Boris Johnson, James McGrath and The Shrill Cry of Racist!

And so we have our first casualty of the Boris Johnson mayoralty.

James McGrath was a senior aide to Boris Johnson who gave an interview to Marc Wadsworth, who is a member of the Labour party, alleged journalist and race campaigner.

Alas before doing so he appears (according to Marc Wadsworths article here) not to have bothered looking the man up. As refreshing as this is, after all it is good to know that those in government don't spin, it was also a mistake, because those in "journalism" certainly do.

James McGrath has stood down, over this exchange:

McGrath was far from politically correct, David-Cameron-new- cuddly-Conservative Party, when I pointed out to him a critical comment of Voice columnist Darcus Howe that the election of "Boris Johnson, a right-wing Conservative, might just trigger off a mass exodus of older Caribbean migrants back to our homelands".

He retorted: "Well, let them go if they don’t like it here." McGrath dismissed influential race commentator Howe as ‘shrill’.

Now it is clear to me who is saying "blacks go home", it is Darcus Howe, though why is unclear as I can't find the article in the Voice online.

The problem we have is that whilst someone like Ken Livingstone can tell Jews to "go back to Iran" and get away with all sorts of other comments some might view as racist, (as indeed can Labour with their "British Jobs for British Workers" slogan) we can't. That sort of mud sticks to us far more than it does to Labour. We can't change that perception over night.

So was Boris right to ask for his resignation? I fear he was. I have not met James McGrath, but hear he is a decent, kind and honourable man.

The problem is that our opponents aren't.

They will use any means to smear our party.

We need to be much more careful about playing the game.

People like Marc Wadsworth and Darcus Howe will use what ever means they can to both get at the Conservative party and to divide the Afro Caribbean community from the rest of society. After all, how else could Darcus claim to speak for older Caribbean migrants?

Iain Dale has this, Conservative home has this and the BBC has this.

Institutional racism in mental health.

Just under three weeks ago (the 22nd of May) I wrote this article about racism in mental health entitled: "Are race campaigners institutionally racist?" and you can guess where I was coming from on that one.

Then I noticed Pickled Politics had picked up on the theme with this, but I have also just noticed this brilliant piece by Courtney Hamilton on his Neo Jacobin's blog. You should read them both.

It is a bit of a shame Courtney does not blog more often, he writes some interesting things.

Are race campaigners institutionally racist?

The reason why I ask is that there was another fascinating piece on Newsnight last night discussing the rather obvious institutional racism in psychiatry. The figures are shocking. It seems that if you are an Afro Caribbean you are 8 times more likely to be diagnosed with mental health problems than a white person and if you are black, from Africa you are 6 times more likely.

On the face of it you would question those in the field. Well, unsurprisingly there are some black and ethnic minority practitioners of psychiatry and others did some research into the subject. After all they presumably wanted to know whether they were working with closet members of the Klu KLux Klan who had just got clever about hiding the bed sheets and pointy white hats. You would wouldn't you?

The research is staggering and turns the "racism in psychiatry" on its head. It is not that it does not exist, but in fact after their research it turns out that if you have any symptoms of a mental illness and are white you are more likely to be locked up.

There are a whole host of knock on problems. For a start black people with mental health issues are likely to not get the right treatment early enough because the psychiatrists are worried about being branded racist. In some cases it appears that instead of getting urgent help some are discharged to kill which is scary.

The other fascinating thing is that immigrants the world over, regardless of colour or ethnicity suffer greater mental health problems then they otherwise would do.

In short race campaigners have spent so much time shouting about racism that they have failed the very people they claim to protect rather than asking for specific research to identify the truth of the allegation.


You can currently read this piece on the Newsnight article but it does not cover the research.