Boris was right to accept McGrath’s resignation in race row

Unlike Iain Dale, I do believe Boris was right to accept the resignation of his political adviser James McGrath earlier this evening. Like Patrick Mercer, McGrath made a remark which could easily have been misrepresented as racist, even though it was not. Here are the specific words he used in an interview.
 

“McGrath was far from politically correct, David-Cameron-new- cuddly-Conservative Party, when I pointed out to him a critical comment of Voice columnist Darcus Howe that the election of “Boris Johnson, a right-wing Conservative, might just trigger off a mass exodus of older Caribbean migrants back to our homelands”. He retorted: “Well, let them go if they don’t like it here.” McGrath dismissed influential race commentator Howe as ‘shrill’.  

The correct answer was, of course, “what a stupid thing for Darcus to say, and how demeaning to older Londoners.”  Instead he makes the remark he did. Next there would be headlines saying “Boris aide says – let Blacks go home if they don’t like it” etc. A misrepresentation, yes. But most of the famous quotes in political history are taken out of context. That, for better or worse, is how the game is played.
 
What I’d like to know is what precisely McGrath though he had to gain in giving an interview to a journalist whose CV pretty much screams professional Tory hunter? And one who got his scalp. As he says in the interview, McGrath hadn’t done basic research into Marc Wadsworth, the chap interviewing him. As a result, McGrath didn’t realise he was walking into what Boris might call “a great big elephant trap”. And what’s a political adviser doing giving an on-the-record interview anyway?

I suspect McGrath spoke loosely because he thought he was talking to regional media. It’s a classic mistake—and one which sank the career of Obama aide Samantha Power when she called Hillary Clinton a “monster” in an interview with The Scotsman.
 
Anyone who knows McGrath knows he isn’t a racist, and he has a reputation as a top rank political operative. But this was a major slip, which handed a gift to those who still want to smear Boris as racist. Cameron took half an hour to sack Mercer, and he was right to do so – even if Mercer, while in the military, did more to iron out racial discrimination that many do-gooding campaigners will achieve in their lifetime.

There is a principle here. If someone makes a comment which opens the party up to serious misrepresentation, they walk the plank. As Cameron gets closer to power, he needs to keep up such levels of discipline. As for Boris, he needs to be more careful now Lynton Crosby isn’t around scouring the landscape looking for such elephant traps. And above all, he should be thankful this didn’t happen before the Mayoral election or things could have ended rather differently.