Croydon Labour’s Shame Over Andrew Pelling

From petition webpage

Croydon Labour is trying to de-select Andrew Pelling as one of the candidates for Waddon Ward in May.

A petition has been launched to support him at:

www.change.org/p/re-instate-andrew-pelling-s-waddon-labour-party-candidacy

I have signed because as the previous posting shows Andrew is trying to be constructive about how to further improve the Council’s finances and governance.

If the argument against Andrew is about talking to and passing information to certain local media, he has every right to do so, regardless of what we may think of the style of journalistic reporting that results. Back in the 1970s I argued at a public meeting that it was our duty to disclose so called confidential information if it exposed wrong-doing, incompetence and inefficiency.

It is a pity that he and other Councillors had not defied the Party Whip on the Council. There are issues on which defying the Whip is essential, as I did occasionally when I was a Councillor in the 1980s.

Gunning for Andrew is despicable given that Alison Butler and Paul Scott have not had been expelled from the Labour Group over their roles in creating the mess the Council is in, and particularly in the case of Butler over the housing management and maintenance scandal.

If Labour wants any credibility in the run up to the May elections in order to have a Labour Mayor and a majority of Labour Councillors it needs to:

• insist that action be dropped against Andrew
• withdraw the Whip from Alison Butler and Paul Scott
• adopt a strategy that includes Andrew’s proposals
• gives priority to competent and efficient delivery of the services that residents use