I
don’t like this Tweet; it is box ticking virtue signalling by people who believe
that faith and ethnicity are someone’s most important characteristics. They are
not and it indicates a preoccupation with race
by Bexley Conservatives that is unhealthy if not quite racist. Is Deputy Mayor Betts an English Christian?
Do we need to know?
We don’t. We need to know what is going make a good Councillor and Mayor and the Tory Tweet sells the new Mayor seriously short.
I know nothing about Councillor Betts except that he once asked a meeting
Chairman to have me reprimanded for taking a photograph a few seconds before a
meeting began but Councillor Ahmet Dourmoush has always seemed like an all
round good egg; as one might expect of a man in his line of business.
What do we know of him?
He was born in Greenwich but spent his early years in Cyprus where he knew no
English; something he very soon put right on his return to Britain. As well as
running a poultry processing factory in Erith he founded a Turkish school in
Blackfen and was both a footballer and rugby player in his younger years. A magistrate and
allegedly a good cook too. Both energetic and hard working evidently.
Following
the Turkish earthquake earlier this year he organised nine lorry loads of
relief supplies. His energies have not only been directed towards foreign
disaster zones but also to his local ward and a little beyond. I first became
very aware of Ahmet when he intervened to help someone whose predicament had been featured on
these pages and subsequently when he was a meeting Chairman back in the days
when I was a regular attendee. There was always a warm welcome from Councillor Dourmoush
when that was something frowned upon by the Leadership.
With Andy elected to chair Full Council meetings the omens are good.