It seems I'm not prejudiced, or am I?

Following my posts on the shenanigans in East Surrey, here and here, I suppose I was not totally shocked to find this story in yesterday's Sunday Times.

DAVID CAMERON was hit by a race row last night after the revelation that disgruntled Tory activists tried to deselect a black parliamentary candidate who is a former Goldman Sachs banker.
Sam Gyimah, 33, an entrepreneur who was chosen to fight the safe seat of East Surrey, has faced smears over his business dealings.

Hmmm, so the real concern of those trying to get rid of him is that he is a dodgy businessman?? I would have thought the Tories might be used to those sorts of people.Thank God it's nothing to do with the fact he is black.

Supporters of Gyimah, who was president of the Oxford Union and is a member of the party’s “A-list” of preferred candidates, claim the deselection attempt was racially motivated. “There is a Taliban tendency in East Surrey,” said a senior Tory from the area. “They lurk in the forests of the North Downs, waiting to fire their missiles. These are the sort of people who start sentences by saying, ‘I’m not racist but . .

I love that imagery, I can just imagine Sally Marks one of the local County Councillors, and one of the other candidates for the seat, in a turban with an AK47.  lol. Her accent is so cut glass you could fashion a couple of decent chandeliers from it!

This is the Private Eye article Mr Gyimah says is "inaccurate"

Will Sam Gyimah, prospective black Tory MP for the safe seat of Surrey East, bring the kind of real-world experience the newly inclusive Tory party craves in its MPs?

The 33 year old former Oxford Union president, CBI entrepreneur of the future and ex Goldman Sachs banker has been the director of three liquidated companies and one that went into receivership.

Clearstone Training & Recruiting and its two heavily insolvent subsidiaries, involved in training HGV lorry drivers, crashed in 2007. Gyimah had been a Clearstone director and shareholder since 2003. Clearstone owed creditors £3.45m; its business was sold for £100,000; unsecured creditors received 1.5p in the pound.

Meanwhile the Resource Connection went into receivership in 2007 owing creditors almost £2m. And another Gyimah company, Workology Net has been warned by Companies House that it will be struck off. Parent Career Ability has accumulated losses of more than £2.5m.

I loved the football manager style quotes at the end of the Times article,

Nick Skellett, chairman of the East Surrey association, said: “Sam Gyimah enjoys the support of the membership of our association.”
A Conservative party spokesman said: “Any suggestion that Sam Gyimah is not a highly rated and popular candidate is absurd.”

So the voters of East Surrey have to make up their minds if their Tory candidate is a not so brilliant businessman or whether he is hated by his own side (or both). Same old Tories......

Probably better  to vote for the local Lib Dem candidate.