Too many people are sitting at home screaming at the news or getting het up on Twitter. Stand Up For Labour gives people a chance to have a laugh and see for themselves that they are not alone in opposition to the government

In 2010 I was just another comedian performing at all the worst comedy venues in London, working my way from 10 minutes … Read More »

Mark Thomas has made a career out of troublemaking. Now the comedian, activist, and iconoclast is bringing his new show to Croydon, in more ways than one. Tom Black had a chance to chew the fat with the man

Mark Thomas seems to be the man of the hour in an increasingly dissenting age. It was he, after all, who crowd-sourced a policy document … Read More »

Sutton Council’s decision over building an incinerator at Beddington Lane was deferred on 24 April. Now, sooner than expected, the Planning Committee is sitting again to make its deferred decision. The Citizen will bring you the result as it happens

At 8pm on Wednesday, the Sutton Planning Committee will reconvene at Sutton Civic Centre to approve or block an incinerator at Beddington Lane. The controversy stems from … Read More »

Croydon Central’s MP is to take questions from the public on the NHS, and The Citizen will be covering it live

At 7:30pm tomorrow, Gavin Barwell, the Conservative MP for Croydon Central, will be holding a public meeting at Croydon Town Hall about the controversial NHS reforms that the government has been undertaking. His last such meeting, about ‘the benefit changes’, was well-attended and led … Read More »

After Labour activist Tom Black’s article on the Citizen, Conservative Mario Creatura responds with some thoughts on all-women shortlists

Subjectivity is ultimately where the danger lies in the selection of parliamentary candidates. The bureaucratic, political, and democratic process by which we elect our representatives has been forged over hundreds of years, contains checks and balances, and theoretically acts as a filtration method for … Read More »

West Croydon devotee Terry Coleman shares his thoughts on the symbolic West Croydon Church, and its history in a multi-faith, riot-torn area

On 22nd August 2011 I was called to a meeting at the Oshwal Centre, at No. 1 Campbell Road in Croydon. The meeting had been arranged by our then MP Malcolm Wicks and its purpose was to discuss the riot that … Read More »

Tom Black got more than he bargained for when he livetweeted last night’s planning meeting – and not just from the Stop The Incinerator campaign. Read our complete livetweet here

The atmosphere was tense last night at Sutton Civic Hall. The protest against the incinerator by the Stop The Incinerator campaign (whose arguments are partly laid out here) was a friendly but determined affair, featuring various … Read More »

The HPA say there are no significant risks and the planning officer report approves it. Why are so many people passionately opposed to an incinerator on the Croydon/Sutton border?

You don’t have to be an eco-warrior to think that building an incinerator on Metropolitan Open Land (effectively Green Belt) is a probably a bad idea. I’ll come clean. I think it’s a shocker. So much … Read More »

With St George’s Day almost upon us, Andrew Dickinson laments the neglect of a site bearing the Anatolian dragon-slayer’s name

I will never cease to be amazed at the lack of interest and occasion that St George’s Day brings. It reminds me of one evening last week when I took a walk into town (after not having gone in for a couple of … Read More »

Andrew Dickinson sheds some light on the river that was once our ancestors’ lifeblood

We humans are watery creatures. Evolution tells us that life started in the seas and then moved on to dry land and evolved from there. In pregnancy, the foetus is carried in a watery sac of amniotic fluid and we are born with a mammalian diving reflex. Our bodies … Read More »