Irons under fire: Labour’s officially approved candidate for Croydon East (the police are still investigating the selection process) had lots of support at last night’s meeting
KEN TOWL went to the hustings, so that you didn’t have to
I was in search of truth last night, and I found more than I bargained for at the Woodside Baptist Church.
These hustings were being run in collaboration with St Luke’s, the church over the road, and with the Hyderi Islamic Centre, all members of Citizens UK, a politically unaffiliated community activist group. I spoke to church secretary, Neil Scarse, who confided to me that he was undecided between two of the candidates and hoped to decide tonight after hearing them.
He told me that the Labour, Conservative, Green and Liberal Democrat candidates had all accepted Citizens UK’s invitation while the Reform UK candidate hadn’t. Neil did not seem terribly disappointed that Scott Holman, the candidate for Nigel Farage’s dog-whistle racist vanity project private-limited-company-masquerading-as-a-political party was not going to grace his church.
After the smoke and mirrors of Monday’s bizarre non-hustings in Croydon West, a badly disguised campaign rally for Taking the Initiative Party’s Donna Murray-Turner, this was all very civilised. Until it wasn’t.
Galling: LibDem (for now) Andrew Pelling
The candidates, Labour’s Natasha Irons, the Conservative Jason Cummings, Green Peter Underwood and LibDem Andrew Pelling, had been instructed not to criticise each other. This was a well-meant rule, but it ignores the painful fact that, unfortunately, many of our elected representatives are guilty of sub-optimal behaviour and need, sometimes, to be called out on it.
For Pelling, ex-Conservative MP and ex-Labour councillor, the rule was especially galling, given that his whole schtick is that the Conservatives have failed nationally and Labour has failed locally. I wondered how long he would be able to contain himself.
The candidates were asked to introduce themselves, a chance to give a personal side, something beyond their party manifestos, by explaining how they got into politics in the first place.
Cummings posited himself as a man-of-the-people, who had entered the murky world of politics after working for a “faceless corporation that’s just trying to make money”, which is an interesting description of his years managing a Co-Op. Oh, and he was local. Very local, having lived, got married and worked in the constituency. It seemed it was OK to make an oblique criticism of other candidates.
Cummings’ latest leaflet is more explicit: “Labour’s candidate has never lived in Croydon…and sees standing here as a career move”. This was very gentle, almost subliminal, compared to what was to come.
Irons alluded to her past when, as a child of a working-class household with mould on the walls and limited heating, she had grown up unable to believe that “politics was for people like us”, how she was grateful to Labour for providing decent social housing with central heating and how she had been inspired by hearing a speech by Labour MP Oona King.
She came, she said rather pointedly, from “just down the road in Mitcham”. And here she was, on this side of the borough boundary, on stage alongside three middle-aged, middle-class white men, the sort of people that politics has been for, forever.
It was “Super Thursday” said super smooth Pelling, alluding to the fact that two other hustings were taking place across the borough that same evening. Why did he get into politics? Because at school he wasn’t very good at art or dance and so he chose to do something easy.
On reflection, he said, politics wasn’t easy – this was his 17th election here in Croydon – and he wasn’t very good at it. It wasn’t all self-effacing good humour, though He had got the Coulsdon bypass built, got the BRIT School opened and doubled the size of Croydon Council’s pension fund. Again, perhaps the most oblique criticism of the financial acumen, or lack of it, of the recent Labour administration.
He got less oblique. Again, he gave with one hand as he flattered his opponents: Peter Underwood should be on the council, and would be if there was a fairer, more proportional voting system; Jason Cummings was a decent One Nation Tory; Natasha’s Merton wasn’t far away at all. Then he took away with the other: he was glad Natasha was not a “Croydon Labour person”. He had been expelled from Labour for being a whistle-blower. This was a party that “associated itself with the hacking of the press and was not to be trusted in government”. There were a few gasps, and muted applause.
Man of the people: Jason Cummings appeared to change Conservative Party policy on Gaza
Peter Underwood had to follow that. His route into politics came out of a realisation that life was “not fair”, that some people got a leg up while others got kicked down. He mentioned Brexit, but it didn’t seem to land. Perhaps we were all still reeling from his predecessor’s breach of etiquette.
There were questions on youth provision, mental health and housing. There was a remarkable degree of consensus; they were all, unsurprisingly, in favour of youth provision, mental health and housing, even on no-fault evictions. Yes, even Conservative candidate Jason Cummings was in agreement that no-fault evictions should end, even if his party wasn’t.
And then came the Gaza question and, rather than consensus, this elicited a competition to out-empathise the others. Cummings said that he had changed his mind on this. His exact words were: “It’s just civilians being killed. I’d support a ceasefire. What is happening cannot be justified in any way, shape or form.”
Irons called for an immediate ceasefire and raised an assertion that Palestine should be recognised as a state in a two-state solution.
Pelling saw her statehood and and raised it with a ban on weapons sales.
Underwood, with little space left to manoeuvre, said he was proud that his party had been calling for a ceasefire since October and that he believed in a two-state or even a one-state solution, and it was up to the Palestinian people to decide
There was a touch of humour. The candidates were asked what they had done in their youth that might have prepared them for public service. Irons spoke first. She had been a St John’s Ambulance cadet. She could put you in the recovery position.
It was a nice metaphor and a good spontaneous answer that raised an appreciative purr from the audience. Underwood’s more risqué claim that he probably shouldn’t talk about what he got up to in his youth now that he was in a church was rewarded with a laugh. He had been brought up a Jehovah’s Witness and had spent much of his childhood being taken round by his parents knocking on doors. He was still knocking on doors.
Pelling wryly noted that he had mis-spent his youth “getting Conservative councillors elected in this town”, while Cummings rattled off some virtuous-sounding stuff about respecting the value of work and how he had applied this knowledge to his administration of the council’s finances, always mindful that Council Tax came from someone’s work.
He did not allude to his involvement in taking an extra 21% of people’s hard-earned money through Council Tax since 2023. It was characteristic of a low-key performance all-round from Cummings, currently a Croydon councillor and cabinet member for finance, and he was just about to explain why.
The candidates’ carefully rehearsed closing statements were their chance to say whatever they liked, since it would be too late to stop them anyway. Underwood said the point was that all votes counted. Even if your candidate wouldn’t win, the number of votes they got could have an influence.
Summing up: the Green Party’s Peter Underwood told the hustings audience that all votes counted, even if your choice, or your party, didn’t get enough to win at the election
Pelling took this a stage further. “You can vote with your heart here because opinion polls show that Natasha will get elected. I very much hope she changes Labour in Croydon.”
He alluded again to the hacking of Inside Croydon and how Labour councillors spent more time passing motions criticising the press than they did discussing the borough’s finances.
Irons’ closing speech was dominated by her immediate rebuttal: “Never doubt that a Liberal Democrat will say a load of nothing.”
This wasn’t quite as witty as her previous burst of spontaneity and Pelling was heard to complain, “That’s very condescending.”
“Yeah,” said Irons.
From the back of the stage came the voice of the Hyderi Islamic Centre’s Dr Sarfraz Jeraj: “No condescending remarks, please.”
The last word went to Cummings, and it put the whole evening into perspective.
He did not even ask for our votes. He was resigned to defeat. “Vote for the party and people you want running the country,” he said, “It is unlikely that the party I represent is going to be forming that government. I’d like to be your MP but I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
I found this quite moving. Here we had a politician speaking with absolute candour.
This much raw honesty in a milieu normally characterised by façade and artifice and carefully honed soundbites was powerful and memorable. I don’t think I’ve ever empathised with a Conservative before. There again, maybe Cummings should have bailed out years ago, before they started really fucking up the country.
So there we have it. Whatever Neil decides, and I hope the hustings have helped him decide, three of the candidates have already conceded defeat. We know who the MP for Croydon East is going to be. That decision was made by a little more than a hundred Labour Party members on March 23 at an internal Labour Party hustings at Coloma Convent School.
This is probably not a narrative that Labour welcomes, risking as it does the possibility of complacency on the part of Labour voters or confidence on the part of Green or LibDem-leaning anti-Conservative voters, but it may also inspire people to vote Labour in order to inflict as much damage on a Conservative Party that, at least here in Croydon, appears to have given up the ghost.
UPDATE: This article was amended on June 22 at the request of one of the candidates who now claims that he doesn’t think he will lose the election, although everyone knows that he will
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