[Previous entry: "Hitler waxwork decapitated"] [Next entry: "UK prime minister Brown says: save the planet and feed the burgeoning third world!"]

07/05/2008: "Black deputy mayor of London, Ray Lewis, resigns amid accusations of swindling and lies"

"It is an equal crisis for David Cameron who, it should be remembered, chose to make his first photo opportunity as Tory leader with Ray Lewis."

Johnson said he would reappoint Lewis if he cleared his name but added that he had been "misled" over Lewis' claim to having been appointed a magistrate. The original allegations against Lewis centred on claims of financial irregularities and inappropriate behaviour during his time as a Church of England priest in the mid-1990s. It was claimed he had borrowed about £45,000 from parishioners including an elderly woman and a man with learning difficulties.

At Thursday's press conference Lewis dismissed the accusations as "complete rubbish" and pointed out that he was a justice of the peace - a claim backed at the time by Johnson. But yesterday, that claim was punctured when the Ministry of Justice said he not been appointed as a magistrate.

As he bemoaned the "drip, drip" of allegations last night, Lewis said he had been recommended to become a magistrate but not appointed. "It was that seeming duplicity that was the reason I asked to step down as deputy mayor," he said.

[ Johnson is the Mayor and Cameron is leader of the Conservative Party. Their token Black didn't do well. Pluralism fails. ]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/jul/05/boris.london