The Fraud: Keir Starmer, Morgan McSweeney and the Crisis of British Democracy, by Paul Holden, has already been a deeply impactful book which has claimed the scalp of Downing Street’s director of strategy and, quite plausibly, No10’s director of communications, too.
Now investigative journalist Holden talks to Inside Croydon columnist Andrew Fisher about how the fraudulent Labour Together project worked to get Starmer elected as Labour leader and, ultimately, Prime Minister, and how the two leading figures behind it were Morgan McSweeney and Steve Reed.
Both McSweeney and Reed are familiar figures to readers of Inside Croydon. Continue reading
Sutton Station’s old and unreliable lifts have been replaced, giving rail passengers step-free access between platforms and the station concourse once again after a four-month engineering project.
Platform access: Artemis O’Dea makes use of the renewed lifts at Sutton Station
Network Rail finished the lift replacement work in quick order for the busy station which is served by Southern and Thameslink trains. Now wheelchair users, the elderly and parents with children in pushchairs have better access to their transport.
To speed replacement work, engineers for Network Rail worked on all three lifts simultaneously to finish the work in 17 weeks – less than half the time it would have taken if they’d replaced them one by one. The capacity of one of the lifts has also been increased from 16 to 20 people. Continue reading
England’s water companies got their worst combined ratings for environmental performance in 2024, with Thames Water – the private monopoly utility company that serves most of Croydon – being given the lowest rating of one star for “poor” performance.
Double trouble: serious sewage spillages by Thames Water more than doubled in 2023-2024, while water bills increased by 26% in April
Thames and seven of the other eight companies were rated as “needing improvement”. Only one company achieved the top Environment Agency rating of four stars. Severn Trent did so despite having been responsible for 62,085 sewage spills during the year, each averaging seven hours.
In 2023-2024, serious sewage pollution incidents by Thames Water more than doubled, from 14 to 33.
Now even once loyal, £1,000-a-day execs are publicly voicing criticism of Croydon’s former CEO. By STEVEN DOWNES
Katherine Kerswell’s abrupt exit as Croydon’s £204,000 per year chief executive was no surprise to someone who, until just a couple of months ago, was one of the more experienced members of the council’s leadership team.
Kerswell’s departure follows “failed leadership over the last few years”, according to Huw Rhys Lewis BSc, BArch, MSc, MRIBA, MAPM, MRICS, who until three months ago was the council’s interim director of commercial investment and capital – ultimately responsible for flogging off the borough’s assets, a role he had filled for almost two years. Continue reading
SUNDAY SUPPLEMENT: The Third Battle of Ypres in 1917 lasted five months and claimed 300,000 allied casualties. DAVID MORGAN recounts the tragic story of one of them, Captain Henry Willders-Lewis, from Croydon, who died on the first day of the battle, on his 21st birthday
The Roll of Honour which hangs on the wall in Croydon Minster contains the names of men from the parish who died in the Great War.
Killed in battle: Henry Willders-Lewis
One of those casualties was a young man who was killed on his 21st birthday, Henry Willders-Lewis.
His mother, Nora Willders-Lewis, had already been widowed. She lived at Penshurst, 57 Waddon Park Avenue, just up the road from the church. Having lost her husband Henry, a partner in the auctioneer firm of Hince and Lewis based at Cannon Street, she now had to face life without Henry, her only child.
Henry Willders-Lewis was just a couple of years out of College House School, later known as Croydon High School for Boys.
The headmaster for many years was Robert Hawes. He remembered Willders-Lewis as a “good all-rounder” and “a brilliant young cricketer and footballer”. Continue reading
The David Lean Cinema in the Croydon Clocktower will be screening Children of the Wicker Man this Halloween, Friday October 31, followed by a very special question and answer session with the documentary’s maker, and sons of The Wicker Man director Robin Hardy, Dominic and Justin Hardy.
This is the first and only London screening of this retrospective on a classic horror film since its premiere at FrightFest.
The Wicker Man is revered as “The Citizen Kane of horror movies” (Cinefantastique), the 1973 movie ranked at No4 in The Guardian’s list of the 25 Best Horror Films of All Time.
The film even boasts a Croydon connection, with Police Sergeant Neil Howie played by Edward Woodward, who was born in Croydon in 1930. Continue reading
Russia’s attack on London: the arson at this Leyton warehouse last year was linked to Russian mercenaries, the Wagner Group
Four men from Croydon who were part of a Russian “spy ring” which caused £1.3million-worth of damage to a Ukrainian-owned warehouse in London last year have been handed sentences which will see them jointly spend almost 40 years in jail.
One of them, Jake Reeves, 23, was described by the police as one of the ring-leaders.
Reeves pleaded guilty to aggravated arson and to agreeing to accept a material benefit from a foreign intelligence service, contrary to Section 17(2) and (11) of the National Security Act 2023, is one of the first two to be prosecuted using the Act for activity linked to a foreign state. Continue reading
WALTER CRONXITE, Political Editor, reports on what could be a pivotal few weeks for three parties ostensibly to the left of Croydon politics
Your Party in Croydon faces its biggest test yet next week, as it stages its first big meeting with one of the new, leftist party’s co-leaders, MP Zarah Sultana.
New hope: how Your Party is promoting Zarah Sultana’s appearance in Croydon next week
The party which Sultana has founded alongside former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has hit a few bumps in the road since the organisation announced its existence in the summer, with a membership drive that was launched and then suspended amid recriminations between various groups.
Progress towards a national convention, to agree party rules and constitution, and even a proper name, has been less-than-smooth. Even a series of regional conferences has not been without some issues, with attendances at each session limited to 500 people, and south London’s session being announced as being staged in a place called Pcekham. Continue reading
West Thornton councillor Stuart King, the current leader of the Labour group at the Town Hall, has got himself a new job.
New job: Stuart King, Croydon Labour leader
And unlike some of the councillors in his group, King has had no problem making sure that his public declarations of interest are bang up to date…
King has become a director of a newly registered firm of lobbyists for the property industry, Quoin Partners, alongside Peter John, Labour’s former leader of Southwark Council, and Kevin Davis, once the Tory leader in Kingston.
John, Davis and King have all left roles with Terrapin, the public relations firm run by the notorious Peter Bingle, and which played a part in the lobbying of Croydon Council over Crystal Palace’s new main stand at Selhurst Park.
According to a statement, Quoin will “advise developers, investors and operators on navigating the complex political and planning landscape across local authorities, combined authorities and central government”. So much like Terrapin, then. Continue reading
South Norwood man says he was ‘just talking twaddle’ when calling for armed rebellion against pandemic measures
A 60-year-old covid denier with an arsenal of deadly weapons stored in his flat in South Norwood has been found guilty of encouraging terrorism following a two-week trial at the Old Bailey which heard that he had sent tens of thousands of online messages calling for armed uprising and the destruction of national infrastructure.
When Paul Martin was arrested in September 2021, police found a stun gun disguised as a torch, two crossbows with bolts, a large knife, air guns and drones at his flat on Suffolk Road.
Today, Martin is out on bail, awaiting sentencing, after he was found not guilty of possessing the weapons for terrorism-related purposes. Continue reading
Croydon was the worst place in the whole of London for violent crime in the past year, according to a shocking report published this morning based on official figures from the Office for National Statistics.
Perhaps of greatest concern is that these figures come before the latest round of cuts to officers and support staff are implemented at the Metropolitan Police.
The figures show Croydon having three times as much violent crime as neighbouring boroughs such as Sutton and Merton, recalling the time, four years ago, when Croydon was labelled “the knife crime capital of London”.
With 3,214 incidents of “violence with injuries”, ranging from actual bodily harm to life-threatening assaults in the year to June 2025, Croydon had 6% more than the next worst borough in London, city centre Westminster (3,006).
Lambeth, with 2,788 such crimes, was the next worst borough in the capital for violence with injuries. Continue reading
CROYDON IN CRISIS: Council’s assistant CEO forced to cancel retirement plans in order to fill in for her former boss, who is being given a £50,000 pay-off for not working her notice period. By STEVEN DOWNES
Elaine Jackson has been persuaded to postpone her retirement plans in order to provide “cover” following the abrupt departure of her erstwhile boss, Katherine Kerswell.
In the hot seat: Elaine Jackson took the place of Katherine Kerswell alongside piss-poor Perry, the elected Mayor, in the Town Hall Chamber last night
Croydon’s failed Mayor, Jason Perry, announced the move at last night’s meeting of full council in the Town Hall Chamber, with Jackson sitting alongside him in the seat that Kerswell had occupied since 2020.
Perry began the meeting by confirming that he had accepted Kerswell’s resignation, and then tried to perpetuate the myth that he had not agreed to bung the departing chief exec a £50,000 leaving prezzie – equivalent to three months’ salary, paid to her for not working.
That Jackson is being asked to stay on, instead of retiring next month as she had planned, is a direct result of Perry agreeing that Kerswell need not work her notice period.
Bromley’s traffic wardens are preparing for strike action after their employers made an offer to increase their wages by just 50p per hour.
Ticket price: traffic wardens in Bromley employed by APCOA are threatening strike action
Traffic wardens in Bromley are paid £12.21 an hour. APOCA’s offer would have seen their pay increase to £12.71 an hour, still more than £1 per hour less than the London Living Wage of £13.85 per hour.
Other councils, such as Croydon, adopted the London Living Wage as a minimum for its and its contractors’ workers more than 10 years ago.
The workers’ union, the GMB, said it would give notice of industrial action unless Bromley and APCOA, which runs the council’s parking enforcement services, table a “meaningful, backdated pay offer”. Continue reading
CROYDON IN CRISIS: The £204,000 per year council chief exec who gave orders to block staff from reading Inside Croydon has been attracting adverse headlines for 30 years. By STEVEN DOWNES
Absent friends: Mayor Jason Perry goes into tonight’s council meeting without CEO Katherine Kerswell at his side
Katherine Kerswell’s 30-year career in local government will probably be remembered for the generous “rewards for failure”, amounting to more than half-a-million pounds of public money, that she trousered from at least three of the seven councils where she has worked as chief executive, including, of course, Croydon.
More consideration probably ought to be given to the three Section 114 notices that were issued during Kerswell’s time in charge of Croydon Council, which she left without much fanfare last Friday.
No other council leader has presided over more than one S114, so Kerswell’s “hat-trick” of admissions of financial failure in Croydon is an achievement unlikely to be matched. It is certainly nothing to take pride in.
Kerswell probably even has claim to a fourth S114 notice of effective bankruptcy, if you include her part in Nottingham City Council’s notice issued in December 2021, which followed her fleeting spell as interim CEO there in 2020, immediately before she was parachuted into Croydon.
And for three years she was also in charge of Northamptonshire County Council, an authority that later became notorious as the first in England to issue a S114 notice this century. In the case of Northants, that eventually led to the council being broken up altogether. Continue reading
Meanwhile, engineering works will see no tram services between Wimbledon and Therapia Lane for a fortnight
The access ramp at Birkbeck tram stop is to continue to be out of use for a further five weeks, at least, Transport for London announced this morning.
Works began at Birkbeck, on the Beckenham Junction spur of the tram network, in July, removing step-free access from the stop for what was supposed to be three months. Works were scheduled to end on Friday this week.
No ease of access: works at Birkbeck tram stop are over-running by more than a month
But this morning, Mark Davis, TfL’s general manager for its tram services, issued a statement in which he said: “The step-free access ramp at Birkbeck tram stop will remain unavailable until early December to allow for additional improvement works beyond the initial scope, including installing a new handrail and upgrading lighting by replacing columns.” Continue reading
Residents in Upper Norwood staged a protest this week to demand urgent action from Mayor Jason Perry and Croydon Council to tackle dangerous speeding on their road, where police have confirmed some cars are driven at almost three times the speed limit.
Danger spot: residents and a local councillor at their protest against speeding drivers on Spa Hill this week
Spa Hill, off Beulah Hill, is supposed to be a 20mph road but the speed limit is routinely ignored by drivers as they use the residential street, close to schools and nurseries, as a rat run day and night.
Even Croydon Council’s one measure to try to reduce motorists’ speeds, a lamp post with a flashing sign indicating passing vehicles’ speeds, has been hit by a car driven by a dangerous driver. Continue reading
Croydon is one of the locations that will be losing its branch of Pizza Hut, it was confirmed yesterday.
Semi-Colonnades: the Croydon branch is one of 68 Pizza Huts set to close
Pizza Hut in the Colonnades, the Purley Way venue for building supplies, takeaway coffees and a trampoline park, is among the 68 restaurants that will close after its managing company fell into administration for a second time.
An estimated 18 full- and part-time jobs are thought to be affected. Continue reading
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