PM Sunak visits Purley – Inside Croydon

At the exit: Chris Philp with Prime Minister (for now) Rishi Sunak at a lunchtime Conservative meeting in Purley. Perry, the part-time Tory mayor of Croydon (pictured left) looks confused

EXCLUSIVE PHOTO: They thought it was some sort of secret link to their local borough of Purley.
But WALTER CRONXITE, political editor, reports on Croydon’s Tory MP’s latest roll of the dice

Photographs: GEORGE BURDICK and HUNTER SQUIRES

Times are tough for ‘Congo’ Chris Philp, who faces the very real prospect of having his parliamentary career washed out in the landslide predicted for tomorrow’s general election.

Opinion polls today show the Tories are on course to lose true Croydon South to Labor in tomorrow’s election – the first time Purley, Kenley, Sanderstead, Selsdon and Coulsdon have ever gone red.

With the latest wide-ranging Survation poll showing Labor 16% ahead of the Tories in Croydon South, a seat where Philp enjoyed a comfortable majority of 12,000 votes in 2019, desperate times call for desperate measures and so at lunchtime today, who should appear at Croydon Tories headquarters in Purley, but Rishi Sunak, the embattled Conservative Prime Minister.

Could things really get any worse for Philp?

John Crace, the Of the Guardian parliamentary sketch writer and BBC presenter Victoria Derbyshire Newsnight, must fear the potential end of Philp’s career as Tory leader. Who will be the top of their jokes in the future? Who could sit on the grill of “Why should we trust you?” and appear completely undisturbed as a Rimmer-like hologram, apart from Philp?

Semi Suburban: Chris Philp’s last big election rally – held in the garden of a Purley house with the UK Prime Minister

Perhaps “irreplaceable” is appropriate for the former Tory MP.

Take care. There are some, on the left and the right, who do not trust the voting numbers. Labor has a weak candidate in Croydon South. How did their lead expand from 2% a week ago to 15%? And what about the ‘Croydon Effect’, of voters living in the bankrupt Labor borough actively voting for the party of Tony Newman, Alison Butler and Paul Scott?

“If Labor couldn’t win the Park Hill and Whitgift council by-elections in May, they won’t win Croydon South in July,” said a senior Croydon Tory. Inside Croydon this week.

However, it is symbolic that on what is probably his last full day as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Rishi Sunak should stop just across the road from Tesco Purley to show his support for Philp the geezer. which helped collapse the economy when a Treasury minister under Thick Lizzy Truss.

The meeting, such as it was, was symptomatic of the ho-hum election and the distant politics of the political elite of 2024. It was held in the back garden of a semi-suburban (the long-serving Croydon Conservative office) with little involvement , if at all, with the voting public. This was for Tory supporters only, a rally of the troops ahead of tomorrow’s push to get the vote out.

Captive audience: Prime Minister Sunak was surrounded by loyal supporters

It’s payback, in a way, for all those morning press rounds where “Congo” Chris blundered his way on TV and radio in defense of the indefensible conservative, banging straight like a political Chris Tavare without deviating never from his line. , but never scored many runs.

It’s a shame Philp never accepted Inside Croydon invitation to answer election questions in Croydon – we wanted to know what it must be like to be a human punching bag on behalf of perhaps the most discredited government in British history. Is he still bruised from the experience? Are there scars?

Today’s poll numbers are almost unrelentingly bleak for Sunak, Philp and the Tories, with the LibDems making gains where Labor is not – in Carshalton and Wallington and Wimbledon, where the Tories are even tipped to slip into third place.

But in a little more than 24 hours, we will real results. And the likes of Ben Taylor, Sarah Jones, Steve Reed and that former Merton councilor who will somehow become an MP, they will really to answer for their actions.

Read more: “All I see is a country divided, more racist and angrier”
Read more: The fundamental dishonesty surrounding this dog whistle election
Read more: This is Tory Britain in 2024: ‘Sometimes you have to be cruel’
Read more: Voters taking it for granted that the “battlefield” is moving south
Read more: Young people have sold their future on the river

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• ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: In January 2024, Croydon was named among the country’s most rotten boroughs for the seventh consecutive year in the annual summary of civic advertising in Private magazine