Spectacularly useless: how Private Eye has given prominence to the scandals in Croydon

The national media really is waking up to the scandal in Croydon, with the latest issue of Private Eye having not its usual one, regular report about the basketcase borough, but two.

And that includes a prominent place on the magazine editor’s news front page, with mentions for former council leader Tony Newman and ex-council CEO Jo “Negreedy” Negrini.

The reports in the satirical magazine, which has a circulation of 250,000, follow lengthy features in the Daily Mail and The Times (twice) last week, as well as discussion on BBC Question Time the previous week, when the Eye’s editor, Ian Hislop, described Croydon as “spectacularly useless”.

Much of this national coverage has given mentions to the long-term reporting of the council’s troubles by Inside Croydon.

In glorious technicolor: the £540m debt write-off leads the page

The Eye’s Rotten Boroughs column has a proud record of documenting the shenanigans going on in Croydon’s municipal offices since even before this website was launched in 2010. Their hard work is recognised with a splash of colour on the page in this edition, with a break-out box which proclaims: “As seen on BBC’s Question Time!”

The other article on page 7, under a headline “Council of despair”, deals with the unnecessary two-year delay over the release of the Penn Report (see iCs passim, as the Eye might say) and Croydon Council CEO Katherine Kerswell’s failure even now to implement any of the report’s recommendations, such as the “findings be referred to Inspector Knacker ‘for assessment of any further action in regard to the handling of public money and conduct in public office’.”

The item includes an interesting footnote: an Eye reader had flagged up the oxymoronic Local Government Intelligence Unit and its 2020 awards, which included a category for “excellence in finance and economic development”. The shortlist included councillors from Thurrock (also now bust) as well as Croydon.

Truth hurts: what has the Broad Green councillor got to hide?

The Eye fails to say which paragon of local government it was in Croydon who was deemed worthy of such an honour. But Inside Croydon can reveal that it was none other than loyal Newman numpty Manju Shahal-Hameed, the rigorous self-promoter and Labour councillor for Broad Green.

We wonder whether the owners of the dozens of Croydon businesses that were forced to fold when the council department that Councillor Shahal-Hameed oversaw failed to distribute their emergency covid grants will share the high opinion of her work that was held by the Local Government Intelligence Unit?

Read more: Penn Report wanted police probe into possible misconduct
Read more: Kerswell still holds out over Penn Report’s recommendations
Read more: Newman breaks his silence to tell Mail: I did no wrong
Read more: Newman fails to gag website over councillor’s resignation

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• ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for a SIXTH successive year in 2022 in the annual round-up of civic cock-ups in Private Eye magazine