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Boris: Fuck Black history Month; iRep USA


Gunner

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Boris Johnson has slashed funding for a series of high-profile multicultural events, at the same time as ploughing £100,000 into a new venture to celebrate America.

Figures seen by the Guardian show that the London mayor cut funding for Black History Month, a collection of events staged in October to celebrate black culture in the capital, from £132,000 to just £10,000. Africa Day's £100,000 grant from the London Development Agency was axed completely.

Funding for Jewish events was halved to £50,000, while a decision to cut funding for the St Patrick's Day celebration was roundly decried last year.

Ken Livingstone, who earned a reputation for supporting multicultural events during his mayoralty, described the decision to cut funds for Black History Month as "outrageous".

"These were all events that helped bring London together," said the former mayor. "It is bizarre to think they are savaging all of this whilst pumping money into a day to celebrate the USA – still the richest country on the planet."

Johnson was accused of "subsidising wealthy Americans" after the Guardian reported earlier this year that the London Development Agency (LDA), the mayor's economic arm, had allocated £75,000 to USA Day. It emerged today that the mayor has agreed to top this up with a further £25,000 from the Greater London Authority (GLA), bringing the total to £100,000. Johnson has previously defended the move as part of a drive to attract more American tourists to the capital.

Other events to benefit from a cash boost include St George's Day which increased from £100,000 to £136,000 courtesy of the GLA.

Simon Woolley, the Director of Operation Black Vote who was recently appointed race commissioner at the Equality and Human Rights Commission, claimed the decision to cut Black History Month funding was symptomatic of Johnson's failure to "effectively re-engage" with London's black organisations since taking over the mayoral reins in 2008.

Johnson previously came under fire over his decision to pull funding for the multicultural festival, Rise, which received significant funding support for eight years under Livingstone's mayoralty.

Woolley said that Johnson's deputy mayor, Richard Barnes, held a meeting with representatives of the black community last year in which he had acknowledged there was "some serious catching up to do" in terms of GLA "re-engagement" with black and minority ethnic communities ahead of the 2012 Olympic games. "Clearly the decision to decimate funding for these high-profile events, particularly Black History Month, and what was supposed to be the legacy of anti-slavery day, are seen as symptomatic of an administration that is struggling to recognise the dynamism of a multicultural capital," said Woolley.

The Labour group on the London assembly recently called on Johnson to scrap USA Day and use the money to fund a new festival, Uprise, to fill the gap left by the decision to shelve Rise, which at its height attracted 100,000 Londoners.

John Biggs, deputy leader of the Labour group on the London assembly, said today: "We take the view that the mayor clearly wants us to understand what his priorities are, and they are not to support London's multicultural scene."

Johnson's marketing director, Dan Ritterband, told a London assembly committee chaired by Biggs in November 2008 that the format for Rise had been changed. He said the event was "no longer an opportunity to put Londoners' hard-earned money into the pockets of politically convenient groups". As a result, he added, "we have got a lot more interested sponsors who are willing to get involved with the summer music festival now".

The following year, Johnson announced that Rise had been shelved due to a lack of a major sponsor to help foot the bill – a claim widely rejected by trade unions, who had previously sponsored an event routinely dubbed the largest anti-racist festival of Europe.

Ritterband revealed in his evidence to the budget and performance committee just months after Johnson took office that the Conservative administration intended to "rationalise" funding for cultural and community events in the capital. "That does not mean we want to cut the events but we want to make sure there is better value for money, " he said at the time.

Ritterband added that the mayoralty wanted to work with bodies "offering value". Workshops would be run to help community groups run events efficiently and attract sponsorship as part of a "standardised" offer. Yet it has emerged that just one seminar has been held to date. A City Hall spokesman said this was due to a lack of demand.

Ritterband insisted "that those events will not be cut, we are just trying to find better ways of getting money".

City hall was not able to comment by the time of publication.

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Never understod why they waste so much money on St. Patrick's day in London.

its a good money spinner, gives the economy a little boost gets people spending

ie. covent gdn you can't move on st patricks, most pubs are rammed

u should see NYC if u think London is bad everyone in NYC claims to have some sort of Irish heritage

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Never understod why they waste so much money on St. Patrick's day in London.

u should see NYC if u think London is bad everyone in NYC claims to have some sort of Irish heritage

i was once chatting to an american girl and i told her that i had family in wexford and she was like 'oh im irish' ..... really ? 'yeh my great grandparents' (she had neer been to ireland in her life)

she then proceeded to talk to me about how she thought the IRA were a good thing expecting me to agree with her. i coulda strangled the bitch i tell you.

Its all very well when these americans try to lay claim to their heritage nations but when they start sprouting political bullshit on stuff they know nothing about its another thing.

st.patricks day in america sounds cringe with a load of plastic paddy yanks putting on fake irish accents

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Never understod why they waste so much money on St. Patrick's day in London.

u should see NYC if u think London is bad everyone in NYC claims to have some sort of Irish heritage

i was once chatting to an american girl and i told her that i had family in wexford and she was like 'oh im irish' ..... really ? 'yeh my great grandparents' (she had neer been to ireland in her life)

lol some american girl at uni said almost these exact words to my boy who is (actually) from ireland. if looks could kill...

the way she was completely oblivious as well. _______>>>>americ*nts

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c*nt. I hated Ken but he might have to come back you know. f*ck Boris being the Mayor for the Olympics.

once again u show urself up. ANYONE who thinks its right for ken to come back is an utter c*nt imo

neither KEN NOR Boris is fit to run london, but out of the two idiots Ken is by far the bigger bastard.

i would rather have boris slash cultural money for everyone than ken to waste hundreds of thousands on useless "multicultural" projects

DOESNT Matter how much they deceive you by spending on "multicultural" events. CITY HALL IS 98% WHITE ANGLO SAXON PRO JEWISH

THAT IS WHERE "MULTICULTURALISM" SHOULD BE CELEBRATED.

LOL@ BLACK PEOPLE FEELING IMPORTANT ONLY ONE MONTH AND 2 DAYS IN THE YEAR (BLK HISTORY AND CARNIVAL) IDIOTS.

SO f*ck any govt sponsored event tbh.

nice par to 4m black people and a whole continent of 700m people by spending more on about 200,000 jews from a terrorist state.

let all those black churches offering "FINANCIAL FREEDOM" FIT THE REST OF THE BILL. DONT WANT MY TAX BEING SPENT ON sh*t THATS JUST f*ck*ng MEANINGLESS

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Never understod why they waste so much money on St. Patrick's day in London.

u should see NYC if u think London is bad everyone in NYC claims to have some sort of Irish heritage

i was once chatting to an american girl and i told her that i had family in wexford and she was like 'oh im irish' ..... really ? 'yeh my great grandparents' (she had neer been to ireland in her life)

lol some american girl at uni said almost these exact words to my boy who is (actually) from ireland. if looks could kill...

the way she was completely oblivious as well. _______>>>>americ*nts

lol its like that Italian american football pundit on ITV sometimes (he was on the 'Champions league extra time' last night) .

hes knows his football but it pisses me off how hes always talking like hes an actual italian

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Never understod why they waste so much money on St. Patrick's day in London.

u should see NYC if u think London is bad everyone in NYC claims to have some sort of Irish heritage

i was once chatting to an american girl and i told her that i had family in wexford and she was like 'oh im irish' ..... really ? 'yeh my great grandparents' (she had neer been to ireland in her life)

lol some american girl at uni said almost these exact words to my boy who is (actually) from ireland. if looks could kill...

the way she was completely oblivious as well. _______>>>>americ*nts

lol its like that Italian american football pundit on ITV sometimes (he was on the 'Champions league extra time' last night) .

hes knows his football but it pisses me off how hes always talking like hes an actual italian

didn't his family only move to america from italy when he was like 10 though?

he was def born in italy and speaks italian

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c*nt. I hated Ken but he might have to come back you know. f*ck Boris being the Mayor for the Olympics.

once again u show urself up. ANYONE who thinks its right for ken to come back is an utter c*nt imo

neither KEN NOR Boris is fit to run london, but out of the two idiots Ken is by far the bigger bastard.

i would rather have boris slash cultural money for everyone than ken to waste hundreds of thousands on useless "multicultural" projects

DOESNT Matter how much they deceive you by spending on "multicultural" events. CITY HALL IS 98% WHITE ANGLO SAXON PRO JEWISH

THAT IS WHERE "MULTICULTURALISM" SHOULD BE CELEBRATED.

LOL@ BLACK PEOPLE FEELING IMPORTANT ONLY ONE MONTH AND 2 DAYS IN THE YEAR (BLK HISTORY AND CARNIVAL) IDIOTS.

SO f*ck any govt sponsored event tbh.

nice par to 4m black people and a whole continent of 700m people by spending more on about 200,000 jews from a terrorist state.

let all those black churches offering "FINANCIAL FREEDOM" FIT THE REST OF THE BILL. DONT WANT MY TAX BEING SPENT ON sh*t THATS JUST f*ck*ng MEANINGLESS

AYO I DIDNT READ UR POST BUT I DONT WANT TO HEAR NO NIGGAS TALKING GREAZE ABOUT MY NIGGA KEN LIVINGSTONE

DUDE GAVE ME FREE TRAVEL

AND FOR THAT I RESPECT HIM HIGHLY

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PC Ken never wanted equality. I'm glad hes no longer mayor.

Basically it's economics. Johnson wants to attract wealthy American tourists to London.

Irish Americans are the 2nd largest ancestral group in the United States behind German Americans. And many Irish Americans raised money to help the IRA kill many innocent people. "Plastic Paddys" are just uninformed about everything regarding Ireland.

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