insemination of white rhinos – all pressing matters for the people he is supposed to represent in south London – on Monday O’Connell decided to comment on the news that Ken Clarke had said he is prepared to bring down his own government to block “no deal”.
Croydon and Sutton’s AM’s multi-faceted levels of ignorance even extends to national politics and his own Tory Party’s leading figures
And once again, O’Connell placed on full public display his startling levels of ignorance.
O’Connell is a former south London mortgage salesman whose greatest fame is for greedily trousering more than £110,000 per year as a completely useless public servant.
“Silly man,” he said of Clarke, a Cambridge law graduate, QC and Companion of Honour, a Member of Parliament for nearly 50 years who has served as a government minister under four Conservative Prime Ministers, including holding the office of Home Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Clarke has never made a secret of his support for remaining in the EU, a point of view which for Boris Johnson apologists such as O’Connell is unforgiveable.
Bothered? Ken Clarke, more than a match for mortgage salesman O’Connell
“Deselection looms surely,” O’Connell offered up menacingly on Twitter, as if some sort of threat against Clarke.
Except that “deselection” of Clarke is no threat at all, as anyone with a passing interest in public affairs would know.
Clarke, who is known as “the Father of the House” as the longest serving MP at Westminster, has made it very clear that he intends to stand down at the next election.
Taxi for O’Connell!
Inside Croydon is a member of the Independent Community News Network- Inside Croydon works together with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and BBC London News
- Inside Croydon named Journalist of the Year at 2018 Anna Kennedy Online Autism Heroes Awards
- ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: For two consecutive years, 2017 and 2018, Inside Croydon has been the source for two award-winning nominations in Private Eye magazine’s annual celebration of civic cock-ups
- In 2018, Inside Croydon had 1.6million pages viewed by more than half a million unique visitors
- If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, or what to publicise your residents’ association or business, or if you have a local event to promote, please email us with full details at inside.croydon@btinternet.com
Hasn’t Dozy O’Connell retired to Dorset already ? Can anyone tell the difference?
You never know, Clarke could do a Bercow!