Legacy Youth Zone, Indeed

Steven Downes writes:

Sir Keir Starmer’s niece is a local election candidate in Croydon.

Ellie Sandover is a Labour candidate in Bensham Manor, the second safest Labour ward in the borough.

Sandover was selected in August last year, among the first to be announced of Labour’s full slate of 70 council candidates standing in the local elections next Thursday.

Two of Bensham Manor’s sitting councillors, Eunice O’Dame and Enid Mollyneux, both black women, were blocked by Labour from standing as candidates in 2026. For most of the past four years, Mollyneux has been Labour’s shadow cabinet member for community safety.

Asked about Sandover’s Uncle Keir, one Croydon Labour official today claimed, “That’s news to me,” although they avoided providing an outright denial.

Labour members who live in Bensham Manor say that Sandover’s family relationship to the Prime Minister is known by Croydon MPs Sarah Jones and Natasha Irons. In May and June last year, Sandover worked as a parliamentary intern for Jones, a junior minister in Starmer’s government.

Sandover worked at Croydon’s Legacy Youth Zone for the last year, leaving her position as “youth engagement lead” at the end of March.

In her mid-20s, former BRIT School pupil Sandover has a degree from the Central School of Speech and Drama, and while she was working at Legacy and in Sarah Jones’s parliamentary office last year, she also managed to complete her Masters in law.

Sandover’s mother is Katy Swabey, one of Sir Keir’s three siblings, and the twin of Nick Starmer, who died, aged 60, in December 2024.

Swabey, a qualified nurse, works in the care sector. It was Swabey to whom Starmer, when the leader of the opposition, referred to as “my sister is a poorly-paid care worker” in a Prime Minister’s Questions back-and-forth with Boris Johnson in 2021.

Swabey grew up with her brother Keir in Oxted, from where Starmer has said in recent interviews that he would often travel into Croydon to visit the Whitgift Centre. Starmer’s not been seen anywhere near Croydon recently, and Labour campaign strategists probably wouldn’t want the him turning up any time between now and polling day on May 7, for risk of costing Rowenna Davis, Sandover and other candidates even more votes.

Labour members in Bensham Manor have also noted how Sandover has been rarely sighted recently, suggesting that she might have gone on holiday during the short campaign period, though this has not been confirmed.

On social media, at a crucial time in the election campaign, Sandover’s last canvassing selfie was posted on April 9. Flytipping and uneven pavements were the residents’ concerns Sandover heard on that occasion, “no small issues for people in the place they call home”, she tweeted.

Where Sandover’s home might be, though, she won’t say, as Labour members in Bensham Manor are becoming concerned at the way she has been “parachuted into a safe Labour seat”.

One concerned resident said, “Ellie’s a very new member to the party.” The usual requirement by the Labour Party is for those seeking selection as a candidate to have been a member for at least six months – which suggest that Sandover must have been a party member by at least February 2025 were she eligible to be selected that August.

Labour, of course, is used to selection controversies in Croydon, with four people facing charges of cybercrime offences over the 2023 Croydon East parliamentary selection.

Bensham Manor ward is in Croydon West, the constituency of MP Sarah Jones.

“Bensham Manor members disappointed no selection happened,” one member alleged.

“Members are disappointed that Ellie is not doing the work,” they added. Members were already “missing Enid Mollyneaux”, they said.

“Ellie’s not very visible in campaign or community.”

Sandover did not respond to Inside Croydon’s questions today about her uncle who lives in Downing Street, although social media does seem to suggest she has visited No.10 at least once.