| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Just what are the Tories and Junior Tories doing to our borough? | |
| Posted by: | Phil Andrews | |
| Date/Time: | 02/06/09 19:55:00 |
| Robin To my knowledge we have never met, but one thing I have come to learn about you over many years of corresponding via the local press and now through these forums is that you are a man who makes assumptions and jumps to a lot of conclusions about people he does not know nor fully understand. One such assumption appears to be that ICG founder Tom Reader held racist views of some kind. The connection you draw this view from is that he opposed the campaign to remove a man from a residents' association who was a member of the NF. So did a whole lot of people Robin, they were not by any stretch of the imagination all racists or supporters of the NF. They were different days, and principles which are more or less universally accepted today were questioned by many twenty odd years ago amid concerns about free speech (and complicated in this particular case by the widespread knowledge that a wider agenda was at play). The support Alan Minehan received needs to be considered in the context of its time. In 1986 I would never have dreamed I would say anything like this but today I'd be on the side of those opposing his committee membership, although for different reasons. For Tom's part, his support for Mr. Minehan was hardly likely to be tempered by the knowledge that he was next on the hitlist! Like I said in my previous posting, you will believe what you wish to believe and I am not under any illusions at all that you will let a simple thing like the evidence stand in the way of your theories. But at least I feel I have demonstrated to others that the false impression you have of the ICG is not based on ignorance but is rather a matter of preference. The ICG website to which you refer is my personal blog. I am fiercely proud to have known Tom Reader and to have worked with him for many years for the greater good of my community. What a shame it is that your political zeal leads you to pass judgement upon a man you never met based on a plethora of assumptions, half-understood tenuous links and dumb wishful thinking. |