Cursed: Coulsdon councillor Mario Creatura has been busy supporting all of the Tory leadership candidates
These are troubled, perplexing and confusing times for Croydon’s Conservatives.
After all: what a choice!
Who to pick?
For Coulsdon councillor Mario Creatura, the gobby factotum to Gavin Barwell, later No10’s head of tweets, and now a wannabe MP who no one wants, it must be tough to make a choice in the Tory leadership contest.
After a slightly odd – some used the word “deranged” – Conservative Party conference in Birmingham, where Rishi Sunak took a final bow as party leader and Liz Truss appeared to be making a case for her return, the process to select a successor as leader has now reached the final trio.
Tom Tugendhat was the latest to be eliminated yesterday. So much for his campaign having the support of Croydon’s Creatura. Actually, that’s probably what did for Tugendhat.
Ringer’s endorsement: Creatura has backed almost all of them. So Cleverly was due a Creatura endorsement once he emerged as the likely winner…
James Cleverly now has the backing of most Conservative MPs after what’s regarded as a “barnstorming” conference performance. All these things are relative, of course; a call from Cleverly at conference for the party to be more “normal” perhaps encapsulates how abnormal the post-Brexit, post-Boris Tory Party has become.
Cleverly, a colonel in the Army reserves, is now in there pitching ahead of Bad Boy Bobby Jenrick and Keni BadEnoch. Such a choice.
Creatura, as you might expect of him, has declared his undying loyalty to pretty much all of them at some point.
Last night, it was Cleverly who got the Creatura seal of approval. Or is that “kiss of death”? “We need a leader with a clear vision for our country,” Creatura-the-change-coat now tweeted. Creatura even ascribes to Cleverly “a magical ability”, which seems a bit of a stretch.
The three contenders will become two later today, based again on the votes of Tory MPs, with the final pair being put to the Conservative Party members for the decisive ballot between October 10 and 31. This vote is to be conducted online – has anyone asked Croydon councillor Maddie Henson if they can have a borrow of her company’s Anonyvoter system?
The MPs’ polling results yesterday set up a 24-hour scramble for Jenrick and BadEnoch to try to ensure they have enough support to get to the final two. Last night, there was just one vote separating the two far right-wingers.
It revived rows around dirty tricks being deployed by the different camps, with allies of the candidates having previously accused one another of seeking to stitch up the race. After yesterday’s result, an ally of Jenrick claimed his backers had supported Cleverly in a bid to keep BadEnoch off the final ballot.
Fickle: there was a time when even Kemi BadEnoch was getting the Creatura fawning treatment
“One or two of our supporters got a bit energetic in the stop Kemi campaign,” they said.
Tugendhat, a former security minister and favourite of the “One Nation” caucus of Tory MPs, was knocked out after being backed by just 20 votes. All that energetic support from Creatura and his Coulsdon cronies all counted for nothing…
Creatura, who no Conservative members picked to stand as their parliamentary candidate in July’s General Election, had written a piece for Conservative Home about why Tugendhat was the right choice for party leader.
“We need someone who can unite our wonderful party,” Creatura chirped.
“Of the many talented candidates before us, I believe that person is Tom Tugendhat.”
Cursed by Creatura. The poor bloke had no chance.
But Creatura is nothing if not fickle. He certainly puts his political support around a bit – backing anyone who he thinks might give his own flagging political career a bit of a boost.
Pork markets: Creatura is nothing if not superficial
“Lovely meeting Liz Truss last night,” Creatura wrote in August 2022, apparently without any inkling, or care, that this bat-shit crazy woman was about to cause one of the biggest financial meltdowns in British history. House-owners in Croydon saw their monthly mortgage payments nearly double as a result of the Truss and KamiKwasi Kwarteng mini-budget. All delivered with the eager assistance of Croydon South MP Chris Philp.
According to Creatura, though, “Pork Markets” Truss was an exemplar of financial prudence and commonsense.
“Liz knew Labour bankrupted Croydon,” Creatura gushed. “She’ll help [Jason Perry] fix our borough if she becomes PM!”
Well, that never happened, and despite being given approaching £100million in central government bail-outs and hiking your Council Tax by 21%, Perry looks well on his way to issuing a second Section 114 notice of his own. Wowzers!, as some in the YCs are still wont to say…
And while Philp is known as “a nose in search of a bum”, Creatura, too, is never averse to fawning over any passing political figure who might help his own interests.
Remember when he got the support of the members of “the Church of Bling”, a religious cult, to go out and canvass in central Croydon to get him elected as MP? SPAC Nation has since been stripped of its charity status and has been subject to a series of investigations over abuse and fraud. So ideal partners for the Conservative Party, some might suggest…
Back in those heady days of 2019, when Creatura still seemed to think he might get elected as MP for Croydon Central, “It was great to welcome [Kemi BadEnoch] to Croydon,” he tweeted. “She certainly got all the Croydon Tories in the room raring to go for the campaign ahead.”
Sniping sagely from the sidelines: Lord Barwell’s offering last night
And did we say fickle? Or does Creatura simply take the voters for being thick?
Back in July 2022, at the time of the previous Tory election contest, Creatura tweeted this little message after a visit from Sunak. “Rishi is fully aware Labour bankrupted the council – and will work with [Jason Perry] to fix them if he’s our next PM!”
Almost exactly the same messaging Creatura provided when leadership rival Truss was in town. And no, when Sunak was Prime Minister, he did nothing to help Perry, or anyone, to fix cash-strapped Croydon Council’s finances, crippled after a decade of Tory-imposed austerity which is not anything Creatura would ever be honest enough to admit to).
Just about the only “candidate” for leadership of the Conservative Party that Creatura has not yet endorsed is Nigel Farage. It can only be a matter of time.
But as Creatura’s former boss, Lord Barwell, sagely sniped from the sidelines yesterday when someone suggested that there could be a mass exodus to Farage’s Reform UK Party, including the execrable Torygraph columnist Allison Pearson, if Cleverly wins: “If she is saying she will leave if James Cleverly wins, that’s a pretty compelling argument for voting for James…”.
Read more: Creatura left out of sorts after Epsom Tories pick Fraser
Read more: Tory candidate’s church is under police investigation for fraud
Read more: Serious Fraud Office investigating SPAC links to 50 companies
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