Nothing much to shout about: Chris Philp, returned as MP for Croydon South, surrounded by the entire membership of the Croydon Tories last night
Political editor WALTER CRONXITE reports
The Evening Standard, a doomed city centre news rag that seems to think that London ends on the northern banks of the River Thames, described Chris Philp’s Conservative “hold” in Croydon South at the General Election as “a shock”.
Seriously?: no wonder this newspaper is going out of business
It would only be a shock to anyone who did not account for “the Croydon Effect”, and how the residents of Sanderstead, Purley, Kenley and Coulsdon would never bring themselves to vote for Labour, the party that laid waste to their borough.
Given that lack of informed judgement at the Sub-Standard, you can probably discount the paper’s odd attempt at a follow-up by suggesting that Philp is now a contender to become the next leader of the Conservative Party.
Imagine that. Johnson. Truss. Sunak. Philp…
Indeed, in their eagerness for a “line”, any “line”, the Standard reporter managed to ignore Philp’s own, half-hearted polite rebuttal.
The paper reports today: “Asked whether he will run for the Conservative leadership, he said: ‘I haven’t even thought about that yet, let’s just see how the dust settles. But who knows?’”
Which to any sensible journalist would be a line not worth inflicting on any sensible editor.
Croydon South was the only constituency in our area that was actually in play in yesterday’s General Election, as Labour threw the kitchen sink at trying to get two-time loser Ben Taylor over the line as part of the party’s national landslide.
Taylor had been a pretty hopeless candidate at council level, losing two local elections in short order, including delivering the worst result for Labour in the 60-plus-year history of the current borough of Croydon.
One Croydon South resident described Labour’s Taylor as a “political fantasist”.
“The guy knocked on my door on three separate occasions and made identical nonsensical claims,” they said.
Croydon South has only ever been held by the Conservatives since it was created in 1974. Philp, first elected in 2015, had a 12,339-vote majority in 2019. Under the twin threat of Labour and Reform, he got back last night by 2,313 votes. So much for the BBC’s ecit poll, that said he had only a 1% chance of winning.
“All of the MRP polls, and the exit poll, said that we would lose Croydon South,” Philp said. “We have bucked the trend – the result here was a lot better than many other places around the country.”
No shock to us: how Inside Croydon reported on the Croydon South election 10 days before polling day
John Crace, the Grauniad’s parliamentary sketch-writer, and Victoria Derbyshire, the presenter of BBC Newsnight, may both be breathing their own sighs of relief at Philp’s parliamentary survival, for their own selfish reasons and the prospect of comedy gold in the coming months.
After refusing to answer Inside Croydon’s Election Questions, this morning Philp, now an opposition MP, told this website: “I’d like to thank all the people who voted for me in Croydon South and supported the campaign. We won despite all the predictions that we would lose, and succeeded very much against the odds.
“It was an intense campaign – walking hundreds of miles, delivering tens of thousands of leaflets and knocking on thousands of doors. I will not forget the rapid clean-up operation required of our Purley office and garden ahead of the (then) Prime Minister’s visit on Wednesday either.
Same old song: Philp making his acceptance speech last night, watched by loser Ben Taylor
“I will continue to work hard to get things done for the local neighbourhood, working with Mayor Jason Perry and others.
“I will continue to press for delivery of a new pool for Purley and a new medical centre and banking hub for Coulsdon, more police for the town and district centres and the use of live facial recognition to catch wanted criminals, as well as pressing for the rapid commencement of the Westfield project and fighting to protect the character of the area from over-development – amongst many other things.
“I will also continue to seek to help residents with any problems they have which I can assist with.”
Read more: Voters being taken for granted as ‘battleground’ moves south
Read more: Younger people have had their futures sold down the river
Read more: Desperate times, desperate measures: PM Sunak visits Purley
Read more: Coulsdon flats deal was rushed through as massive tax dodge
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
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