Dark side of the Moon: last night’s Question Time could have been recorded anywhere

There’s more than a sense of the Ides of March about some of the rhetoric coming from public meetings as the 2026 local election campaign gets into its stride, as WALTER CRONXITE, Political Editor, writes

It seems somehow appropriate that, as we reach the spring equinox, the political campaigning season has begun in earnest in Croydon. The longer evenings mean more likelihood of knocks on the door just as you might be sitting down to dinner (if you’re lucky enough to have a front door, and food on your table).

Those visits will be from earnest activists seeking your vote in the local elections on May 7 for parties that, between them, have caused decline and created havoc for this borough and for the country.

And this being the week of the Ides of March, with all the symbolism of Caesar and his backstabbing old mates, it was therefore most appropriate that last night saw the staging of three political meetings, all within a few miles of each other here in Croydon, one fronted by an archly political figure who has turned on their former political colleagues, and now has the knives out for their old party. More of that later.

It was a case of all our yesteryears at Cedar Hall last night, where while they managed to get the electrics working properly for a public meeting this time, the local Trades Union Council failed to shine much light on where their support might be going in the mayoral election in May.

It was unsaid through the meeting, so neatly sketched here by Ken Towl, but in the absence of their own candidates, Your Party and their various affiliates seem likely to back the Greens’ Peter Underwood rather than Rowenna Davis of Labour. Et tu Brute?

Old-style political meeting: the Green Party’s Peter Underwood addressed a supportive audience in Ruskin House last night

The Croydon TUC’s timing of last night’s meeting was significant: by going early, ahead of the usual hustings season once all the declarations are lodged, they could play one off against the other, without fulfilling the electoral niceties of inviting along Tory Mayor Jason Perry, or Reform’s candidate, whoever that might end up being.

A few miles away, at posh independent school Trinity, in Shirley, the BBC was recording its latest episode of Question Time, a once essential watch for anyone interested in current affairs, but now reduced to a sham of a programme, lacking in relevance and, it has to be said, honesty.

The programme might have been recorded on the dark side of the Moon for all its local relevance. The production was so out of date in its Croydon references that the opening sequence included a Winston Churchill mural in the town centre that was so controversial that it was removed six years ago.

Moving the programme around the country week after week is part of the political sham conducted by the BBC over the past decade or so, which has pandered to the likes of Nigel Farage and the Brexit buffoons.

Out-dated: the Question Time title sequence last night included a mural that was removed in 2020

“As usual, our audience members arriving here this evening reflect the general political picture across the nation,” Fiona Bruce intoned in her introduction, meaning that the audience had been carefully hand-picked to reflect national voting trends, not Croydon’s voting intentions (whatever they might be). The production team must have struggled to find Reform members in Croydon, but their brief will have been followed to help amplify the far-right messaging.

Given global and national news, with Trump’s war on Iran and a troubling outbreak of meningitis, there was little real scope to stray into matters of local concern, again rendering the recording location pretty much an irrelevance.

Reform, a political party with just eight MPs, three of them Tory defectors, had their usual seat at the top table, this time with someone described as “the high priest of the party’s intellectual wing” (what is this, Game of Thrones?), while the Conservatives put up Helen Whateley, an MP who, every time she opens her mouth, demonstrates that a village somewhere is missing an idiot.

Then there was a LIbDem newbie MP who looked petrified, and expressed much concern for Eastbourne, which was about as local as we got. Plus Caroline Lucas, the high priestess of Green-dom who did mightily well not to thump Reform’s James Orr as he continued to spout idiocy and falsehoods about energy markets. If he is what passes for an intellectual in Reform, this country really is in trouble, as all the voters who elected Reform to run their local councils last year are discovering to their cost now.

And then there was Wes Streeting, Labour’s health secretary, who has had quite the week with events in Canterbury, and who, along with Lucas, came across as sane and reasonable. When was that last said of a minister in this government?

But local issues? Councils facing bankruptcy? Dodgy traffic restrictions? Not a thing.

It is hard to gauge a Question Time audience’s response to important matters. Bruce did not do the old Dimbleby trick of asking for a show of hands – as she might have done over, for example, Starmer’s response to Trump’s attacks on Iran. From the applause and derision heard in the background, the guess must be that the Croydon audience rejected warmongering and American adventurism.

Highlight of the evening?

“Man there in the blue sweater” (who wears “sweaters” these days, Fiona?).

“On the Iran war, it’s funny how the Iran war is being talked about, but Donald Trump isn’t in the Epstein files any more.” Muted audience laughter, before the man in the blue sweater proceeded to blame Maggie Thatcher for the loss of all our old gasometers…

If more audience participation is what you were after in the electoral process, then you probably should have been at the Business Xchange Hub (ahh, another “hub”, just what the world needs) over at Bedford Park, where the Taking The Piss Party was still trying to recruit candidates for May 7.

Yes, it is really called the Taking The Initiative Party, but they took the piss in 2022 when they fielded a mayoral candidate who neither lived in Croydon nor had a real business presence in the borough – both legal requirements to qualify to stand for election here.

Home sweet home: Farah London never lived in Croydon. In 2021, her home address was in Tower Hamlets

When this website did its duty and reported this potential transgression in electoral law, the response of the candidate, Farah London, was to record an angry video rant outside Croydon nick.

It was unclear what she intended to do: lodge a complaint, or hand herself in. Whatever, nothing came of that, nor a badly composed legal threat from a small firm of solicitors in the Midlands who appeared to have little real understanding of the law of libel. Because all Inside Croydon had done is report the facts.

Farah London wound-up sixth in the Croydon mayoral election in 2022. Suffice to say, nothing has been seen or heard of TTIP’s first Croydon mayoral candidate in Croydon since.

In 2024, one of TTIP’s parliamentary candidates was Donna Murray-Turner, who had previously put herself forward to be Labour’s 2022 candidate for Mayor, and was rejected by Labour members. Murray-Turner is also notable for having been appointed by Tony Newman as the chair of the council’s Safer Neighbourhood Board, a police and local authority liaison body, where she failed to hold a public meeting for more than four years.

Leading light: there was a time when Donna Murray-Turner was being lined up as a Labour candidate, as when pictured here with Sarah Jones MP

Murray-Turner is now TTIP’s leading light, alongside the party’s co-founder, Charles Gordon, a wealthy black businessman, and both took the stage last night while, unlike BBC Question Time, giving the floor for much of the meeting to the audience.

It was notable that there were several younger teens present (readying for the day that the voting age is dropped to 16, perhaps?). But there was no manifesto, as such, no clear policies, and no sign of any candidate announcements.

“Politics and debate are at the top of places like Oxford and Cambridge, but politics is important and affects where we live. None of us are in that conversation, what we have instead are politicians from Oxford and Cambridge that parachute into the borough,” Gordon said, without providing any examples.

Inside Croydon has not been able to find any record of Gordon ever standing for election to public office, even though he has been a significant figure behind TTIP’s campaigns in Croydon over several years. Given his complaints about other parties’ candidates, it is a curiosity that someone who presents as well as he does has not put their own name on the ballot paper.

“Croydon is a socially deprived area, but the people involved in making decisions aren’t socially deprived,” he continued.

“For a lot of people, it’s a toss-up between rent and Asda,” he said. It is thought that Gordon has rarely himself had to face such a dilemma.

“When they are in mainstream parties, BAME people don’t speak up,” which is not entirely true, and somewhat patronising of those black and minority ethnic members of the Conservative, Liberal Democrat, Green and Labour parties.

It became increasingly clear that Gordon’s TTIP voting targets might otherwise be Labour voters, which in a borough where Labour lost by fewer than 600 votes in 2022 could make a crucial difference in 2026. As previously observed: Et tu Brute?

Taking the piss: Charles Gordon at last night’s meeting seemed to boast that in 2022, votes for TTIP handed the mayoralty to Tory bungler Jason Perry

There were other contentious remarks which, perhaps, a serious politician from a serious political party might think twice about making when notes are being taken.

“The school-to-prison pipeline is very real because we have such a high police presence in Croydon,” Gordon said.

“Labour have messed up the country, they are the lesser of two evils, I want to bring in Croydonians, why would we vote for people who don’t even care?”

The following line offered by Gordon was spouted without a shred of evidence (we know, because we have spent years looking for the evidence): “Labour have caused the bankruptcy in Croydon – they stole £100million.”

And then there was this: “Our strategy with the last election was to disrupt the vote. We took the votes from Labour, which meant the Tories won and we made physical change.” He made it sound as if four years of the bungling incompetent Jason Perry had somehow been a good thing.

“If Labour get back in, it shows them that they can take the piss out of us and get elected in again.”

Murray-Turner chimed in with some similar nihilist rhetoric. “It doesn’t matter what stripes they wear, red or blue ties, they don’t vote in our interest.”

“Blackness isn’t about being black any more. There’s new immigration and new disadvantages for those that don’t speak English as a first language.”

“New disadvantages”?

Murray-Turner failed to say what they might be, compared to the old disadvantages for the working classes that have existed for centuries. If she does emerge as the TTIP candidate for Croydon Mayor, then she might have to explain what she means at future hustings events when they are not organised just for her friends.

Additional reporting: Gabriel MacArthur

• Mayor Jason Perry has refused to give a pre-election interview to Inside Croydon, where he would face questions about his record in office
• Paid-up subscribers to this website can listen to The Andrew Fisher Interview with Labour’s Rowenna Davis by clicking here
•  And you can listen to last week’s Andrew Fisher Interview with Liberal Democrat Richard Howard by clicking here
• Andrew Fisher will be interviewing the Green Party’s Peter Underwood over the next few weeks
• We still have an empty Zoom slot available for Mayor Perry, should he pluck up the courage to face some proper public scrutiny

Read more: Bookies make Labour’s Davis favourite to win Mayor election
Read more: ‘Red v Blue’ at Town Hall elections could suffer a Green-wash
Read more: Starmer shocker: could Gorton and Denton happen here?
Read more: Surrey Street market trader Joseph quits Labour in race row

For more information on where to vote on May 7 and who is standing for election, use our widget here:

Inside Croydon – If you want real journalism, delivering real news, from a publication that is actually based in the borough, please consider paying for it. Sign up today: click here for more details

PAID ADS: To advertise your services or products to our 10,000 weekday visitors to the site, as featured on Google News Showcase, email us inside.croydon@btinternet.com for our unbeatable ad rates

• If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, or want to publicise your residents’ association or business, or if you have a local event to promote, please email us with full details at inside.croydon@btinternet.com

• As featured on Google News Showcase

• We offer FREE ads to community groups when they have members who are paid subscribers to Inside Croydon

• Our comments section on every report provides all readers with an immediate “right of reply” on all our content. Our comments policy can be read by clicking here

• 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

• Inside Croydon is a member of the Independent Community News Network