Two new allegations around London Deputy Mayor Ray Lewis have emerged today. First, that – contrary to his claims – his Academy is no longer being funded by Newham Council and, second, that despite repeated references to Ray Lewis being a Magistrate, in fact according to the Ministry for Justice Ray Lewis “is not and never has been a Magistrate“.
Meanwhile, Boris Johnson is increasingly in the firing line over the whole issue because the Evening Standard has documented a series of checks that could have been undertaken before Ray Lewis’s appointment but which weren’t. Given the seniority of Ray Lewis’s post (Deputy Mayor, albeit that he isn’t the only one), shouldn’t Boris Johnson have ensured that full checks were carried out before he was appointed?
If Boris Johnson had been misled by someone, that’s one thing. But if he failed to make sure the right questions were asked, there’s no shirking the responsibility for that.
UPDATE: Ray Lewis has now resigned.
UPDATE 2: Ray Lewis had also said that he was not aware of having been banned by the Church of England from holding office. The Church has now responded by saying that he had in fact appealed against the ban (and therefore must have known about it).
Meanwhile, a war of words has broken out between the Church of England and the Conservative Party. The Conservatives have tried to blame the Church:
In a desperate attempt to ensure that Johnson’s first serious crisis does not undermine Cameron’s own position, Nick Boles, a key member of Cameron’s “kitchen cabinet” and one of Johnson’s most senior aides, accused church leaders of negligence. He said they had failed to disclose that they had a dossier of accusations made against Lewis while he was a vicar. “The church sat on it and suddenly decided to bring it into the public [arena] now. Why?” he said.
But the Church has hit back, saying that Boris Johnson and his team are at fault for not asking questions they should have asked:
Chris Newland, chaplain to the Bishop of Chelmsford, said: “Lewis’s ministry was restricted because of very serious allegations. If you want to employ someone in a high-profile job, you check with their employers, you take up their references. None of that was done.”
And in worse news for Boris Johnson it has now come to light that not only was he written to about Ray Lewis’s past (though this is some controversy over how clear this was made in the letter and whether or not Boris Johnson was told about the contents of the letter) but that in addition that the Bishop of Barking spoke to him personally over Ray Lewis’s background.
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19 Comments
Do you really think that saying this is likely to promote the Lib Dems in peoples eyes Mark?
No one likes a gloater.
Amongst other things, this is a site for people to find news. It’s news.
The BBC oe news a lot better than you do.
This site has become Torywatch rather than Lib Dem voice – very sad!
>> This site has become Torywatch rather than Lib Dem voice – very sad!
Very sad for Tories like you – but useful and interesting news for the rest of us!
The Tories must be pining for Jeffrey Archer 😉
I think this piece of news really shows the fundamental weakness with elected mayors. They end up selecting people for key jobs, often on the basis of very limited knowledge and don’t get anything like what they dreamed of. With an elected council, the majority party has almost always been working closely together for a number of years and mistakes like this are much less frequent.
It sounds to me as though Lewis has a flawed past, but I struggle to understand the extent to which this has undermined the undoubtedly good work he has been doing with his academy.
It looks to me as though he has been used as a political pawn in order to score points against Boris, and this is deeply worrying. Many of the people who are in a position to engage with the less polite sections of society are going to have blemished life stories and if we are going to effectively block them from getting involved in any senior role because of this then society is going to be the poorer for it.
I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that Mark Pack is happy to jump on a bandwagon like this, but to my eyes this episode appears to be one of those occasions where political games are being played to the detriment of good community work, and I find it most regrettable.
There’s a big difference between someone having a blemished past and saying, “Here I am, warts and all” and someone giving a false account of their past.
There are many people in the former category who do admirable work, such as ex-convicts helping others get out of a life of crime.
But it increasingly looks like Ray Lewis doesn’t fall into this category.
PS There’s also a big difference between saying, “I know this person has a flawed past but I’ve got the facts together, weighed up the pros and cons carefully and decided they are the right man for this important job” and not asking rigorous questions in the first place.
Mark, I think that problem here is that you are using political criteria to judge an apolitical person. IIRC, Lewis claims he was, if anything, a Labour supporter but Boris brought Lewis on board anyway, because of the very good work that he had done at his academy; there is a problem that needs to be fixed, and Lewis seems to have the capacity to fit it.
Now, either you say that we don’t want people outside the political class to come in to government, or you accept that outside of the political class people misrepresent themselves more clumsily (I mean, Brown stretches the truth every PMQs and I don’t see you picking up on that, and Rennard cited some extremely misleading stats on this site following Henley for which he largely got a big round of applause from Lib Dem posters; they just leave enough wriggle room to escape though).
I think that if Lewis had been an experienced politician he would have weighed up the odds and constructed a wording that kept him in the clear or, if he couldn’t, he would have turned down the job. But he isn’t; as far as I can tell he genuinely just wants to help kids from poor backgrounds have a chance in life, and his skills lie there rather than constructing bullet-proof wordings. I am sad that people like yourself seem intent on snuffing out such audacious hopes.
I’m amazed that nobody has mentioned the past occasion when a priest was accused of financial misdemeanours. Father Ted’s explanation that “the money was just resting in his account” seems to fit perfectly here.
Andy H – that’s a good call.
It looks like Lewis may be “kicking Bishop Boris up the arse” 🙂
Passing Tory: “I am sad that people like yourself seem intent on snuffing out such audacious hopes.”
Erm, it was Boris who said Lewis “had to resign” – not Mark Pack, in fact.
Mark Pack has not yet risen to a position of sufficient power to sack a “Deputy Mayor” in London.
Passing Tory: not surprisingly, I differ in my view 🙂
The idea that you should be honest about your CV is not by any means restricted to politicians, nor should it be.
Similarly past monetary or sexual misdeeds can count against someone outside politics too – and so they should, assuming they are proven and are either of sufficient severity or particular relevance to the role in question.
Whether these conditions apply in Ray Lewis’s case we don’t know yet, and possibly will never fully know given that it looks as if the independent inquiry into him is being abandoned now that he has resigned.
I can think of people in all political parties who have done something wrong in the past, been honest about it, faced up to the mistakes they’ve made and I don’t see any reason to hold that past mistake against them now. But that doesn’t seem to be the case for Ray Lewis.
Also, Mark reported all this in quite a neutral way in his original post. The only criticism is of Boris:
“shouldn’t Boris Johnson have ensured that full checks were carried out before he was appointed?”
*Part* of the job of opposition parties, PT, is to point out the failings of those in power. This seems a legitimate criticism of Boris.
Can I suggest we change the name of this site to illiberal Voice
“and possibly will never fully know given that it looks as if the independent inquiry into him is being abandoned now that he has resigned.”
Doesn’t this strike you as just a little bit strange – that an inquiry was worth having while he was deputy mayor, but not now? That the simple chance for him to clear his name has been removed. It is nice to know that the rule of law is alive and well …
I am sorry, but it very much seems to me as though this whole saga has very little to do about the guilt or otherwise of Ray Lewis, and everything about finding proxies to attack Boris through.
Passing Tory: yes, I agree it’s a bit unsatisfactory that is has been dropped, but as Boris Johnson could have decided to keep the inquiry going, he might be a better target for your criticism on this one?
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