Local Elections: Croydon.

Since Margret Thatcher's government removed almost all power from local councils during the 1980's local council elections in the UK have been such an irrelevance that normally I don't bother with them. However this year I appear to have talked myself into covering Croydon's local election in a painful level of detail. That's because by raising the prospect of a protest vote I thought there would be a possibility of securing a single council seat at best with the real impact coming in the parties that were voted for and the percentage swing amongst the votes cast. That is obviously going to take me ages to work through.

However the early news from Croydon is that the Labour Party have won control of the council by winning 7 seats from the Conservative Party giving them a majority of 40 seats over the Conservative's 30. This is no great surprise because certainly over the last decade Croydon borough has been a major target for the Labour Party as they've tried to force their way out of the south London inner-city in the suburbs. In fact their failure to secure the Croydon Central seat and only just retain the Croydon North seat at the 2010 Parliamentary election was seen as a major blow for the party.

The way that Labour have been trying to seize control over Croydon though has been particularly worrying because it seems centred on using crime to force out traditional Conservative Party voters such as my father and grandmother. Those properties are then brought by housing associations such as the Notting Hill Housing Trust that are owned by Labour Party members who then fill them with people who often find themselves under an obligation to vote for Labour. In short they're creating a sort of new feudalism where rather then being free to cast their vote as they wish voters instead find their employment and housing status entirely dependent of who they cast their vote for. Rather euphemistically Labour seem to be boasting that their success is the result of their ability to send activists round to people's houses in order to get them to vote.

One of the things that will be interesting to look at in a lot of detail is the percentage of votes for Labour in Croydon that were cast using postal ballots. That's because I was somewhat surprised to discover that my grandmother who died in 2012 was still registered as a voter although - perhaps due to her profile - no-one had cast a postal ballot on her behalf.

Of course why the Labour Party are so desperate to win in Croydon is still a bit of a mystery because despite winning control of Croydon council nationally Labour seem to have been kicked in the face. As the official opposition party just one year ahead of a General Election were hoping to use this election as a show of strength aiming to win between 400 and 500 seats. At the time of writing they've only managed to win 88.

10:45 on 23/5/14 (UK date).