If you have a question to put to an election candidate, or to a political party which is seeking your vote in Croydon, here’s a way you can try to get some answers
Hustings used to be the way for the election candidates to be assessed and judged by the voting public: a grand Town Hall event, packed out with an electorate, many of them eager to put their own questions to the individuals who fancied that they could represent the constituency at Westminster for the next five years.
These days, in the television, digital age, not so much. The TV debates with fickle, or thick, party leaders suck much of the appetite for such events from any who are not fully paid-up “political animals”.
As a consequence, there’s less of a chance for public scrutiny on a borough-wide or constituency level. Which is probably just how some of the candidates prefer it, as they, and their political parties, take your vote for granted.
The sudden announcement of the General Election on July 4 may have also caught out some of the local groups who might in the past have looked to stage a hustings. All the organisation required, the confirmation that candidates would attend, booking the hall, handling the publicity, all takes time and money, and too many of Croydon’s voluntary sector organisations are already fully stretched. A hustings for all the same, tired old clichés and empty promises? Nahh, we’ll leave it, thanks…
Hustings huff and puff: the 2022 Croydon Mayoral election produced a couple of larger scale set-pieces. But 2024 seems to be lacking something similar across the borough
Thus Croydon’s election hustings in 2024 appear a bit on the thin side.
These are the details of the events that we have seen so far – a four-way clash on Thursday June 20 (hardly the ideal manner in which to celebrate mid-summer):
- June 20: Citizens UK: Croydon East hustings Woodside Baptist Church, SE25 4SP 7.30pm
- June 20: Croydon TUC: Borough-wide hustings at Ruskin House 7.30pm
- June 20: East Coulsdon Residents’ Association: Croydon South hustings at Coulsdon Community Centre, Barrie Close CR5 3BX 7.30pm
- June 20: Croydon BME Forum: Croydon West hustings at Stanley Halls, South Norwood 6pm
Streatham and Croydon North also has two hustings arranged:
- June 26: Streatham Action: Streatham Baptist Church, Lewin Road, SW16 7.30pm
- June 28: Streatham Seniors Connections Hustings: Lewin Road Baptist Church 3pm
If you are organising, or know of, another hustings event, then drop us a line, or better, an event poster (jpg) to inside.croydon@btinternet.com, and we’ll add it to the list.
Here at Inside Croydon, in case you had not noticed, we try to do things a bit differently.
So, for this 2024 General Election campaign, we want to hear your questions as we stage the iC Digital Hustings.
We want you to submit your question (no more than 30 words; it’s a question, not a lecture) and specify whether your question is for candidates in a particular constituency (Croydon East, Croydon West, Croydon South and Streatham and Croydon North), for a particular political party (that we might put the question to their candidates in whatever constituency), or for a particular candidate.
No anonymous submissions. Email us your question (or questions; you’re allowed more than one), specify whether it is a constituency, candidate or party question, and include a daytime phone number (just in case we need to get back to you). And put “Digital Hustings” in the subject field.
We’ll select the best, most-challenging, most-interesting questions, and try our best to get you some answers.
Email to: inside.croydon@btinternet.com
- If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, or want 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
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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
Is Hyacinth Bucket’s little gang doing anything?
Who?
Am I the only one that thinks its weird to have hustings for Croydon South, Croydon East, Croydon West and borough wide all on the same day at roughly the same time? At least Streatham and Croydon North are on a different day, or rather 2 different days.