(More on) Ray Lewis’ resignation
BoJo no longer needs to worry if Ray Lewis lied yesterday - as he did. He’s not a JP, and he overhyped his CV during recruitment. The result; his resignation, and embarrassment for Boris, and the wider Cameron Project which trusted him.
A couple of predictions, though: should the enquiry exonerate Lewis, he’ll be back. The Tories have invested far too much in his ideas, and his methods, to let such a prime exponent go to waste. And if it finds him guilty and it goes to the police? BoJo can now come out and say that this can’t be his fault, as Lewis admits he lied on his CV - so he couldn’t have known. That’s the tone set by his new statement:
When pressed with a string of unsubstantiated allegations my instinct was to fight and fight hard for Ray. I still hope that he can clear his name. 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 made it harder for me to give Ray the backing necessary to continue in his role as Deputy Mayor.
Dissect that sentence by sentence. You should get;
1. He’s on my side, it’s not my fault I defended him.
2. I still hope he can clear his name, because I want to employ him - and will do if he does.
3. But if he doesn’t, well, I’m shocked, just shocked. Meaning it’s not my fault and please don’t report this too badly.
Notice the, “it’s not my fault,” theme. Or, rather, the damage limitation theme; Boris talked Lewis up to the point that this now becomes embarrassing, so is talking him down just as fast in the hope it all stops. A tactic to expect in the future with other heavily-hyped but unfeasible projects?
After all, there’s the statue of Keith Park, and a no-strike deal with the RMT, and neo-routemasters before 2012…
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