Fuelled by a double espresso and a Count Binface discounted croissant, political editor WALTER CRONXITE reports from ExCel on the outcome of a couple of Croydon sideshows
As news seeped out from ExCel last night of the two Croydon sideshows to the London elections, one experienced observer of south London politics observed: “If Labour can’t win in Park Hill when they have a 20-point lead in the national polls, there’s no way Ben Taylor will win Croydon South for them in a General Election.”
“Congo” Chris Philp, it would seem, may have a few more years yet as an MP and go-to media punch-bag. Grauniad political sketchwriter John Crace, at least, will be delighted.
That, though, did not stop at least one Croydon Labour figure grumbling to blame one of his party’s former councillors, Andrew Pelling, for their failure to win the seat.
Grin and wear it: in bright red, Labour’s Jess Hammersley-Rich, flanked by her new Woodside councillor colleagues, enjoys her moment of victory
Labour seem always to need a scapegoat for their own shortcomings, and in Croydon, they appear to think that the ex-MP is behind all their troubles. He was certainly responsible for exposing several of them…
Croydon held two council by-elections on Thursday, in Labour-held Woodside ward and Tory-held Park Hill and Whitgift, and to no one’s surprise at all – though maybe to wannabe MP Ben Taylor’s disappointment – the status quo at the Town Hall was unchanged, with Jess Hammersley-Rich and Andrew Price eventually declared the winners of both contests.
The south London by-election count was staged in east London because all council election resources have been directed towards the 2.5million votes cast for city’s Mayor and London Assembly members.
All of the London votes in Croydon and Sutton had to be verified before Katherine Kerswell and her council staffers could start on the by-elections. It was inevitable that slowing-going Croydon would be one of the last two areas to complete its verification.
It was more than 20 hours after the polls closed on Thursday before Kerswell, as Croydon’s Returning Officer, was able to declare a result on a one-seat council ward by-election where there had been just 2,236 votes cast.
Croydon Council
Park Hill and Whitgift by-election resultAndrew Price (Con) 960
Melanie Felten (Lab) 701
Andrew Pelling (LibDem) 295
James Cork (Green) 229
Mark Samuel (Ind) 32
Ben Goldstone (TUSC) 19Turnout 2,236 (51.8%)
The by-elections had been called because the respective sitting councillors, Labour’s Mike Bonello in Woodside and Conservative Jad Appleton for PH&W, had resigned. Holding by-elections and counting up the votes of those who could be bothered to take part was almost an administrative requirement, rather than anything likely to provide any electoral upset.
In Woodside, a Labour-stronghold close to Norwood Junction, voter apathy was apparent in the poor turnout.
There was little enthusiasm, either, from many Labour members and supporters, after Hammersley-Rich was imposed as the candidate by London region officials, part of the fall-out from the scandal surrounding the Croydon East selection vote-rigging scandal (which remains as an active police investigation).
Hours of work: the official Woodside declaration form
That the Tories made only a half-hearted campaign in “enemy territory” was demonstrated by Hammersley-Rich still polling more than twice as many votes as Titilope Adeoye, with 48% of the votes cast.
In edgy and hipster Woodside, having an actor who played a role in the Hellraiser movies seems to have worked reasonably well for the Greens, where Nick Burman-Vince was third, though only with 13% of the votes.
The LibDems fielding a Muslim activist failed to harness any backlash against Labour’s failure to condemn Israeli genocide in Gaza, as Jahir Hussain was pushed down to fourth place.
Croydon Council
Woodside by-election countJessica Rich (Lab) 2,305
Titilope Adeoye (Con) 1,014
Nicholas Burman-Vince (Green) 641
Jahir Hussain (LibDem) 487
Shane Sobers (Taking The Piss Party) 150
Michelle Wall (TUSC) 82Turnout 4,745 (38%)
In Park Hill, the “Pelling Effect”, if such a thing actually exists, simply saw the LibDems and Greens switch places, Pelling now wearing an orange rosette as he ambles around the borough, in place of the blue, yellow and green (from his days as an independent) and red colours he has worn in previous elections.
Price is right: Andrew Price, the new Conservative councillor for Park Hill and Whitgift after last night’s count
That Pelling “push” was probably as much because Green James Cork was absent for the early part of the campaign, but it was enough to cause angst among some of his former Labour colleagues, and some edginess among Tories who fear that a strong LibDem vote in the General Election might see them suffer the embarrassment of a lost deposit in Croydon East, where Pelling is the Liberal Democrats’ nominated candidate.
In the end, the overt conservatism in one of the better-off enclaves of the borough saw barrister Andrew Price return as a councillor after an absence of 14 years from Croydon Town Hall, having won 42% of the vote – down more than 10% compared to the ward results in the 2022 local elections.
Labour’s Melanie Felton, the interim secretary of the under-investigation Croydon East CLP, had 31% of the vote – up 8% at a time when her party is 20% ahead of the Tories in national opinion polls.
Both wards have had a churn of councillors since 2021 – in Woodside’s case, Bonello had been a replacement just three years ago for the discredited council leader Tony Newman – yet the make-up of the Town Hall Chamber will remain unaltered from May 2022: Labour 34 councillors, Conservatives 33, Greens 2 and LibDems 1… plus piss-poor Perry as the cash-strapped council’s impotent Mayor.
Plus ça change…
Read more: Labour admits serious breach of private data in Croydon East
Read more: Labour cancels Croydon selection after voting fraud claims
Read more: #TheLabourFiles: MP Reed, Evans and the Croydon connection
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ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: In January 2024, Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for a SEVENTH successive year in the annual round-up of civic cock-ups in Private Eye magazine
Thanks for this Walt, impressed with your commitment. We must congratulate Mayor for the third time Khan, who I think became a sort of continuity candidate against all the background sh**. But Croydon and Sutton rejected him – giving Hall 42% against his 32%. I wonder if your research team could drill down and see how Croydon voted in ther mayoral election?
We have our reports and analysis to come.
But *less* data is available in 2024 than at any previous Mayoral election, simply because of the anti-democratic changes imposed by this Tory Government and the possibility that existed of there being a General Election on May 2 (London Elects had to go to manual counting, for the first time, just in case…).