DOH! Newbie Labour MP’s staff send an email to Croydon’s Tory Mayor’s office to complain about the Labour Mayor of London’s policy on road charging
Own goal: Croydon East Labour MP Natasha Irons
“I’m frankly astonished,” Jason Perry, the Mayor of Croydon, wrote on every social media platform available to him yesterday.
“A Croydon Labour MP has asked me to justify why the Labour Mayor of London’s ULEZ expansion is making life harder for her residents.”
For once, piss-poor Perry has a point.
Perry, as Inside Croydon exposed, ran a dog-whistle campaign against ULEZ – the Ultra-Low Emissions Zone – in 2023 and 2024, where his political arguments descended into outright racist baiting of Sadiq Khan and, on occasions, appeared to encourage far-right vigilantes to go out and commit hundreds of thousands of pounds in criminal damage to CCTV cameras and other public infrastructure.
Perry, and Croydon South MP Chris Philp, are pro-car and pro-pollution, and really don’t need to be given any excuse to bang on about it, however dangerous to people or damaging to the environment their alternatives might be.
And it is not as if Perry himself has not used fines on road users to help prop up his Town Hall budgets with tens of millions of pounds – as he admitted at a public meeting two years ago. But then, being a thundering hypocrite has never bothered part-time Perry much, if at all.
Yet in a piece of mind-numbingly dull political buffoonery, Natasha Irons, Croydon’s newest MP, or a member of her staff, managed to hand Perry a political own-goal last week.
‘Sent in error’: someone in Natasha Irons’ office doesn’t know the difference between the Mayor of London and Mayor of Croydon
ULEZ, remember, remains the official policy of the Labour Party and Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan. It is a policy over which Croydon’s Tory Mayor, part-time Perry, has absolutely no say or control.
Yet Irons, the Labour MP for Croydon East, put her name to a letter sent to Mayor Perry, in which she relayed one of her constituents in Addiscombe belly-aching because they have a car which does not comply with ULEZ requirements, landing them with a £12,50 charge every day they turn the ignition on the vehicle.
“I would be grateful if the justification for this expansion could be provided which I can share with my constituent… With best wishes, Natasha”.
Powerless Perry, with not much to do at the Town Hall since the arrival of Commissioners rendered him impotent, clearly couldn’t believe his luck.
“This is a policy imposed by Labour, backed by Croydon Labour councillors, and still supported by Labour’s local mayoral candidate,” Perry hurrumphed on social media yesterday.
Not Jason Perry: Sir Sadiq Khan
“I warned this would punish elderly residents, carers and people on fixed incomes – and now Labour pretend to be surprised. It defies belief,” said Perry, before repeating his often-used lie that ULEZ is somehow “ineffective” (clue: it is very effective).
Perry treated MP Irons to a two-page blast of a reply, his contempt undisguised.
When approached by Inside Croydon, Irons’ office explained that the email had been sent to Mayor Perry “in error”.
This is despite Irons’ original email being addressed to “Dear Jason”, rather than “Dear Sadiq”.
Irons said: “This email was sent in error and was intended for the Mayor of London.
“My team and I were seeking clarification on what support is available to my constituent. We thank Mayor Perry for bringing this to our attention and will ensure that all similar correspondence is sent to the correct recipient.”
Read more: MP calls on Met to investigate Tories’ ‘vile cesspit’ groups
Read more: Perry should apologise for anti-ULEZ Facebook group says MP
Read more: TfL spending £3.2m to replace Croydon bus shelters by March
Read more: ULEZ has seen reduction in some pollutants of up to 20%
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ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: In January 2026, Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for an EIGHTH time in nine years, in Private Eye magazine’s annual round-up of civic cock-ups
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Isn’t this a data protection issue? I hope all parties have reported this to the ICO as required by law.
Great reporting, but perhaps slightly harsh to her staff. Everyone makes mistakes.
Electoral Calculus say that Irons will lose her job to some Reform fascist https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/fcgi-bin/seatdetails.py?seat=Croydon%20East.
This clanger shows she’ll deserve it, not only for the clerical error but also her failure to show support for ULEZ. People who oppose it are happy for others to suffer and die from their exhaust smoke