11 June 2008

Will Greenhalgh sack Ivimy?

Less than two weeks after being appointed as cabinet member for housing in H&F, Tory councillor Lucy Ivimy faces calls to resign or be sacked for racism.

Today's Daily Mail and Evening Standard report that Cllr Ivimy blamed immigrants from India for littering an estate:

http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/news/article-1025615/Migrants-taught-litter-says-councillor-sparked-racism-row.html

Local residents are appalled by Cllr Ivimy's comments and called for her to be kicked out of office. Pressure is on H&F Tory leader Cllr Stephen Greenhalgh to take decisive action.

This latest incident follows exposure of Hammersmith & Fulham Tory MP Greg Hands' researcher in the media last October.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Okay Stephen, you're entitled to your view, and I don't totally disagree with it. But it's interesting that when I looked at the comments on the Daily Mail article page you linked to, there seems a groundswell of support and/or understanding for councillor Ivimy's comments.

Clumsy and careless, perhaps, but overtly rascist? I don't really think so.

HFConwatch said...

You must have read a different story! Surely you are not excusing Cllr Ivimy's comments?

Perhaps we should start a campaign to bring back Cllr Adronie Alford?

H&F Council Worker said...

Yes, there are numerous comments supporting Cllr I. But those comments seem to show at least a little bit of prejudice themselves.

My long experience living & working on estates suggests rubbish dumpers are in all racial groups!

Sunil said...

Lucy Ivimy, a councillor in Hammersmith and Fulham

should be ashamed of passing such comments....People like her should first look at themselves in mirror and then speakup.

dont know how she was promoted to a councillors position.

H&F Council Worker said...

Conveniently buried by this story, the Audit Commission today issued the long trailed inspection report on HF Homes. Though the overall score has been massaged up a little, it's still as damning as the much leaked drafts. As cabinet member for housing, Cllr Ivimy is supposed to lead on sorting out HF Homes. Has she a chance, now she's shot her own credibility to pieces? Nope! Should she go? Yes!

UGO said...

Noticing the effect of the moon on a still morning, I got out my word processor to compose this hastily written, ill-thought out, stupid, personal posting which may be offensive. It could be idiotic, and I should really make these comments more discreetly.

What is clear from the above mailonSunday.co.uk article alone is : putting aside the issue of racism or xenophobia, lets have some calm here. Being able to speak one’s mind is clearly important.

That said, one should not over generalise from the article that the addled minds of aged frigids in the population are prone to some combination of :
(1) propagating falsehoods (which is bad enough),

(2) by omission or co-mission neglecting to observe the general cleanliness in London (presumably _cloistered_ away in a “home” - which doesn‘t bolster the credentials of any councillor),

or (3) continually engaging in some “England Green and Pleasant Land” fantasy trip (which is probably the worst of all) . Now, The article reports : “Miss Ivimy, 53“ though personally I have no knowledge, but the mugshot seems inconsistent.

For, it can’t be readily be said from the amount of rubbish observed in *London* on a daily basis that “regard for the cleanliness of a public area is ..” “.. normal behaviour“.

Maybe in the Cotswolds (but not in London), to which there are _firm_ train services from London, where one can get “firmly” away from performing public duties of London councillors.

It remains open to speculation upon how it is this London councillor, being apparently oblivious to the amount of rubbish there already is in London, has such clear knowledge of the state of rubbish collection in India. There are clearly many ways of acquiring such knowledge, but of course one way is to be standing regularly in the middle of this refuse (in India).

Sorry, I should have used invisible font. Please don't read this posting. And whatever you do, please don't send it abroad. I hope it doesn't leak.

Anonymous said...

Is the first posting (by anonymous)Cllr Paul Bristow? He writes like him. I think these people need to understand what racism is. Yes it was careless and clumsy but it was also racist. They do courses you know.