- Tory Jason Perry clings on to power as Croydon Mayor, dealing crushing blow to Labour’s hopes as he wins second term by 1,113 votes from Rowenna Davis
- It’s Conservative carnage in Sutton
- Labour losses in Wandsworth and Westminster
- Reform charmer standing in New Addington fails to get elected in Essex
- The Tories cling on against Reform in Bexley
Welcome to Inside Croydon’s unmatched coverage of the 2026 local election count in Croydon, and across south London.
We have reporters at the count at the Fairfield Halls today, for Croydon’s second mayoral election, which will determine our cash-strapped borough’s direction for the next four years, at least.
Have Croydon residents opted to stick with Conservative Jason Perry? Has the social media campaign run by Rowenna Davis been enough for Labour to take back control of the Town Hall? Has Reform Ltd’s Ben Flook made in-roads into the traditional duopoly?
All will become clear with the mayoral election declaration expected sometime later this afternoon, with the votes for Croydon’s 70 councillors across 28 wards delayed until tomorrow, Saturday, May 9, when we’ll be back and do this all over again….
Bookmark this page and keep returning and refreshing the page for our live coverage, with updates on events nationally throughout.
Each new post will be timestamped, with the most recent postings being right here at the top of the page.
We welcome your election-day pictures and news, your comments and your observations, which you can send to us (confidentially if you prefer) by email at inside.croydon@btinternet.com
Our reporting team includes Ken Towl and Gabriel MacArthur at the Fairfield Halls, plus Dave Burton and links to Darryl Chamberlain’s mighty GreenwichWire.
5.15pm: Perry wins second term as Croydon Mayor by 1,000 votes
In an announcement made in the grandeur of the Ashcroft Theatre at the Fairfield Halls, Jason Perry was announced as the winner of Croydon’s second mayoral election, giving him another four-year term.
Four years ago, Perry squeezed home by fewer than 600 votes. This time round, even though buoyed by a 41% voter turnout, Perry won the votes of 35,871 people, 1,113 more than his Labour opponent.
Rowenna Davis, the Labour Party challenger, was conspicuous by her absence as the candidates gathered for the announcement. She joined the others on stage just before the returning officer, Croydon’s interim CEO Elaine Jackson, read out the result.
Jason Perry Cons 35,871
Rowenna Davis Labour 34,758
Peter Underwood Green 19,404
Ben Flook Reform 14,467
Richard Howard LibDem 7,815
Michael Pusey TTIP 2,597
Jose Joseph Ind 1,568
Ben Goldstone TUSC 461
5pm: And still the wait goes on
‘Looking confident’: senior Croydon Tory figures (from Left) Mario Creatura, Jason Cummings, William Perry (son of the Mayor) and Simon Fox discuss the possible outcome
Nineteen hours after the polls closed, and still the Croydon count grinds on.
One source at the Fairfield Halls tells iC that they think Jason Perry will cling on to power, and his £86,000 annual salary. “The Tories seem to be more confident.
“But we are all just standing around.”
The immediate analysis seems to suggest that while the Green Party got much improved support, which eroded Labour’s vote share, the grifters at Reform did less damage to the Conservatives’ vote. And then there’s those stats about turnout in the south of the borough being significantly stronger than turnout in the north, where Labour’s biggest support is to be found (see 3pm).
Green mayoral candidate Peter Underwood spoke to reporter Gabriel MacArthur: “Regardless of the end vote, which I believe will be very tight, the party that wins should be very collaborative with all the councillors, because they’ll only win with maybe 30% of the vote.
“There’s always a huge majority of people that need to be heard and represented in any council.”
The count tellers are now going through the mayoral votes from Thornton Heath, which seems to be the last ward to be finished. The election agents have been called in for the result. So a result could be coming…
4.40pm: MP Steve Reed: ‘A tough set of elections for the party’
Steve Reed, the MP for Streatham (and Croydon North on the rare occasions he can be bothered), after spending the past fortnight using his antisemetism smear technique against Zack Polanski and the Greens, just as he and his Zionist mates did to Jeremy Corbyn when he was the leader of the Labour Party, has popped up on television to explain his party’s dire performance.
The Labour Together founder didn’t seem to offer to take any responsibility personally. To the surprise of absolutely no one.
4.30pm: Starmer’s Labour has lost 600 council seats across the country
The latest BBC election graphic, after 84 of 136 councils in England have declared their results, shows Labour down 595 council seats, as losses in Wales and defeat in Scotland will pile on pressure for Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.
4pm: Mayor election result expected in an hour. Or probably longer
It depends who you speak to.
Checking the votes: Labour and LibDems gather in the Fairfield lobby to compare notes
One source at the count has told iC: “In about an hour.” That was 30minutes ago.
Another said: “Possibly longer.”
From the count floor, Ken Towl reports: “They can’t say. Some wards still counting.
“When asked if there was a danger of a recount, they looked horrified at the very mention of it.”
Looking at mayoral votes cast in New Addington North, Towl says, “they’re all over the place – red, yellow, blue, light blue, green, green, red, blue, red, blue, light blue, green…
“Tom Bowell…”, a young Labour activist hopeful of being elected in Broad Green tomorrow, “…doing a sterling job scrutinising.”
It is now 18 hours since the polls closed in Croydon.
3.40pm: Essex voters reject Reform grifter Scott Holman
Scott Holman, the camera-shy Reform Ltd candidate who stood for election in New Addington and Essex on the same day (see entries at Midday and 1.40pm), has been rejected by the good people of Colchester.
Although Farage’s party of tax-dodgers and racists have taken control of Essex County Council, Holman won’t be among their councillors, as he was well-beaten by Lee Scordis, who was deputy leader of the Labour group.
So if Holman wants to get his mitts on tens of thousands of pounds of public money as an elected councillor, it now all depends on how the people of New Addington South voted yesterday.
Those results will be declared tomorrow.
One follower on Bluesky (because we try to avoid Twatter these days), Joseph Williamson, has asked for more pictures of charming Scott Holman.
Inside Croydon’s tight-fisted Editor is currently in negotiations with reporter Ken Towl over the payment of danger money.
3.30pm: Labour’s Davis leaves residents hanging out
Someone didn’t read their briefing note that not all innovations from America are successful, or welcome.
Burglar alarm: an American innovation not welcome in south London
Labour campaigners yesterday took to using an American door-handle hanger when they have knocked up a potential voter and they were out. It’s a popular piece of electioneering in the States. But more cautious British electors are not so keen on having the fact that their home is empty flagged up to any passing potential burglar.
Former Croydon MP Andrew Pelling told iC: “The hanging reminder to vote is copied from the United States, where the law bars posting voting reminders through doors.
“Hangers or Post-it notes on the door are allowed and are an excellent advert for homes at risk to burglars. The Davis household takes a keen professional polling interest in US politics. The innovation/copy from America will likely intrigue some and irritate those who don’t want their absence to be advertised.”
3pm: The highs and lows of Croydon’s 2026 elections
We have stated it so many times in the build-up to these elections, but it is worth repeating again: Labour has a real problem in getting out the vote – or what the politicos refer to as GOTV. And in a borough-wide election for Mayor, that could be a real problem for Labour’s candidate, Rowenna Davis.
The declaration of ward-by-ward turnout figures, released by the Returning Officer after some prompting from the media, shows what could be significant differences in usually Tory-voting wards in the south of the borough, compared to the lower voting volumes in wards in normally Labour-supporting northern Croydon.
Verified votes: more than 20,000 more people voted yesterday in Croydon than did in 2022
Just look at these turnout figures from the verified votes cast in the mayroal election, from the highest:
Sanderstead 54.4%
Old Coulsdon 52.76% – a highly competitive ward, where the councillor election declaration tomorrow should be interesting
Shirley South 49.32% – where Reform were targeting Tory “Big Beast” Jason Cummings
Selsdon Vale and Forestdale 48.94%
… to the lowest, all in Labour-held parliamentary constituencies:
Fairfield 31.1%
Broad Green 32.08%
New Addington North 32.44%
Bensham Manor 32.77% – we suspect that of all the election results across the country, Uncle Keir in No10 will be looking out for that ward result tomorrow.
And as someone else has just noted: more votes means longer counting time… It is now 17 hours since the Croydon polls closed.
2.45pm: Let’s see the size of Rowenna’s piles. And Jason’s piles
Ken Towl reports: “Peter…”, he means Underwood, the Green Party candidate, with whom he is clearly on first-name terms, “is walking round looking at piles.
Treat: Peter Underwood has been keeping supporters sweet
“He says Rowenna’s piles look marginally higher than Jason’s.
“He has also been offering Green Party members a choice of worms or juicy strawberries, two brands of vegan sweet from Aldi. In terms of popularity, the wiggly worms are, currently, marginally ahead.”
Fuelled with a Wendy Worm from his new mate Peter, Towl then set off to check out other piles.
“Just had a look at the Crystal Palace and Upper Norwood piles. Biggest piles are red and Green. Yellow well behind. TTIP pile non-existent.”
These are piles of mayoral votes, arranged by ward. The vote count for ward elections will take place tomorrow.
2.35pm: Big increase in Croydon voter turnout
As we indicated in our earlier report (11.40am), there was a decent turnout of voters yesterday.
Official turnout figure from the Returning officer:
41%
That comprises of
117,714
verified votes – up more than 20,000 votes on 2022, when turnout was 34.7%.
2.30pm: Betting markets big shift for Labour’s Davis
Follow the money: so
Big shout-outs to a couple of eagle-eyed Inside Croydon readers, Charly Jones and Nick Davies, who spotted a big market shift in the Croydon Mayor election odds with online bookmaker Polymarket.
The market moved hugely at about 1pm, with Labour’s Rowenna Davis now rated at 98% favourite.
To win £1 on Davis winning the election, you’d now need to stake £100. And Davis would need to win before you got that measly pay-out.
In comparison, Ben Flook is reckoned to be 2.7% chance of winning, Jason Perry 3.0% and Peter Underwood 1.4%… You get the drift.
Market movers: Polymarkets betting shifted around 1pm
British regulated bookmakers closed their markets at 10pm last night, as the polling stations closed, to avoid any insider dealing-style jiggery-pokery. But Polymarket is not regulated.
Says Charly: “Polymarket do not need to close at 10pm as they are not regulated or authorised to operate in the UK, so everyone uses a VPN to get around it, including me.
“A lot of Donald Trump insiders have made bank from the Iran War decisions and Polymarket is quite controversial right now.
2,10pm: iC fixes things again
Remember that inaccurate council sign (see 12.14pm below)?
Seems that iC has fixed another council error.
2pm: Reform gains more than 500 council seats nationally
The BBC’s latest ready reckoner.
1.45pm: Election agents call meeting with Returning Officer
Shdes of 2022 all over again.
Stepping up: Tory Jason Perry with one of the count officials at the Fairfield Halls
Four years ago, when the count was conducted at Trinity School, it took until Sunday teatime for all of the votes to be counted and all the results – one Mayor and 28 wards – to be declared. On that occasion, with Katherine Kerswell, the council chief exec, as Returning Officer, it took the election agents of some of the parties to provide direction to get the count better-organised.
This year’s elections come under Elaine Jackson, Croydon’s interim CEO and Returning Officer.
Around one o’clock, the agents for the mayoral candidates called a meeting with Jackson.
It’s not yet known what was discussed. But 15 hours after the polls closed, this can’t be a sign that everything is proceeding as smoothly as it should.
1.40pm: Another photograph of Reform candidate Scott Holman
Camera shy: Scott Holman of Reform Ltd
Reform’s Scott Holman is standing for election in two councils, Croydon and Essex.
Essex started their count last night. Croydon began counting actual votes just after 1pm. Holman’s likely to have to wait until tomorrow for his anticipated ward election result for New Addington South.
1.05pm: Finally, the count begins
Some 15 hours after the polls closed, Croydon Council started counting votes in the mayoral election.
The votes have been verified.
There’s a gloomy mood over the Labour contingent at the Fairfield Halls.
1pm: Perry might survive for another four years
Polled out: Jason Perry has been on Croydon Council since 1994
Jason Perry, Mayor of Croydon since 2022, struck a sombre, almost valedictory note, as he signed off on social media last night just after the polls closed at 10pm.
But might he have been hedging his bets – the bookies had him as only second favourite to Labour’s Rowenna Davis – as the feared Reform impact on the Conservative vote ultimately failed to materialise?
In what might have been Perry’s farewell message after 32 years on Croydon Council, as councillor and then as its first elected Mayor, Perry said: “Thank you to everyone who voted today, and to every resident who took the time to speak with me and the team during this campaign.
“Croydon is a borough full of proud, decent, hardworking people. It has been the honour of my life to serve as your Mayor over the last four years.
“We inherited a council in crisis, but together we’ve stabilised Croydon, started restoring pride, and begun rebuilding confidence in our borough again.
“Now we wait for the result.
“Whatever happens, thank you for your support, your kindness, and your belief in Croydon.”
12.45pm: Can Croydon Council get nothing right?
Liberal Democratics: council organisers don’t even know the correct name of one of the major political parties
12.30pn: Greens win in Hackney
The Green Party has won its first London council, in Hackney, where London Assembly Member Zoë Garbutt has been elected Mayor.
Mayor; Zoë Garbutt AM has taken Hackney for the Greens
Loyal readers of Inside Croydon will realise that there is some Croydon connection with Labour’s defeat in Hackney, because of the criminality of Tom Dewey, a former party staffer in Croydon who in 2022 was elected as a councillor in Hackney shortly after he had been arrested for having a vast collection of paedophile pornography.
This in turn brought down his housemate, Philip Glanville, who was Labour Mayor of Hackney. There was never any suggestion that Glanville was involved in Dewey’s crimes, but his failure to have Dewey withdrawn from the election following his arrest and attempted cover-up forced his resignation.
In 2022, Hackney had 50 Labour councillors, five Conservatives and two Greens.
Garbutt’s victory may not be the only time in London that the Greens win power from Keir Starmer’s Labour…
Midday: Reform candidate ‘looked like he was going to deck me’
There’s no pleasing some people.
Scott Holman, the Reform Ltd grifter who was on ballot papers in New Addington and in Essex at the same time yesterday, apparently doesn’t like being in the public eye. Which seems a little odd for someone who wants to be elected. Twice.
Inside Croydon’s officially accredited reporter Ken Towl was doing his job at the Fairfield Halls, which includes gathering images of people, and candidates, attending the count. He took a photograph of Holman. Who is a candidate.
Holman then approached Towl (who is 6ft 2in tall) and “demanded that I delete the photograph”.
Towl said: “He stood in front of me like he was going to deck me.
“Staff whisked me away because it looked like it was about to get violent.”
So here’s a picture of Scott Holman.
Holman is able to try to represent two different areas, in different parts of the country, because he has residential qualifications in Croydon – 4 Redstart Close, CR0 0EU – and a business registered in Essex.
Holman will have to wait until tomorrow – or maybe even Sunday – to discover if he is elected as a Croydon councillor for New Addington South. His fate in Essex is not determined yet, either, although his party has won control of the formerly Tory-run county council.
Reform has won 40 seats, securing it a majority. Holman’s Colchester Abbey ward is among 23 seats to be determined (as at midday).
At the Fairfield Halls, the votes in Croydon’s mayoral election might start to be counted at 12.30pm.
11.45am: Lunch break
Lunchtime at the Fairfield Halls: nearly 14 hours since the polls closed, and Croydon’s election counters have stopped for lunch, with not a single vote counted
That’s it. Down tools. Or council-issued pocket calculators. Time for lunch.
They have not yet finished verifying the ballots. Not a vote has been counted.
Council staff will return to work at 12.30pm, the Fairfield Halls is told.
“Quite the hiatus,” reports Ken Towl.
11.40am: Was there an improved turnout this time round?
In the absence of any official figures from Croydon yet, Inside Croydon’s team of citizen journalists were checking the borough’s polling stations yesterday to try to get a sense of whether the public were turning out to vote in greater numbers than in 2022.
In nearby boroughs where the counts were conducted overnight, Sutton had a respectable 46.8% turnout. In Merton, it was 45.5%. In Reform target borough Bexley, it was 45.7%.
Our entirely unscientific method was to visit polling stations and read the numbers posted on a register sheet posted by the entrance by council staff, just to gauge voter engagement.
There was a clear up-tick in voters checking in after work, after 6pm.
One council official told iC that turnout at his polling station in the leafy south of the borough was much higher than expected, and more than for the General Election in 2024. The expectation was, with a high number of postal ballots already cast, turnout could be more than 50% in that one area.
Big turnouts in the south of the borough is good news for the Tories, and probably Reform, though not such good news for Labour’s Rowenna Davis, whose party has struggled to get its supporters, mostly in the north of the borough, to actually cast their votes.
Our information from other polling stations might not have indicated 50%+ turnouts, which are unusual for local elections, but they seemed healthy enough. If, as a rule of thumb, each polling station is assigned 2,000 voters, then these figures could be troubling for Labour:
- 821 at Greenvale School, in Selsdon Vale and Forestdale with an hour before the polls closed.
- 659 at Shirley Hall (Shirley North) 9pm
- 590 at Shirley Methodist Church (Shirley North) 8pm
- 445 Brigstock Road (West Thornton) 8pm
- 320 Poplar Walk 8pm
- 404 Broad Green 7pm
- 363 Broad Green (different polling station) 8pm
- 468 Homefield Road (Old Coulsdon) 6pm
- 537 Bramley Hill (Waddon) 7pm (94 people between 6 and 7pm)
- 345 St Andrew’s (Fairfield) 7pm
11am: The latest national update
So this was the latest number of council seats won and lost just before 11am, according to the BBC, with 46 of 136 councils across England having declared.
Latest suggestions are that Croydon’s mayoral result won’t be declared until “this evening”.
10.15am: The wait continues
Fenced off: the Fairfield Halls security for the election count has been placed in the hands of Conways, who normally are in charge of fixing the borough’s pot holes
At the Fairfield Halls, where verification of the ballot papers was supposed to begin at 8am, counting actual votes has yet to happen.
It’s mayoral voting being counted today. We will have to wait until tomorrow for the ward-by-ward results.
But the elected Mayor is really all that matters in Croydon now – although someone needs to tell Professor Tony Travers that, after he advised BBC London that Croydon has been under No Overall Control for the last four years.
Or maybe that is an accurate description of Jason Perry’s time in office as Mayor.
The Croydon count: it has been more than 20 years since Croydon used its council-owned arts centre – the obvious choice for a count venue – as its venue for the count. It all looks like a strange avant-garde orchestra
Ken Towl has caught up with Nicholas Burman-Vince, the Greens’ campaign manager who seems “very buoyant”, and says he expects his party will “make a few gains”.
Labour are being “tight-lipped”.
Veteran Conservative councillor Margaret Bird (Old Coulsdon) arrives for the mayoral vote count and says that she is confident she will hold her seat despite a challenge from the LibDems. “They were so rude to people,” says Councillor Bird, who once opposed 20mph speed limits in Croydon because she thought she would not be able to drive up Coulsdon’s steep hills so slowly…
Labour MP Sarah Jones and Stuart King, leader of Labour’s Town Hall group, have arrived for the mayoral count, too. “Too early to say,” they say, in a tight-lipped sort of way.
“It does all feel very unpredictable,” Ken Towl reports.
10am: The latest state of the nation
9.45am: John Curtice has spoken
Political guru John Curtice, the man who taught Walter Cronxite all he knows, has delivered his interim verdict.
Now what could that mean if applied in Croydon?
9am: Farage’s grifters busted in Bexley
So here’s a turn-up.
The narrative for months has been that Farage’s grifters, tax-dodgers and racists in Reform Ltd were going to “doughnut” London, taking some key outer London boroughs, such as Havering, Bexley and Bromley.
Bexley, being next door to Kent, where Reform won control of the county council in 2025 – with predictably chaotic results – was reckoned to become the first London borough under Farage control.
Well, that didn’t happen.
The Conservatives clung on to control in Bexley, where Reform’s challenge somewhat fizzled out. Hmmm.
Indeed, in decidedly conservative (small “c”) Bexley, Labour has as many council seats as the Faragists.
Cons 26 (-4)
Lab 7 (-3)
Reform 7 (+7)
9am: Memories
For reference, this was London’s political map after the 2022 local elections
8.50am: Happy 100th birthday Sir David Attenborough
Centenary: will David Attenborough discover intelligent life in Croydon Town Hall?
So while we wait for the count in Croydon to get underway – a mere 11 hours after the polling stations closed – let us try to be positive.
Happy birthday Sir David, the man who invented Life On Earth.
But could even Attenborough find intelligent life in Croydon Town Hall?
Certainly, we all know very well what he would make of the Faragists’ pro-motoring, pro-oil policies that have done so much damage to our planet.
8.30am: Carnage for Tories in Sutton
Here’s a sentence we never thought we would write: Labour has more council seats in Sutton than the Conservatives.
Labour has one council seat, after the Tories were wiped out in yesterday’s elections.
Barry “Basher” Lewis’s Liberal Democrats retain control of Sutton Council after winning 51 of the borough’s 55 council seats, up by 22.
LibDem 51
Reform 2
Lab 1
Ind 1
The Tory demise was largely at the hands of Reform Ltd, who took enough votes off the Conservatives to hand many wards to the LibDems.
Labour’s Dave Tchil in Hackbridge and Nick Mattey, the independent councillor in Beddington, both retained their seats.
In Beddington, Mattey’s independent colleague, Tim Foster, lost his seat by just 12 votes.
Janey Gould and Alison Long became Reform Ltd’s first Sutton councillors, winning two of the three seats in St Helier West in what was otherwise an orangewash of the borough.
- Click here for our full report on the Sutton result, and how BBC London called the result all wrong…
Orangewash: Reform took enough votes off the Conservatives to give the LibDems absolute control of Sutton Council, and access to all the lucrative allowances attached to committee roles
8.05am: Fisher’s early take
Inside Croydon’s columnist and TV and radio politics pundit Andrew Fisher has made this assessment from the results in so far, with the Reform tidal wave expected in places like Bexley not quite as dominant as some predicted:
“Early indications in London councils – Westminster, Wandsworth, Bexley – appear to show the Labour/Tory duopoly holding up,” Fisher notes.
“And it is in terms of seats won, but look at share of the vote and the picture is much more mixed.
“No breakthrough yet (bigger Green targets to come), but votes splintering.”
8am Overnight results
Here’s the first result from across south London that’s in:
Crystal Palace 2 Shakhtar Donetsk 1
Euro delight: Palace players, exhausted and relieved, must now prepare for the club’s first European final in three weeks’ time
Palace win 5-2 on aggregate and are in the UEFA Conference League final in Leipzig on May 27, where they will play Rayo Vallecano in what will be Oliver Glasner’s final game as Palace manager.
Meanwhile, here’s the BBC’s chart of council seats won and lost across the country in declared results so far at 7,45am.
8am… Meanwhile in Merton
First signs: the result in Merton offered slim hopes for Labour
Might there be some hope to be taken for Labour in Croydon from the results from neighbouring Merton?
We had been told that this was the Liberal Democrats’ No1 target council in London, yet on a night of electoral carnage for Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party elsewhere, they retained control with an increased majority.
The number of council seats determines control of Merton won:
Lab 32
LibDems 19
Cons 4
Residents 2
8am Westminster and Wandsworth losses
Labour lost control of two London councils it won from the Tories in 2022, Westminster and Wandsworth.
The Conservatives are back in charge in Westminster, while Wandsworth becomes NOC – no overall control – with an independent councillor holding the balance of power.
The Tories had held Wandsworth for 44 years until 2022. Labour lost seven seats, leaving it with 28, while the Conservatives gained seven to reach 29.
In Richmond, the LibDems swept the board, winning all 54 seats.
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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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Just a quick “thank you” for this and I hope you are well suppled with coffee and snacks to sustain you over the next couple of days!
Looking foreword to your updates.
I’d like to endorse all this. Thanks IC
Posting your live election coverage message at 8am means you have gone too soon. The counting staff from the 9am to 5pm (if you’re lucky) petty bureaucrats at Croydon Council aren’t starting the count until 9am. Hopefully, they will get the mayoral election counted by lunchtime, because after an hour having a liquid lunch in the Spreadeagle, they may not be much good in the afternoon ?!
If they can get the mayoral count done by lunchtime today, they may be persuaded not to go to the pub for lunch, so that they can get the council election done in the afternoon and avoid the need to come in at all on Saturday ?!
Jim it will take the morning for the verification process to be completed.
The council has already said the Mayoral count won’t be until this afternoon and the councillors count tomorrow (starting at 09.00)
And they were due to start at 8.00
Why does ti take so long for Croydon Council to count a few votes, Chris? Surely they have done enough election counts by now to get it to a simple operation, not passing round the “How to do your first election count” books and getting all staff to read it before they begin ?!
I basically answered this the other day when yiu asked a similar question but I’ll still respond.
In 2022 there were just shy of 100,000 ballot papers for Mayor and that takes time to sort into individual candidates and then sort into bundles and count.
Similar total number of papers for councillors but split over 20 odd wards most with 2 or 3 councillors to be elected with multiple candidates so the papers need careful sorting because people don’t always vote for all the candidates for the same party and spread them about.
Westminster’s beleaguered staff will be relieved if this result brings an end to ‘white privilige’ tests and the departure of their bonkers South African CEO
Don’t be silly. Political change of control hardly ever results in the departure of the people who really run our councils, the civic bureaucrats
Did you vote Reform Chris?
No. But I’m not in Westminster
Rowenna might single handedly save the failing Labour Party by the look of things lol because as you can see Reform have mopped everything up nationwide. As for the general election, the only threat to Reform is Restore by stealing their right wing voters. Labour and Conservatives only have their own selves to blame for their lies , back trackings and mis management of the country.
“There’s a gloomy mood over the Labour contingent at the Fairfield Halls.
1pm: Perry might survive for another four years”
The betting market disagrees, right now, Polymarket have Rowenna’s closing in on 80% chance of winning and Jason Perry at 3% now. Insiders in Fairfield Halls have knowledge of the result are clearly backing Liebour
Polymarket live odds:
Elections
·
Global Elections
Croydon Mayoral Election Winner
Rowenna Davis 90.0%
Ben Flook 2.9%
Jason Perry 2.5%
Peter Underwood 1.5%
Been huge bets on Rowenna last 15 mins
Don’t the bookies close their markets once the polls close at 10pm on Thursday, to avoid the possibility of any kind of insider dealing?
https://polymarket.com/event/croydon-mayoral-election-winner
Polymarket do not need to close at 10pm as they are not regulated or authorized to operate in the UK so everyone uses a VPN to get around it incl me. A LOT of Donald Trump insiders have made bank from the Iran war decisions and Polymarket is quite controversial rn.
Rn to win £1 you need to bet £100 on Rowenna. To win £3.60 you only need to stake £1 on Perry.
Live odds:
Rowenna Davis 98.0%
Ben Flook 2.7%
Jason Perry 3.0%
Peter Underwood 1.4%
This aged well!
Betting markets only ever reflect money staked, not necessarily fact.
Someone piled on at 1pm. How much, in a small market, we won’t ever know.
IC – any news on turnout? Should have been announced once verification had been completed.
Can’t really offer a bespoke request news service.
We’re reporting things as they happen.
Just seen you’ve posted.
Those extra 20k votes will increase the time to finalise the Mayoral result today and assuming the same increase for the councillors – their count tomorrow.
You’ll need extra snacks!
So Croydon will be declaring this time next week?
Hold, big Kath was kicked out, might not be the usual balls-up. There again, if Perry is in the room……
It looks like Lewisham and Tower Hamlets are on the same, slow line as Croydon, as all three seem to be counting their mayoral votes today (Friday) and the council votes tomorrow (Saturday), so the so-called election experts won’t get the full picture of councils in London until late on Saturday……
Looks like Scott Holman has more guts than Jason Perry 😉
It still prefer the nicknames Part-time Perry, Piss-Poor Perry and Powerless Perry than Gutless Perry !?!
One interesting feature of the turnout figures is that postal voters are returning their ballots at a rate of more than double that of in person voters.
“From the count floor, Ken Towl reports: “They can’t say. Some wards still counting.”
There is no reason to count the mayoralty on a ward by ward basis. I can’t think of any other council that does it that way. They just treat it as a single count.
It actually makes the count longer because you lose any flexibility because each ward must remain isolated until it is completed as you can’t just toss in a box of votes from another ward to speed it up.
I don’t know who took the decision but they need a severe talking to!
They don’t count the parliamentary elections that way.
Welcome to Kerswell’s Kroydon
Disappointing to see part-time piss-poor Perry rewarded with another four years of his snout in the trough of our money. But Davis had defeat coming. Starmer’s Labour is hugely unpopular, and her antics, ranging from frankly embarrassing self-promotion videos to backing down on the use of the word “genocide”, did her no favours
Time for Croydon residents to emigrate en masse, as Piss-Poor Perry gets re-elected as Croydon Mayor…………….never underestimate the stupidity of the electorate !
Oh no! Disaster returns! He will be as insufferable as Trump!
Much as I hate Piss-Poor (Perry), he is far less harmful/hateful (and powerful) than the Trump monster/toddler ?!
Voter turnout figures for both Croydon elections as follows:
Voter turnout has risen this year in Croydon, with 40.99% of the electorate casting a vote for the borough’s mayor. In 2022 it was 35%.
There were even more voters for the local councillors, with a 41.02% turnout, up from 34.4% in 2022.
The Tories (the original ‘Nasty’ party) have retained Bromley council with 35 of the 58 council seats. Bromley was a big Reform target, but the hatred party only got 6 seats.
Higher voter turnout means a bigger endorsement for Perry
Congrats to the residents of Croydon and further 33% council tax rises. More vape shops more chicken shops and more stabbings promised ! Congrats to the good ppl of Croydon for keeping Carlton Plastics Ltd in business for another 4 years too! Let’s Go Ape!
Welcome to another four years of a self-congratulating mayor. If Perry is the best we’ve got (according to the electorate of Croydon) then the electorate must be suffering generally a lot less than people make out. Perhaps people really enjoy the tax rises, cuts in services and selling off of public assets. It’s a bit like somebody not ending a relationship which they know they should because of fear of their future. I find this at best difficult to reconcile, at worst beyond comprehension.
Another 4 years of being the official no. 1 fly tip capital of the UK too.
Perry got 35,871 votes, around 31% of all the votes cast. But there are 286,933 people registered to vote in the borough.
That means he only got the support of 12.5% of the electorate, just one in eight registered voters. Perry has not got an electoral mandate by any stretch of the imagination. But he’s got all the power, and the money that comes with it.
What DEMOC have saddled us with is an elected dictatorship and minority rule that we’re stuck with until at least 2034. You. stupid. bastards.
Has he though? What about the Commissioners?
The council has been in a state of standby for the past nine months or more. There’s an interim chief exec, the interim assistant CEO will soon be gone and they are recruiting for a new finance director.
After four wasted years, we are lumbered with a lame duck Mayor who really ought to have resigned over his part in the £10million LTN shambles, but who will use Thursday’s election outcome to push through measures in a manifesto that remained virtually unseen by the vast majority of the borough’s residents, with policies few would readily accept.
Perry has never been one for teamwork. He has a record of riding roughshod over his own cabinet and holding opposition figures – and the public – in contempt. Saturday’s count of council ward votes may provide more twists in the tail.
Jason Perry didn’t win the mayoral election in Croydon. Keir Starmer lost it.
Can I just say, IC’s coverage of all this has been masterful – a lesson for the hated mass media, which no one reads anyway. Keep up the good work
The results say otherwise. Jason Perry won the mayoral election. Rowenna Davis and the other candidates lost, as did 87.5% of the electorate of Croydon
“Jason Perry didn’t win the mayoral election in Croydon. Keir Starmer lost it.”
Same apllies to boroughs nationwide. Anyone rich or with a brain would of left the UK a while ago. It will become a third world country sooner or later and ppl are either voting extreme left (Green) or extreme right (Reform). If Perry continues his failures and cannot control Croydon Town Centre and its surrounding areas in what the Daily Mail picked up on recently, it certainly sets up Reform and Greens for a win in 4 years time.
Btw, when will Inside Croydon finally get that exclusive interview with Mayor Perry together with lie detector test?
We’re working on it, Charly. Have just published a 1,000-word invitation to Perry to put his record to proper scrutiny.
I suppose Piss-Poor’s attempts at coercive control are muted by the expensive but ineffective Government Commissioners (no fewer than four of them), who are supposed to be sorting Croydon out, but are no better than Piss-Poor himself at fixing the council’s finances (?)
The Polymarket betting was manipulated from the moment it opened a month ago (huge volume for Rowena Davis, equally huge money against Ben Flook, but tiny relative volume on Jason Perry and Peter Underwood). It was not subtle.
This was used to seed articles about how Davis was leading the polls.
A large amount of money was lost here, and in that sense, Democracy has prevailed.
I have lived in Croydon for most of my 66 years.
I love my town despite what others might say.
If it’s dirty it’s because there are not enough bins.
But ashamed I would be if some pointless twat voted for Reform.
It would help if there more things for adolescents to do that aren’t extortionately expensive. Equally stuff for families to do.
There was a brilliant and free activity in the Whitgift while back. Just a bunch of polls with reels of coloured ropes to unravel. Simple but perfect. More of the same councillors!!