Inside Croydon

As postal voters start to receive their ballot papers ahead of the General Election on July 4, others in parts of Croydon are beginning to feel that their votes are being taken for granted by Tories and Labour, as our political editor, WALTER CRONXITE, explains

Without wanting to be too Orwellian, all voters are equal but some voters are more equal than others.

If you have a question to put to an election candidate, or to a political party which is seeking your vote in Croydon, here’s a way you can try to get some answers

Hustings used to be the way for the election candidates to be assessed and judged by the voting public: a grand Town Hall event, packed out with an electorate, many of them eager to put their own questions to the individuals who fancied that they could represent the constituency at Westminster for the next five years.

Sunday will be a bit of a homecoming for Sadia Kabeya, the outstanding player in England’s outstanding, Grand Slam-winning women’s rugby team.

Kabeya, 22, plays flanker for Loughborough and England, and was recently voted England’s Player of the Year.

But the former pupil at Harris City Academy at Crystal Palace started playing rugby in her teens at Frant Road, with Streatham and Croydon RFC, and she’ll be back there this weekend to encourage the next generation of Croydon girls’ sporting talent.

The 23rd Streatham Common Kite Day will take place on Sunday May 12.

From 11am to 5pm, London’s only free family-friendly kite festival combines world-class kite displays with the opportunity to fly your own.

Thousands flocked to Streatham Common Kite Day in 2023 to see the displays, fly a kite and sample the delicious food and drink on offer at the stalls. The organisers expect similar numbers again this year.

There will be a strange, sad, empty space on a bench near the boundary of the Old Whitgiftians’ Croham Road cricket ground in South Croydon this summer.

It is a spot where Raman Subba Row used to sit in the shade, half a pint of cool cider in hand, watching the Old Whitgiftians -OWs – team play and happy to chat with any who happened to pass by.

RUGBY ROUND-UP: After ill-tempered local derby clashes which had more cards than Christmas, and a revised formula for relegation that would leave Einstein confused, JOHNNY DOBBYN pulls on his flanker’s jersey, right, for the final time this season to preview this Saturday’s crunch fixtures

LABOUR SELECTION SCANDAL: More allegations of rigged votes in dodgy Labour candidate selections trace the affair straight back to Croydon and the deal done between a ‘Newman Numpty’ councillor and party General Secretary David Evans, reports STEVEN DOWNES

Momentum, the Labour members’ group, is demanding the immediate suspension of the use of online voting tool Anonyvoter in party selections until its use has been subjected to a thorough, independent investigation.

The Green Party has named Scott Ainslie as their parliamentary candidate for the new seat of Streatham and Croydon North.

Ainslie is a former MEP (remember them?) and has been a councillor in Lambeth since 2014 for St Leonard’s ward, which lies at the heart of the new cross-borough constituency.

Ainslie, an actor as well as an activist, is expected to be the closest rival to Labour’s Steve Reed OBE when the General Election is held. While Lambeth’s Greens lost three of their five council seats at the 2022 local elections, Brixton Town Hall now has zero Tories…

Our Lambeth correspondent, KEN INGTON, on the latest scandal that threatens to cause ructions at Brixton Town Hall Labour has again outraged its own members for a purge of four councillors in Lambe…

The Tories have picked Anthony Boutall, an assistant head at an Orpington grammar school, as their General Election candidate in the re-jigged constituency of Streatham and Croydon North.

In his 20s, Boutall served as a councillor but in Bedford, not in south London. A self-professed reader of Inside Croydon, he has lived in Croydon and Crystal Palace for the past five years.