the seats facing the ‘Croydon Effect’ – Inside Croydon

In the second part of our General Election special, Political Editor WALTER CRONXITE casts his expert eye further afield to Sutton and Bromley, and even into Surrey’s stockbrokers belt.

Alone: Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced the date of general elections

Compared to Croydon, it is a completely different political landscape in Sutton, where the Lib Dems look certain to take at least one of the two seats from the Tories.

Labor is also a candidate here and has shown a half-hearted approach to the contests by only announcing candidates in the last two days, but could take enough votes to halt the FibDems’ progress.

Seat boundaries are very little changed in Sutton, where contests for Carshalton and Wallington (held from 2019 by Tory Elliot Colburn) and Sutton and Cheam (where Tory MP Paul Scully is standing down after nine years at Westminster) are potentially more interesting than some of the earlier conclusions from Croydon.

Carshalton and Wallington

Bobby Dean’s Dog: probably more so than many of the candidates

The collapse of Labour’s vote in the recent St Helier West by-election, for a council seat they won in 2022, to just 18% is a bleak outlook for the party. The Conservatives won that ward seat, but by just six votes from the LibDems.

The electoral calculation sees a 60% chance of Wrythe’s Liberal Democrat councilor Bobby Dean winning back the Carshalton and Wallington seat, which was previously held for the LibDems by Tom Brake.

Colburn is seen as having a 26% chance of holding on for the Conservatives. Colburn will take a boost from winning the by-election, reflecting how the Tories are doing well in former council holdings. But Carshalton and Wallington is much more than the St Helier Estate and Dean’s team has been saturating the constituency with leaflets, dodgy bar charts and pictures of his dog, Chester, for over a year. Dean also campaigned for sewerage in the River Wandle.

The regional Labor office has just elected someone called Hersh Thaker, from Northwood in Uxbridge, who the local party says it is “looking forward to” in Carshalton. It looks like Labor won’t do much here and will more likely help their party’s campaign in Croydon South. It’s almost as if, in choosing such a paper-thin candidate, Labor is signaling voters to tactically vote LibDem.

Labor Party candidate George Galloway is also likely to be here.

Sutton and Cheam

There could be real fireworks in this constituency, not just between the LibDems and Tories, but an ongoing ‘orange on orange’ internal conflict over a long-running contested selection.

Candidate required: as Labor announced yesterday in London candidate Sutton and Cheam

Labor’s announcement of Chrishni Reshekaron as their Sutton and Cheam candidate yesterday was the latest demonstration of the party’s tendency to control freaks by imposing a candidate without local members having any say in shortlisting and selection, complaining at the same time about the abysmal internal communications around the announcement.

For Croydon Labour, the imposition of the West Thornton councilor is at least a sign of the gradual easing of the shutdown by Labor HQ officials following the party’s bankruptcy of Croydon Council.

Reshekaron was the second Croydon councilor to be installed as a parliamentary candidate in less than a week, following Jess(ica) Rich/Hammersley-Rich’s imposition on the good people of Surrey Heath. Neither Reshekaron nor Rich/Hammersley-Rich were councilors in Croydon before 2022.

Two more Croydon Labor figures emerged as parliamentary candidates today as the National Executive Committee scrambles to clear vacancies it has had months to prepare for. Councilor Eunice O’Dame was parachuted in as the NEC-endorsed candidate in LibDem-held Kingston and Surbiton, while South Croydon rugby player-turned-lawyer Stuart Brady was given the tough task of taking the belt of stockbrokers Reigate from the Tories.

At least Brady can take solace in having been shortlisted for Reigate, one of a number of seats that Croydon Tory councilor Mario Creatura has unsuccessfully lobbied for… Still, there are still days to go before the declaration deadline, and Gavin Barwell’s former gobby I make totem he might yet find his name on the ballot for a lost cause somewhere.

Sutton has a significant Tamil vote. Reshekaron’s selection may mean more Tamil votes go Labour’s way in Sutton and Cheam, although it is hard to see the twenty-something as anything more than a paper candidate, having been rewarded for delivering thousands of leaflets and smiled sweetly in hundreds of campaign selfies.

Although Electoral Calculus gives the Lib Dems a 47% chance of winning back the Sutton and Cheam seat, that may be too much to ask, especially after two years of self-inflicted damage.

The Liberal Democrats only announced their candidate yesterday.

Material for relegation: Luke Taylor is not universally popular even in the LibDems

Luke Taylor’s obscene quest for an MP seat saw him on a ‘political journey’, staying first in Battersea, then Mitcham and Morden, before finally enlisting in Sutton, where he became a councilor in Sutton West and East Cheam only in 2022. .

That there was a vacancy was, some Sutton insiders suggest, due to more than a little gentle lobbying by Taylor himself to see David Campanale, elected in November 2022, ousted.

Taylor’s selection was confirmed last night amid a flurry of news and announcements about the general election date. He must be hoping to improve on his record at the previous election after losing his Battersea ward, winning just 8% of the vote when he stood in Mitcham and Morden and failing to win a seat on Wandsworth Council in 2010 and at Merton in 2018.

“Let’s face it,” confessed one of Sutton’s board colleagues after the members’ selection votes were counted yesterday, “he’s no Pep Guardiola. More of a Matt Gray,” they said, referring to the former Sutton United manager who left in December with the club doomed to relegation back to non-league football.

Taylor told members at his selection meeting to ignore what they wrote about him Inside Croydon. Taylor probably needs all the publicity he can get with so little time left to impress voters in Sutton and Cheam, with party campaigners preferring to deliver leaflets in Carshalton and Wallington.

The Tories have gone out of their way to help the LibDems here, upsetting incumbent MP Paul Scully, who continues to sulk at not being shortlisted for the Tory bid for London mayor.

Dodgy LibDem Bar Charts: the implication here is clear as Bobby Dean is trying to ‘squeeze’ the Labor vote from Carshalton and Wallington

Sutton Council Conservative group leader Tom Drummond could hold his own here.

Unlike Colburn, who defends a slim majority of 629, Drummond inherits a buffer of 8,351 from his friend Scully.

The LibDem leadership were telling anyone who would listen last night that there are 80 seats across the country where they expect the public to “lend” their vote to oust the Tories – yes, the same Tories who had the door open for No10. them by Ed Davey and his colleagues in 2010, with all the resulting damage to the country as a result.

The Lib Dems don’t have the same public momentum behind them as Labor – they hover around 10% in the national polls – and Sutton and Cheam, their target seat no. 23, will likely prove a tougher challenge for them. Only a national Tory implosion will give this seat to the LibDems.

Bromley

In Bromley, the two Tory Bob MPs, Bob Neill and Bob Stewart, are both out.

Poor fortune: Bromley MP Bob Neill wants to hand over to Peter Fortune (right)

The seats are much redesigned.

Gareth Bacon continues and defends Oprington, but the electoral calculus sees Labor twice as likely as the Tories to win there.

Bacon is a former London Assembly member, as is Peter Fortune, who managed to clinch his Tory selection in Bromley and Biggin Hill just before he had to decide whether to stand again in the recent London election . Fortune is now focusing on the parliamentary seat. He was a Bromley councillor, just over the Croydon border, in Hayes and Coney Hall and was deputy leader of Bromley Council. But Electoral Calculus only gives Fortune an unlucky chance of about 13% to take the new seat.

New limits: Clive Efford is expected to be re-elected in a revised constituency

Boundary changes made Beckenham and Penge a Labor banker this time for Liam Conlan. Conlan’s mother is Sue Gray, Keir Starmer’s chief of staff.

Clive Efford, MP for Eltham since 1997, is expected to enjoy a home run in the revived seat of Greenwich and Bromley, between Eltham and Chislehurst.

All together with the likely results in Croydon, where at least three of the four seats are likely to vote Labour, a Tory ouster may not be absolute. But if the Tories’ national campaign implodes amid the infighting of their MPs, there could be very little blue on the electoral maps this side of south London by the morning of July 5.

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