Jason Perry would resign from his £84,000 per year job as Croydon’s executive Mayor if he had any dignity.
Fisher, the Labour Party’s former policy director, was reacting to iC’s report last week about the gratuitous freeloading and gift-taking that Tory Mayor Perry has indulged in since taking on the role in May 2022.
Among the freebies greedily accepted by Mayor Perry were three separate sets of tickets to football matches at Crystal Palace’s Selhurst Park ground, some including VIP hospitality, as well as dinner for four at Birch Selsdon, possibly the priciest restaurant in Croydon, and a slap-up meal with one of Britain’s most notorious property lobbyists.
Drawing attention to the wide-ranging gift-taking of national politicians, including Labour leader Keir Starmer, Fisher said, “He’s the elected Mayor, elected as the first executive Mayor, but we all know he’s no longer executive, he hasn’t got any powers, the commissioners are running the council basically, there’s nothing left for him to administrate apart from cuts and he has to do that with the permission of the commissioners anyway.
“So really, he’s taking an £85,000 salary, for a job he’s no longer doing, and he’s taking freebies on top of that.
“It’s a bit much, isn’t it?
“So leave aside the politics of all this for a second, but just on a human level: the council’s bankrupt, you’re paid £85,000 to do a job that doesn’t really exist any more… If you had any dignity you’d resign and just go, ‘You know what, save the money’.”
You can listen to the entire recording below, including the reactions and condemnations from the podcast’s other guests of the Mayor’s gift-taking.
On this lively edition, they include Dr Ross White, the chief executive of the Garwood Foundation charity, Donna Fraser, the former Olympic sprint finallist and holder of the Freedom of the Croydon, broadcast journalist Cheryl Fergus-Ferrell and, from the South Norwood Community Kitchen, Emma Gardiner
Dr White talks about how his charity is trying to recover from the shock of having one of its specially adapted mini-buses stolen and trashed, with an appeal seeking to raise £20,000 to fund its replacement.
White together with Gardiner talk about the impact of the council’s penny-wise, pound-foolish cuts on the borough’s voluntary sector – and the panel discusses ideas around community action that can be mobilised to provide the support that so many of our neighbours might need.
Listen to the full Croydon Insider podcast September episode, recorded with a blinking great giraffe in the room, here:
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