Starmer no-shows at secret Labor rally at Fairfield Halls – Inside Croydon

WALTER CRONXITE, our political editor, wasted his morning in coming to see a toolmaker’s son, who ducked away at the first hint of awkward questions, and so missed the mess made of Croydon by his Labor colleagues.

The Labor Party appears to be still in denial about the damage its members did to Croydon when they crashed the council’s finances after planning to hold a pre-election rally this morning outside Fairfield Halls, which stands as a lasting monument to them. gross mismanagement.

Monument of Failure: the botched £70m refurbishment of Fairfield Halls was a significant factor in Labour’s collapse of the council’s finances

But what promised to be a potential car crash for Keith Starmer’s election battle bus was subject to a last-minute diversion. It could be looked back on as a lucky escape.

Under the management of the now discredited council, Tony Newman, the Fairfield Halls arts center was closed for more than two years for a £30m refurbishment and upgrade. The project was supposed to have been managed by Brick by Brick, the council-owned housing company which borrowed £200m and never made a profit.

Once contractors cleared the site in 2019, little of the promised refurbishment had been completed and Brick by Brick left the Labour-controlled council with a budget-busting £70m works bill. Just over a year later, Newman was forced to resign as leader, external auditors published the first of two damning reports, and the board effectively declared bankruptcy for the first time.

However, none of this recent local history appears to be bothering Starmer’s Labor Party as they head for what is tipped to be a landslide General Election victory on July 4.

Shameless Labor were planning to use Fairfield Halls as the backdrop for their latest party rally today.

Keeping people in the dark: Sarah Jones wants to be MP for Croydon West

Even the borough’s Labor MPs, who stood by and watched their party colleagues bankrupt the borough, seem oblivious, four years on, to how toxic the association with Brick by Brick omnishambles and Newman’s council remains for residents from Croydon.

“They are crazy?” said a senior Katharine Street figure when told of Labour’s cunning Baldrick-level plan.

“They want to put a senior party figure, possibly even the next prime minister, in front of the building that contributed to the collapse of the local council under Labour?

“What campaign genius dreamed this up? It’s right down there with putting Rishi in front of an “Exit” sign. Obvious to some, not so much to others.

So, late yesterday evening Sarah Jones, who is seeking re-election to Parliament for the new constituency of Croydon West, sent a rambling email to party loyalists under the bizarre headline ‘Change is coming! beep beep”.

Jones, who has been MP for Croydon Central since 2017, had a ringside seat to witness Newman’s nasty and incompetent council. Last night she wrote to her fans: ‘The road to number 10 goes through Croydon.

“Join me, Ben and Natasha (plus a very special guest) Tomorrow…”, Jones’ own capitals, “at 10am outside Fairfield Halls”.

“Ben” and “Natasha” are Ben Taylor (Croydon South) and Natasha Irons (Croydon East), who hope to ride Jones’ tail to Westminster (note how Steve Reed OBE, MP for Croydon North since 2012 and one of more staunch Newman supporters, seems to have lost all interest in the Croydon part of his new constituency of Streatham and Croydon North).

“You won’t want to miss it,” Jones implored, before providing a link for people to indicate their intent to attend. “See you there!” Jones gushed.

There has been considerable speculation as to who the ‘very special guest’ might be, perhaps arriving in a special ‘battle bus’ campaign? Could it be Angela Rayner and her charabanc with its own fridge?

Or could it be the tool’s son himself?

In the end, Labour’s Fairfield Halls rally plans were scrapped in the early hours of this morning amid fears that word had got out and members of the public, even some voters, might have turned up. A small group of slightly older Croydon residents, some carrying “No Ceasefire, No Vote” signs, arrived, only to be turned down by the workers. Not for the first time.

“Threat to security”: the group of demonstrators who turned up at Fairfield Halls hoping to confront Starmer about his stance on the Gaza genocide

Many of those Labor members who turned up on a fool’s errand were convinced they would get to greet the Great Labor Leader.

Some were told the event was canceled “for security reasons”. Seriously.

Contrast this with the visit to Croydon in 2017 on the first day of that election campaign, when Jeremy Corbyn attracted large crowds of supporters, well-wishers and the simply curious, as he walked through North End shoppers with barely a police officer . sight, handshake and actual engagement with real people as he walked.

Within weeks Labor had shocked the polls and the Tories and Sarah Jones was the new Labor MP for Croydon Central.

These days, it seems, Jones and the rest of the Labor Party can’t be bothered.

The latest edition of Private magazine pointed out that Rishi Sunak, Ed Davey and Starmer assiduously avoid anything like contact with real people, while many of their party candidates deliberately sabotage public events by refusing to appear.

Jones, for her part, has so far failed to respond to emails or phone calls inviting her to respond Inside Croydon readers’ questions – even with questions directed to her well in advance of the interview (a particularly flattering and generous practice, and not something we would normally do).

“For all the banners that say ‘CHANGE,'” the eyes’His political correspondent writes: “Starmer has been extremely cautious, largely confining himself to short, controlled speeches to hand-picked supporters.” “The bus landings,” they wrote, “…lasted little more than a few minutes, a temporary stage being hastily packed back into the boot of the coach once the Labor leader had done a minute or two of sloganeering in front of Labor colleagues “.

Control Avoidance: Shadow cabinet member Liz Kendall was in Croydon on Tuesday with candidate Ben Taylor. Journalists were not invited

And so it was in Croydon.

On Tuesday, Liz Kendall – the vacant Leicester MP who got 4% of the vote when she ran for the Labor leadership in 2015 – was in Croydon for an event with Taylor. Labor did not invite any journalists to the event, held at Saffron Valley Collegiate on Croydon High Street.

Instead, a day after the event, they sent out images and a press release, expecting intrepid hacks to regurgitate Kendall’s ramblings.

“Same everywhere,” said a veteran, left-wing political commentator Inside Croydon. “I won’t vote for the bastards.”

As this site reported earlier this week: “Political parties may say they want your vote, but residents feel that in most of Croydon, not much effort is being made to win that vote. Midway through the 2024 general election campaign and Croydon voters in general are being taken for granted.”

And like Eyes notes, there is now a belief among the strategists of the main parties that they must no longer be seen mixing with the public. “Politics is not for little people: that seems to be the message. This may explain why Farage has done well in the opinion polls.”

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