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| Labour Leaders: Tony Newman with David Christison in Waddon |
The Croydon Labour Party ran a borough-wide campaign calling
for the opening of more public toilets, whilst its leading candidate was secretly
filming men urinating.
Writing in local newspaper
The Croydon Guardian, Councillor Timothy Godfrey who represents the Selhurst
Ward claimed, "Labour Councillors in South Norwood worked hard to find an
appropriate site and negotiated proper toilet facilities in the Station. Only problem
is that Croydon Council have failed to work with the railway company so the
toilets remain shut.”
In another
campaign, Councillor Pat Ryan raised awareness of public toilet provisions,
"There was also a problem with drug users and people loitering about and
intimidating others.”
The news comes as Labour’s flagship Waddon candidate David
Christison is due to be sentenced at Croydon Magistrates' Court after secretly filming
men urinating in the Centrale shopping centre's toilets. David Christison was, until his suspension, one of the
Croydon Labour party’s leading political strategists, serving as Secretary of
West Thornton and leading the group’s campaign in Waddon where he hoped to
become a Councillor.
He is also a close personal friend of Labour Leader Tony
Newman who co-launched a campaign to overturn the Waddon election in the High
Court after Christison lost by 500 votes. It was subsequently revealed that
Christison, who is on benefits, used a legal loophole as a benefits claimant to
ensure the election petition was funded
entirely by taxpayers, to the tune of tens of thousands of pounds. Tony
Newman was then photographed with Christison for the petition in the local
newspapers, the pair were dressed smartly in suits.
But Labour will today be facing serious questions about how
a man like Christison was able to reach the core of the Labour Party and have
such influence over policy in his role in a Senior role as Secretary.
Many see
the latest Labour scandal as part of a wider problem in the Labour Group, where
under the leadership of Tony Newman, some
of the worst and most controversial candidates in living memory have been put
forward for marginal seats.
I think you have missed the point of the legal challenge ...while it's very very unlikely that there would be a last minute rush of voters to propel David Christison onto the Council it's not impossible and the 2010 election was massively underfunded by the council who did not provide adequate facilities for people to vote. This is a scandal ...one that happened in many places up and down the country and Mr Christison's legal challenge was backed by the Labour leadership with the intention of making sure such cock ups do not happen again on May 22 or at the 2015 General Election. Neither did Mr Christison "exploit a legal loophole". He was, at the time, legally entitled to legal aid because he was on benefits. The Conservative government decided to remove the right of legal aid for such challenges which is their prerogative. However the whole sorry episode could have been avoided if Conservatives didn't know the price of everything and the value of nothing. The Labour party has always traditionally had a bigger problem than the Conservatives in getting the vote out and it is hugely annoying and undemocratic when we go to huge expense and effort to pursuade cynical disenfranchised people to actually go out the house to vote only to find that the Council does not seem to be able to properly organise the highly complex business of supplying enough staff to enable everyone to cast a vote. Of course there are situations where not everyone will get a vote (if for example they all turn up with 2 minutes to spare) but this was not the situation in Waddon and many other places around the country where many people were turned away from the polling stations due to a lack of basic investment and administration. How complex and expensive can it be to run a polling station properly? The Council failed in its statutary duty to the public by "underestimating" the number of people who wanted to vote for any party.
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