I’m no fan of the Tories at the moment given the way so many of them (ABC – anonymous briefing cowards) have stabbed David Davis in the back; not to mention some of the attacks on my homeland Northern Ireland (”oversubsidised quango province” – Dan Hannan MEP) and the DUP. And, as Fraser Nelson has pointed out in the Spectator, Project Cameron doesn’t actually stand for anything.
But I do like Boris, though as someone with a professional and personal interest in ethnic minority issues my main concern is that he needs to reach further than the traditionally white Tory electorate in London. This is believe he can do, so I was particularly interested in the latest episode at City Hall.
Whatever you think of rightly sacked former Boris adviser James McGrath’s comment about black people, what is your reaction reading this?
when I pointed out to him a critical comment of Voice columnist Darcus Howe that the election of “Boris Johnson, a right-wing Conservative, might just trigger off a mass exodus of older Caribbean migrants back to our homelands”. He retorted: “Well, let them go if they don’t like it here.”
This remark is a horrible, nasty and uncalled for insult to the many Caribbeans who came to the UK in the post-war years, have worked incredibly hard, and have helped to build this country. They have paid their taxes and have been slapped in the face by a succession of Governments – poor quality education and the abolition of grammar schools, for example, has resulted in fewer than 1 in 20 black Caribbean boys in the UK going to University.
I lived in Wolverhampton for 3 years and black Caribbean people are fantastic, particularly the older generation with their tales of their youth in Jamaica, Trinidad and elsewhere. Many live in some of the most deprived neighbourhoods and many have seen their children and grandchildren been denied the economic opportunities of ‘new Labour Britain’ or ‘cool Britannia’. We were too politically immature in the UK to have affirmative action, which levelled the playing-field in the United States, (except for Northern Ireland where ‘fair employment’ helped Catholics to overcome their disadvantage).
Darcus Howe, who I respect immensely even if I don’t always agree with him, has hit upon a nerve here. Ken Livingstone still enjoys the support of the vast majority of the ethnic minority population of London, particularly black people. It is a democracy and, while many Caribbeans may not be happy that Ken has lost, it is disgusting to say, “let them go if they don’t like it here.”
It appears that Ken will be standing again in 2012 but I’m convinced that, although Boris has many ethnic minority doubters, Boris could yet win them over by governing London well. Having someone like McGrath on his team after what McGrath said about older Caribbeans is just not sustainable – McGrath’s position was untenable. I just don’t agree with the “PC gone mad” posts of Conservative Home and Iain Dale (the latter who goes further by attacking his own elected Conservative London Mayor, calling him ’spineless’).
No matter how much “McGrath has done for the Tory Party” (and I met him when he was Maude’s Chief of Staff) – including the laughable observation that he “helped deliver some of Project Cameron’s early reforms“ - an individual aide has got to go when he or she says something as outrageous as this. The miscreant has gone and the dust will eventually settle. It leaves Dale having gone over the top in a nocturnal, reactive blog and attacked the Mayor.
But, in my view, it leaves Boris standing a lot taller. Of course he has a long way to go to prove to black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) people – who, if not yet the majority of London, they soon will be – that he is a Mayor for all London people. Acting fast and sacking McGrath is, in my view, the first step in doing so. Boris’s opponents will try to play the ‘race card’ against him in future elections – by being as decisive in the future, and by working hard for all London people, Boris can win the confidence of people who didn’t vote for him this time. Their future is in this country as we are “one nation” after all, aren’t we?
Fraser Nelson is, as usual, spot on in this post, concurring that Boris was right.
Mountjoy