One thing I’m pretty sure of about Lewis is that he thinks of himself as a tough guy (he may *actually* be a tough guy, even if he does apparently live in Milton Keynes) who doesn’t mind making waves and ‘rubbing people up the wrong way’. Given that, and his previous career (such as we can be sure about, anyway) working with kids in some of the most deprived areas of London and in the Prison Service, it seems rather strange that it took 24 hours of really rather mild journalistic pressure (a few questions, basically, inviting comment on some allegations which may or may not be true) from the fearsome likes of Dave ‘Hatchet’ Hill and Jon ‘Slasher’ Snow before he was hollering Uncle and sliding out from underneath. Hardly ‘hounded from office’, is it? Why not stick your jaw out and invite them to take their best shot? After all, you are innocent, as Boris told us. Show some backbone, man.
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Interviewed on last night’s (Friday, July 4) BBC 10 o’clock news, the Mayor said: “I very much hope that he’ll now be left alone to clear his name and get on with what he does so well. If Ray Lewis cleared his name then of course I would re-appoint him.”
But, in the resignation press release, he said: “I cannot deny however that my confidence in Ray was shaken by the discovery today that he is not a fully fledged Justice of the Peace and I cannot deny that to be misled on this issue has made it harder for me to give Ray the backing necessary to continue in his role as Deputy Mayor”.
Did the Mayor not know that his “confidence in Ray was shaken” when he was pledging to give the arrogant little fantasist his job back? Did his back-room team watch the news with mounting horror, realising that the words of their “Boss” meant that they couldn’t fill the “most urgent and key” job in the administration until the month-long investigation lumbers to its inevitable conclusion?
Maybe that’s why this bit was added:
Notes to Editors: The Mayor is taking personal charge of the young people agenda…
How many jobs has he got now? I’m losing count.
He lives in Milton Keynes? On Ken Livingstone’s radio show yesterday afternoon Iain Duncan-Smith said that Ray Lewis takes calls from distraught mothers at 2am and goes out to deal with youngsters who are out of control. That’s a fair trek at that time of the morning.
That’s what Bob Piper says, and I admit I haven’t checked it out fully. Woodhill nick is in the Milton Keynes area, though.
http://www.bobpiper.co.uk/2008/07/spotless_reputation_the_purest.php
Aha, the Telegraph’s profile of him is where it came from. Nice, true blue trustworthy source rather than some left wing scrote. Should satisfy Dale, anyway.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2249460/Ray-Lewis-profile.html
This Times article from 10 May says Lewis lives in Milton Keynes: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article3907565.ece
‘Boys, in particular, need affirmation that they “have what it takes to become a man”; girls, he adds controversially, “want to know: am I lovely?”’ - excuse me while I vomit. Dear, oh dear. Seriously, is this the sort of person suitable as a figurehead for youngsters? “Mr Lewis, I want to be a Mechanical Engineer”. “Don’t worry your little head with things like that, love, go and put some lipstick on instead”.