Blazing Row With Livingstone Over White Men
What is it about being a middle aged white man that makes you feel part of an endangered species? In this case the Labour Mayor of London - himself a middle aged white man and formerly resident in my ward - refused to reappoint six of the seven Conservative nominations to the London Fire Authority and all three of the Liberal Democrats. They are, of course, white men. His grounds for doing this was to improve the gender balance and more importantly to improve the ethnic minority representation of those who serve on London's strategic fire and rescue organisation. The Labour, Green and One London (formerly UKIP) nominations were accepted.
Perhaps I should declare an interest, dear reader, as one of the nine white men being discriminated against by the Mayor having served on the authority since 2002. I have dedicated the time I spend on this in memory of 16 of my friends who were murdered by Al Qaeda sponsored terrorists in the World Trade Centre on 9/11 together with a much large number of firefighters.
Although all the Labour representatives on the London fire authority - apart from the woman chair - are from the ethnic minority this has only been the case for a relatively short time since until a couple of months ago one place was occupied by an elderly white male councillor from Camden. As far as is known, Labour has no democratic process for choosing its fire authority members, while the Liberals have a full ballot of their London councillors and the Tories have a ballot of their borough leaders.
The outcome of several days of legal cross fire was a partial climbdown by the Mayor, but four of the white males have only been reappointed until August 31. I can't help feeling that my 16 friends who died on 9/11 - no trace of any of them was ever found - would not have cared about the race, religion, sexuality, or colour of the New York Fire Authority members or firefighters who tried to save them, only that they were the best people for the job.
Perhaps I should declare an interest, dear reader, as one of the nine white men being discriminated against by the Mayor having served on the authority since 2002. I have dedicated the time I spend on this in memory of 16 of my friends who were murdered by Al Qaeda sponsored terrorists in the World Trade Centre on 9/11 together with a much large number of firefighters.
Although all the Labour representatives on the London fire authority - apart from the woman chair - are from the ethnic minority this has only been the case for a relatively short time since until a couple of months ago one place was occupied by an elderly white male councillor from Camden. As far as is known, Labour has no democratic process for choosing its fire authority members, while the Liberals have a full ballot of their London councillors and the Tories have a ballot of their borough leaders.
The outcome of several days of legal cross fire was a partial climbdown by the Mayor, but four of the white males have only been reappointed until August 31. I can't help feeling that my 16 friends who died on 9/11 - no trace of any of them was ever found - would not have cared about the race, religion, sexuality, or colour of the New York Fire Authority members or firefighters who tried to save them, only that they were the best people for the job.
Labels: Ken Livingstone, LFEPA
posted by Cllr John Whelan on Sunday, June 24, 2007
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