Having suspected from Dave Hill’s earlier post that this afternoon’s press conference was forced on Boris and Ray rather than being some interesting announcement, I kept an eye out and found this on the BBC:
Ray Lewis, a key aide to London Mayor Boris Johnson, was barred from working in the Church of England after allegations of financial misconduct, BBC London has learned.
Well, that’s the Church of England’s lookout, and the police seem to think he had no case to answer, so I’m not condemning him for that. I’m not Andrew Gilligan, after all. However, that’s not what the conference seems to have been about, which is something a tad more serious:
London mayor Boris Johnson announced today that he will launch an independent inquiry into allegations of sexual misconduct against deputy mayor Ray Lewis.
At a press conference in City Hall, Lewis - standing beside Johnson - dismissed the allegations as “totally unfounded” and “malicious”. He described the allegations as “complete rubbish” and “an attempt to smear me”.
Well, the immediate inquiry is the least we should expect, really, but let’s see who’ll do it. We’ve seen the Forensic Tory Panel come in and be almost wholly discredited by its partisan make up, and who can forget the various investigations launched by New Labour which were set up to rule in favour purely due to the natue of the appointed investigators. Lord Hutton springs immediately to mind. However, by standing next to Lewis as he denounced the allegations Boris is rather nailing himself to the innocent camp. Let’s hope he is, although I have some doubts about Ray Lewis, although mainly around how he’s portrayed.
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“That money was just resting my account” - Fr Ted Crilly
I think it must have been pretty serious for the Church of England to expel him. After all, they were remarkably tolerant of Peter Halliday et al’s child abuse.
That supposes that internal Church disciplinary procedures aren’t tainted by, say, racial prejudice or personal animosity - Lewis comes across as an extremely stubborn person prone to rather grand them-and-us analogies that sound more like a firebrand US preacher* than your local vicar.
I’m not a great fan of blacklists, justice should be independent and impartial. Like the inquiry is going to be, eh, Boris?
* Listening to him on Radio 5 earlier the unworthy thought popped into my mind that he sounded like George W Bush discussing terrorists.
[...] By the way, I’m posting this after the Ray Lewis stuff broke but tricking the blog into putting it earlier, so don’t think you’ve g… [...]