Picture
Image
Description
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.
Selected at a poorly-attended meeting of Tory members on Friday night, the local Conservative Federation released no information about its process, although one source suggests that several people did apply for the pretty hopeless-looking task.
Photos from the selection meeting on Friday night show just 17 attendees (including the successful candidate and the selfie-taker). One of those in the post-selection picture is recognisable as William Perry, the toothsome son of the elected Mayor of Croydon, anti-ULEZ vigilante and chair of London South Conservatives. Might Perry’s little Willy have been among the unsuccessful applicants?
Although Streatham was a safe Conservative seat until the 1990s (Duncan Sandys, Churchill’s son-in-law, was the MP for 24 years), the merger of the Lambeth wards of St Leonard’s, Streatham Hill, Streatham South, and Streatham Wells with the Croydon election areas of Crystal Palace and Upper Norwood, Norbury and Pollards Hill, Norbury Park and Thornton Heath offers little prospect of Tory success in 2024.
In 2019, Labour’s Bell Ribeiro-Addy took 54.8% of the vote to hold a 17,690-vote majority over the LibDems, with the Tories a badly beaten third.
Across the constituency boundary in Croydon North (known as “Lambeth South” by this website since 2012), Steve Reed OBE held his seat with a stonking 24,673-vote majority.
Third in that election was the Liberal Democrat Claire Bonham, now a councillor in Croydon and her party’s candidate for Streatham and Croydon North when the General Election takes place.
Reed, one of Keir Starmer’s most devoted supporters, has shunted Ribeiro-Addy northwards in the constituency reorganisation and looks nailed on to hold the new seat for Labour.
So Tory Boutall will be making up the numbers, perhaps with a view of gaining some campaign experience ahead of more winnable elections in the future.
The head of the politics, philosophy, and economics faculty at Newstead Wood girls’ school, Boutall told Inside Croydon, “I used to work in The City, where I was involved for a period of time with increasing female representation on FTSE 100 and 250 boards.”
He says he began his teaching career in a “requires improvement” state comprehensive, “which was brilliantly rewarding and an excellent training ground”. More recently, he had two years leading the philosophy and theology Oxbridge applicants at fee-paying Whitgift School in South Croydon.
Of his time as a councillor for Bedford’s Kempston Central and East ward between 2015 and 2019, Boutall says he overturned a relatively significant Labour majority.
“During that period, I secured my ward’s fair share of road funding after years of neglect, stood up against councillors’ pay increases and helped tackle antisocial behaviour.”
He was also busy writing columns for Conservative Home (a sure sign of someone harbouring ambitions for higher political office), in which he tried to blame everything, from Tory cuts to local councils to dog shit on our streets, on Britain’s membership of the European Union. Oh well…
Now a prospective parliamentary candidate, Boutall says, “We have many brilliantly generous, hard-working, community-spirited people in this part of the world. I am keen to do well by them.
“I’m passionate about issues facing people in Streatham and Croydon North, including housing, crime, and recent local traffic policies, which often cause most harm to those who are most vulnerable.”
Looks like Steve Reed will be dealing with ULEZ and LTNs as an election issue once again…
Reed more: #TheLabourFiles: MP Reed, Evans and the Croydon connection
Reed more: #TheLabourFiles: Whip letters prove they knew hack was illegal
Reed more: Starmer reshuffle sees Croydon MP Reed shunted to DEFRA
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
For more information on MyT’s comprehensive bookkeeping solutions, click here
Inside Croydon – If you want real journalism, delivering real news, from a publication that is actually based in the borough, please consider paying for it. Sign up today: click here for more details
If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, or want to publicise your residents’ association or business, or if you have a local event to promote, please email us with full details at inside.croydon@btinternet.com
As featured on Google News Showcase
We offer FREE ads to community groups when they have members who are paid subscribers to Inside Croydon
Our comments section on every report provides all readers with an immediate “right of reply” on all our content. Our comments policy can be read by clicking here
Inside Croydon is a member of the Independent Community News Network
Inside Croydon works together with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, as well as BBC London News and ITV London