Gilligan attacks fellow journalist Hugh Muir of the Guardian for participating in the production of a report into Islamophobia in the media. It is remarkable that even former Evening Standard reporters such as Mr Muir are not safe from the Gilligan spin machine’s attacks.
Gilligan’s attacks on these individuals are also pure hypocrisy. When Andrew Gilligan pens his regular attacks on Ken Livingstone’s administration, or appears in other media such as the LBC Ferrari show to promote his stories and opinions, he does not declare that he is a strong and declared supporter of Boris Johnson’s election; and, more importantly, he does not declare that immediately after he was forced to resign from the BBC the Spectator, whose editor was one Boris Johnson, organised a Save Andrew Gilligan dinner at Luigi’s. Boris Johnson then hired Andrew Gilligan to work on the Spectator.
In his article today, in addition to attacking Greenpeace and Forum for the Future, Johnson’s cheerleader Gilligan attacks particularly attacks Doreen Lawrence for her comments about Boris Johnson.
Doreen Lawrence told the Guardian last summer that “Boris Johnson is not an appropriate person to run a multi-cultural city like London. Think of London, the richness of London, and having someone like him as mayor would destroy the city’s unity. He is definitely not the right person to even be thinking to put his name forward.
“Those people that think he is a lovable rogue need to take a good look at themselves, and look at him. I just find his remarks very offensive. I think once people read his views, there is no way he is going to get the support of any people in the black community.”
Gilligan says Doreen Lawrence when making these remarks to the Guardian “did not declare that her organisation, the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust, has received at least £1.9million from Mr Livingstone’s London Development Agency to build a new headquarters in south-east London.” This is bizarre. There can few people more qualified to comment on matters of racism, multiculturalism or policing than Doreen Lawrence. Certainly she is a much more qualified person than Mr Gilligan, who has sought to downplay Boris Johnson’s remarks about “piccaninnies”.
Gilligan’s attack on Doreen Lawrence is a new and disgusting low from the Boris Johnson camp and shows the real character of the view of London that Johnson stands for. Doreen Lawrence’s son was murdered in a horrific racist attack. She fought an inspiring campaign over many years to get justice for her son. She changed policing in London for the better in the process. She was supported by people like Ken Livingstone, whilst right wing Tories like Boris Johnson attacked the inquiry into the investigation as “Orwellian” and “Ceaucescu-ish”.
It is for this reason - that Ken Livingstone stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the black communities against racism, whilst Johnson not only did nothing but spent his time writing articles referring to Africans as having “water melon smiles” or saying of Africans that “If left to their own devices, the natives would rely on nothing but the instant carbohydrate gratification of the plantain” – that Ken has the support of leading figures from London’s black communities and Johnson’s candidacy has met with deep-seated opposition.
Ken’s campaign issued a statement to Andrew Gilligan before his article was published but of course Boris Gilligan didn’t print it. This is consistent with the policy of bias carried out by Gilligan – shown by blogger Dave Hill who has exposed the different standards applied to those who want to make online comments responding to Gilligan’s articles.
As Andrew Gilligan’s flagrant absence of an even fleeting relationship with fairness and balance now extends to point-blank refusal to run a statement from Ken’s side rebutting his nonsense, we reproduce what Ken’s campaign gave to Gilligan.
Ken Livingstone’s campaign said: “The black community does not have to be paid to oppose someone who talks about ‘piccaninnies’ or describes South Africa as the ‘majority tyranny of black rule’, and similarly nor do green organisations have any difficulty in choosing between Ken and a Tory candidate who opposed the Kyoto Treaty, backs nuclear power, opposed the congestion charge, opposes a £25 charge for gas guzzlers like Chelsea tractors, and attacks the new Low Emission Zone.”
