On the eve of Labour’s annual conference in Liverpool, a three-part television investigation is set to rock the party’s hierarchy, from General Secretary David Evans downwards, with many shocking revelations drawn from what the producers describe as “the biggest leak of confidential documents in British political history”.
Starring role: David Evans features in tonight’s Al Jazeera exposé of the Labour Party’s dirty tricks
The first hour-long episode of a series called The Labour Files, goes out tonight at 9pm on the Al Jazeera English channel.
The programme has been made by the same undercover investigations unit who in 2017 exposed the role of Israeli embassy officials in infiltrating the Labour Party to destabilise the party’s then leader, Jeremy Corbyn.
Tonight’s first part, “The Purge”, includes David Evans, the controversial Croydon-based political lobbyist who was appointed Labour General Secretary by Sir Keir Starmer when he became leader in 2020. Evans was very close to the Labour cabal in Croydon which crashed the council’s finances – though not before his company had received hundreds of thousands of pounds in Town Hall business.
Further episodes of the programme follow on Saturday (“The Crisis”) and Monday (“The Hierarchy”), with Marc Wadsworth, a lifelong anti-racism activist from Croydon who was expelled from the party without a hearing after baseless accusations of antisemitism, also to appear. Continue reading
After negotiating the crisis of covid and delivering the Elizabeth Line, Andy Byford presents the Mayor of London with a new challenge: finding his replacement. By our transport correspondent, JEREMY CLACKSON
One-way ticket: after two-and-a-half years as TfL Commissioner, Andy Byford’s returning to the US
Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, has been confronted with a new crisis over the running of the capital’s public transport system with the shock resignation of Andy Byford, his £355,000 per year TfL Commissioner.
Byford announced his resignation today after just a couple of years in the job.
The departure of the man known as “The Train Daddy” has been described as “a big loss for London”.
Christian Wolmar, the widely respected transport expert who has written the definitive history of Crossrail, described Byford as “a lovely fellow” and told Inside Croydon today that Byford “probably always intended to see Crossrail through and then leave. He is essentially a projects man”. Continue reading
Ahead of tomorrow’s ‘mini-Budget’, ANDREW FISHER delves into the murky pool of business interests retained by the millionaire Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Croydon South MP Chris Philp
Millionaire in a hurry: Treasury No2 Chris Philp
Removing the cap on rich bankers’ bonuses, cutting Stamp Duty, slashing Corporation Tax and cutting taxes on higher earners. Thatcherism is well and truly back in today’s Conservative Party.
Trickle-down economics is being repeated with a subtext of “Yes, we’re giving huge tax breaks to the rich, but it will benefit everyone … honest”.
Of course, trickle-down economics didn’t work the first time round in the 1980s – inequality doubled, growth slowed and poverty increased.
This first as tragedy, second time as farce economic strategy in the new government under Liz Truss is being overseen by her Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng and Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Croydon South MP Chris Philp. Continue reading
Ominous: the council-issued CGI of a new ‘smart’ bus shelter, positioned outside the Fairfield Halls
CROYDON IN CRISIS: A former government minister under Tony Blair helped to broker the deal with an unproven tech company promising the council £6.8m in advertising income from ‘smart’ bus shelters – but that is all in jeopardy, with the company having court judgements for tens of thousands of pounds of unpaid bills.
EXCLUSIVE by STEVEN DOWNES
The tech company which the council announced in 2021 had signed up for a 10-year contract to supply “smart” bus shelters around the borough could soon be facing a winding-up order.
Not a single “smart” bus shelter has yet been delivered or installed.
Valo Smart City UK Ltd was only registered as a company in this country in August 2020, but within a few months they had sealed the deal with Croydon to supply 185 bus shelters fitted with a host of hi-tech monitoring devices, as well as delivering on-street free wi-fi, and promising that they would generate £6.8million in income for the cash-strapped council from road-side ads over the course of the contract.
The deal between Croydon and Valo Smart City was one of the first commercial agreements for the council under its then new chief executive, Katherine Kerswell. Continue reading
CROYDON IN CRISIS: MP says the latest round of funding cuts to services delivered by mental health charity are ‘devastating’. By STEVEN DOWNES
Mind in Croydon is to close two of its support services for people living with complex, long-term mental health conditions, after Croydon Council cut the services’ funding.
The Employment Support Service, which has provided one-to-one support and guidance for people in the borough for nearly 20 years, has had its funding completely withdrawn after a review of Adult Social Care contracts by the council. The Employment Support Service helped their final client last week.
The specialist Welfare Benefits Advice and Casework Service has also been cut, though some limited services will continue until next March, after Mind in Croydon trustees stepped in to provide funding from the charity to support people already using the service and who are waiting for dates for welfare benefits appeals to be heard. Continue reading
Saxon remains: one of the graves excavated at Lion Green Road by the Museum of London archaeologists
The lengthy delays over the development of 157 flats on the Lion Green Road car park in Coulsdon may now be over, as an important archaeological dig has been completed after finding 18 graves on the site.
All are believed to be Saxon and six skeletons were found buried with iron knives in their left hand.
Previously, Roman burials and the remains of a dog had been discovered at the same site. Continue reading
Locals living near Selhurst Park have organised to oppose the new stand – despite being frozen out of meetings by their Labour councillors
Two residents’ associations in the area around Selhurst Park, together with council tenants whose homes are under threat of demolition, have joined forces to oppose the £100million new stand being proposed by Crystal Palace Football Club.
Campaign leaflets: residents are spreading their opposition to the £100m planned new stand at Selhurst Park
Frozen out of meetings by their own elected councillors, residents of Rothesay Road, Farnley Road and Wooderson Close, together with the Holmesdale Residents’ Association and Pembroke Road RA, held their own meeting last week at which they agreed to show a red card to the Palace redevelopment.
Leaflets being distributed in the area claim that only eight full-time jobs will be created in Croydon by the new stand. “The local community deserves more,” the leaflet states.
They also reckon that the new stand, with its emphasis on corporate hospitality boxes, is aimed at “the prawn sandwich brigade”, offering little for season ticket-holders and regular Eagles fans.
“The design is brilliant at celebrating arrival to the ground, but… all the focus is on corporate hospitality, looking away from the pitch and on to private homes [and] gardens.
“You the fans deserve a better stadium, let’s… give this application the red card!”
CROYDON IN CRISIS: Serious questions have been raised about the behaviour of the Mayor-backed security staff drafted into the town centre supposedly to deter anti-social behaviour.
EXCLUSIVE by STEVEN DOWNES
No-go zone: Croydon Council has just closed its PSPO consultation on the town centre, where Croydon BID is paying for a private police force
An investigation is being conducted into the behaviour of a town centre “ranger”, an employee of the private security firm hired by Croydon BID, after an unsavoury incident on North End which left an eight-year-old child terrified.
The boy’s father has called the security guards “thugs” and described their behaviour as “no better than football hooligans”.
Inside Croydon reported earlier this month how Croydon BID – the town centre business improvement district organisation, representing most of the big businesses and retailers based in and around the Whitgift Centre – had contracted Dorset-based SWL Security Services to send out uniformed patrols around North End and surrounding areas.
Croydon BID says that its street ranger team, all dressed up in dark blue to make them look more than a bit like proper police officers, have been recruited “to deter crime and anti-social behaviour, and provide the necessary support, visibility, and reassurance to businesses and all those that use Croydon town centre”. Continue reading
Depression drama: Twopence To Cross The Mersey is set in 1930s Liverpool
The first national tour of Helen Forrester’s Twopence To Cross The Mersey is coming to Croydon’s Fairfield Halls next month.
The new touring production of Twopence To Cross The Mersey is produced by Rob Fennah and Lynn McDermott and directed by Gareth Tudor Price.
Forrester – born June Huband on the Wirral in 1919 – was the eldest of seven children of what have been described as “inept, socialite, middle-class parents who lived on credit”.
Many of her books are about her up-bringing and life on Merseyside during the Great Depression of the 1930s, and after her father went bankrupt, seeing them evicted from their comfortable family home and forced to live in a single room in Liverpool. Aged 12, as the eldest child, Forrester was kept out of school to look after her brothers and sister. Continue reading
Turtle Bay, the Caribbean-themed bar and restaurant on Croydon High Street, has introduced announced a brand new, tropical cocktail menu together with two “Steel Bottom Beers”, serving up some sunshine as autumn beckons.
Turtle Bay has ramped up its island-style beach bar vibes to keep the heatwave mood going with an expertly curated new cocktail collection, all designed to make the magic of the “Caribbean social” part of the every day here in London.
The new cocktail creations include the Caribbean Candy Sour with Kingston 62 Gold Rum, amaretto and falernum, green melon liqueur, apple, grapefruit and fresh lime: “A wicked sweet and sour blend that will transport guests to sunnier climes in an instant,” say the Turtle Bay bar staff. Continue reading
Croydon celebration: composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor
Croydon’s very own black classical composer is to be celebrated in a prestigious concert at Fairfield Halls on Sunday, October 9, part of the arts venue’s programme of events marking Black History Month.
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor wrote his epic choral work Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast in 1898. It forms the centrepiece of the Fairfield Halls concert, to be sung by the Croydon Philharmonic Choir and the Royal Choral Society, together with the London Mozart Players.
The LMP will also perform Coleridge-Taylor’s ravishing Violin Concerto.
The Croydon Philharmonic will sing Elgar’s choral The Spirit of the Lord and the concert is completed with Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, by Ralph Vaughan Williams. Continue reading
The MP for Croydon South who has lobbied against building blocks of flats in his own constituency has a significant holding in a company which has invested £19.3m in a block of flats near East Croydon Station.
By STEVEN DOWNES
More than seven years after Inside Croydon first raised warning flags over the massive potential for multi-million-pound conflicts of interest over the Conservative MP for Croydon South’s businesses, and mainstream media has woken up to the inherent risks of placing property development investor Chris Philp into the key job as No2 at the Treasury.
Brass plaque or brass neck?: Treasury new boy Chris Philp is drawing attention because of his business interests
Philp was elevated to the role of Chief Secretary to the Treasury in new Prime Minister Liz Truss’s government reshuffle.
Philp was the founder of Pluto Finance. In 2015, when elected as Croydon South MP, he stepped back from day-to-day involvement, but he has maintained a significant stake in the business ever since.
Pluto Finance offers multi-million-pound loans to property developers.
For example, in April this year, Pluto provided a £19.3million “debt facility” to Pocket Homes for their recently completed development of 153 flats in a tower block at Addiscombe Grove, close to East Croydon Station.
Pluto’s enthusiasm for building tall towers of flats might seem in marked contrast to Philp’s own public position as MP for Croydon South, when he has repeatedly opposed housing developments in his constituency, including some offering “affordable” housing.
In his new Treasury job, Philp will have responsibility for spending policy in relation to, among other things, housing and planning. Continue reading
Ripe for development?: Farthing Downs and other protected open spaces make up one-quarter of the land in Croydon’s local authority area
Our housing correspondent, BARRATT HOLMES, on how changes at the Department for Levelling Up could signal a change in attitude to areas protected from development
War on Nimbyism: new DLUHC minister Simon Clarke
After years of Tory councillors, their friends running residents’ associations in the south of the borough, and MP Chris Philp all campaigning ferociously against even the suggestion of any development on Croydon’s Green Belt, the new Conservative government under Prime Minister Liz Truss appears ready to start concreting over swathes of previously protected land.
At least, that’s the suggestion made in the latest missive from London Communication Agency, a consultancy which is across all things London, from its politics, to its policing, to business, and its planning.
They say that the new government’s policy on Green Belt is “rather enigmatic”.
They note that in 2018, Simon Clarke, installed this month as the new Levelling Up Secretary, wrote a paper calling on the government “to unlock Green Belt land within a half-mile radius of train stations to construct 1.5million new houses”. Continue reading
While most council services have shut down for the bank holiday weekend ahead of Monday’s solemn royal ceremonials, Veolia staff have been told that if they don’t show up for work, they could be fired.
EXCLUSIVE by STEVEN DOWNES
Taking out the rubbish: staff working the bin lorries in Croydon have been threatened with the sack if they don’t work on Bank Holiday Monday
Croydon’s bin workers have been threatened with the sack if they don’t turn up for work on Monday, the day of the Queen’s funeral.
Monday September 19 was declared a bank holiday by the new king, Charles, at his accession proclamation last Saturday.
Yet while most other council services are closed for the day, and Croydon’s part-time Mayor Jason Perry has seized the opportunity to cancel Town Hall business for 10 days, the refuse workers have been ordered that they must work, or face disciplinary action, even the risk of being fired.
According to our sources at the main Croydon depot at Factory Lane, “It’s not Veolia, our employers, who have made this decision.
“It’s the council that’s insisting that we work.” Continue reading
Volunteers will take part in the biggest community clean-up of plastic in the River Thames and its tributaries, including the River Wandle, over the next month.
Rubbish haul: volunteers in last year’s Plasticblitz with some of what they cleared on the foreshore
“Plasticblitz” is being organised by environmental charity Thames21 for the second year.
Thames21 will also team up with community organisation Rotary in the Thames Valley to lead a total of 40 groups to clear litter from these rivers and their banks from the river’s source in Gloucestershire all the way to the estuary marshes at Rainham close to where the Thames enters the sea. Continue reading
One of the country’s leading pension advisors has called on government to take all necessary steps to help everyone, including the less well-off, to plan for their retirements in the midst of the cost-of-living crisis.
Signing on the dotted line: but have your pension plans been affected by soaring inflation?
One-fifth of adults aged 40 and over across the country have delayed their planned retirement date because of the cost-of-living crisis, according to new research by My Pension Expert.
The pension adviser commissioned an independent survey of 1,254 adults and found 37per cent of those in work believe the cost-of-living crisis has made retirement impossible for the foreseeable future. The responses were exactly the same across two age groups surveyed – 40 to 54 and over 55s.
One-in-five (21per cent) have delayed their retirement date due to rising inflation.
Meanwhile, of the over-40s currently in work, 7per cent said they had “unretired” and gone back to work in 2022 because inflation meant they needed to top up their retirement savings. Continue reading
The capital’s transport system expects to be under its greatest strain for a decade this weekend, with hundreds of thousands of extra visitors in the city centre for the funeral of Queen Elizabeth or events associated with the final royal journey.
Check before your travel: there will be operational changes at several city centre Tube stations
“Areas around Westminster, Waterloo and Trafalgar Square, as well as along the South Bank, will be exceptionally busy,” Andy Byford, the Transport for London Commissioner, said today.
“This will lead to busy services and station closures.
“We are doing everything we can to keep our city moving and ensure that people can travel safely over the long weekend, including cancelling all planned engineering works and enhancing some services.” Continue reading
CROYDON IN CRISIS: Late cancellation of an Employment Tribunal hearing this morning avoids the council washing its dirty linen in public.
EXCLUSIVE by STEVEN DOWNES
Golden handshakes, costs and legal bills: the van Dichele Tribunal case will have cost Croydon’s tax-payers a huge sum
Jason Perry, Croydon’s part-time Mayor, could soon be asked to rubber-stamp another expensive “golden handshake” for a former senior council staffer, after an Employment Tribunal that was due to be heard this morning was called off at the last minute.
The Labour majority on that appointments committee, chaired by Tony Newman, waved through the massive payment for Negreedy, wrapped up in all kinds of non-disclosure agreements, intended to buy the civic executive’s silence over her calamitous time in charge of the council ahead of its financial collapse.
Perry was one of two Conservative councillors serving on the committee then, and is assumed to have voted against (the official record of the meeting is a little vague on the detail).
This time, as the borough’s elected Mayor, Perry may have little choice but to approve a payment likely to run into high five figures to Guy van Dichele, who until February last year was Croydon’s executive director for health, wellbeing and adults.
Heading south: the bird life is changing, slowly, as migratories such as wheatears are spotted on Farthing Downs
The weather has turned.
And the City Commons Rangers have begun to notice the difference in the wild birds arriving on Farthing Downs, and noted in their latest newsletter.
September signifies a change in birdlife with many species on the move as breeding season comes to an end. Summer visitors begin to depart and head south for warmer climates. A handful of wheatear and whinchat on their journey south. Continue reading
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