"As soon as Blair got in, if you came out as lesbian or gay you immediately got a job."This is taken from an interview by Jemima Khan in the New Statesman. The person who said it, Ken Livingstone, Labour's candidate for Mayor of London. His comments get worse:
"It was wonderful...you just knew the Tory party was riddled with it like everywhere else is."As yet I'm unaware of any reaction from Ed Miliband, yet it's been out on Twitter since about 5 pm. Ken's sentiments are disgusting. Being lesbian or gay is not a disease people are "riddled" with. London deserves better.
Closer to home, here in Reading the ex Director of RCRE - a charity that is meant to promote racial equality - wrote to the press calling a local politician a "bigot" and making out the latter has a "track record of supporting white racist leaders" (all complete nonsense - the politician has, amongst other things, worked to encourage ethnic minority representatives to join the Conservatives and stand as candidates; and then invested considerable time and effort to get them elected).
The ex Director's name calling was a knee-jerk response to the politician's blogged statement that last year's Holocaust Memorial Day event had been politicised by RCRE (true - I witnessed it).
There are two causes for concern:
- How on earth did this man, with his flagrant lack of ability to behave in a civil manner, thereby promote cohesion and good race relations become director of such a charity?
- Why did the Reading Post see fit to put the ex Director's words into print, especially given they hadn't even bothered to interview all those concerned?
