The room with no view: two hours of build-up was presented by an anonymous silhouette – a councillor deselected by party members – on a back-lit stage which rendered much of the Rowenna Davis campaign launch impossible to watch. But what was clear was the lack of Labour signage
So just what did Labour’s Rowenna Davis say she has to offer if she is elected Mayor of Croydon next May? KEN TOWL was at her campaign’s official launch, so that you, and Steve Reed OBE, didn’t need to be
Warm-up act: MP Sarah Jones
“Wow, look at us!” Rowenna Davis began. It was about us, all of us. Not about her.
After nearly two hours of build up, including Bollywood dancers, local MPs, rappers, a message from Wes Streeting, inaudible video clips of council candidates mouthing their own take on what “People First” means, it was finally the turn of Labour’s 2026 Croydon mayoral candidate Rowenna Davis – a chance to tell us, at the official launch of her campaign, what sort of mayor she would be.
Davis asked those in the room who had worked in education (like, of course, she had) to put their hands up. My education union colleagues and I joined in enthusiastically. Teachers know all about putting your hand up if you want to speak, after all.
Then it was the turn of the public servants. MP Sarah Jones’s hand shot up at this point. And then the small business people. Rowenna thanked them all. She thanked everyone, even Benji, who by now seemed to have almost sorted out the sound.
The lighting was still a mess. Davis was speaking to a darkened room with bright light behind her, a light that had turned all of the previous speakers into anonymous silhouettes. Fortunately for her, the vibrancy of her magenta designer suit ensured that she was just about visible.
She thanked the venue, Tokia Square. This allowed her to create a story of regeneration for Croydon, explaining that we were on the first floor of Grants department store, which used to attract Parisian customers who would fly into Croydon airport to buy the latest fashions right where we were sitting. Grants had closed but, recently, Tokia Square had invested in the empty space. It was a symbol, she said, of a Croydon to come, a “shining capital of south London”.
As I sat there, pen poised, it was as if she were speaking directly to me: “If you take one thing from this speech, take this: Croydon, our time is coming!” So, there you have it – it is incumbent on all of us, teachers, public servants, small businesses, everyone, to pitch in and make Croydon better.
Ask not what Croydon can do for you, but ask what you can do for Croydon! Or something like that.
Ask not what Croydon can do for you… : the Tokia Square Asian fusion restaurant is a symbol of regeneration in the town centre. Apparently
And what role was there for the incumbent himself, Jason Perry, in all this rejuvenation of the shining borough? None at all. Perry was roundly dismissed as the man who had bought 4,000 laptops and closed four libraries, who failed to keep the streets clean and failed to reduce crime and anti-social behaviour.
As for crime, Davis said, too many Croydon police officers were being deployed into central London. She would keep them in the borough. It sounded like a concrete policy decision to me, but wouldn’t she have to talk to Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, the person who is actually in charge of policing in the capital, including Croydon?
There was realism in Davis’ take on the finances, and this contrasted with her rival Pery’s unfulfilled promise at husting after husting that he would “fix the finances”. Davis alluded to just this phrase and dismissed it in a sentence.
“Fixing the finances,” she said, “demands national government support.”
The truth is that all local government is underfunded. Council Tax receipts cover less than one-third of local government revenue; more than half comes from central government.
Pink Labour: there was nothing new in Rowenna Davis’s campaign launch speech
And financed by Westmnister as the outer London borough that we are while having the demands of an inner city borough, Croydon is underfunded disproportionately. So really, the question we have to ask is – who out of Perry and Davis is more likely to wring a better deal from central government?
There was nothing new in the speech.
As far as policy goes, all of this and more is on Davis’s campaign website, where she promises not to hire any more “expensive consultants”. This must be a good thing. Consultants always seem to make the same recommendation – that you sack other people. After all, a consultant that tells clients to sack themselves isn’t going to get much business.
Rowenna Davis appeared to be sincere in her aspiration to make Croydon “the shining capital of south London”, and she exudes much compassion.
But to achieve her aim, she will need to attract a lot of investment from businesses and go with a begging bowl to Steve Reed, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government. It is a pity that Reed, the MP for Streatham (and Croydon North if he can be asked) didn’t turn up to her launch party.
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If you take one thing from this speech, take this: Croydon, our time is coming!” – to an end
I agree with you our time is coming to an end in croydon if labour win in croydon for the croydon mayoralty and local elections in may 2026 as you know croydon council has a £1.4 billion pounds deficit commissioners from the government have been sent to run the council because of previous failures of managing the council finances we all know who the previous failures were it was croydon labour party when they had bankrupted the council and had to have a bailout from the previous conservative government i hope people remember this come election time in all the national opinion polls the reform party is ahead of labour and the conservative party people have had enough a big shift on how people want to vote i hope if the people of croydon could give the reform party a chance in the may 2026 mayoral and local elections in croydon and remove the two party system that has so much failed us in croydon both labour and conservative
Labour are just the Conservatives with red rosettes
Reform are just the Conservatives with jackboots
The Conservatives are just Reform without Farage
Croydon the shining capital of South London? All she needed to do was look out the window to see the dereliction of Property across the street, the empty hulk of the abandoned Nestle building in the distance and the unused business units on the ground floor of the Grants building.
Whatever happened to that resturant that was going to take over the old Milan Bar?
That failure seems a long time ago now.
Her speech demonstrates she is not a break with the disastrous Newman Regime but a continuation of it with the same delusions guiding policy and no grounding in the reality of the terrible state Croydon is in.
I even hear now that the Stonegate Pub Group are now selling the long established Green Dragon down the street and are shutting the Market Tavern on Surrey Street. Croydon is dying and her Labour Party were instrumental in it and she is all too far lightweight to turn this blight around.