Race row

Fresh from the Celebrity Big Brother race row that engulfed us in recent weeks another incident occur ed this week that failed to reach the headlines.

First let me confess I don't know why but it is very difficult to find any black business leaders here in the UK. It never really seriously occur to me until someone challenged me why is it the papers I read do not have a single black face (not counting the sports pages!)
That changed this week when I got to read about the high flying insurance executive - Tidjane Thiam from Ivory Coast and now Chief Executive at Aviva Europe. The 44 year old used to be Minister of Planning in Ivory Coast before a military coup in 1999. A role model?
True we need more colour in this papers otherwise probably my friend wouldn't be too hard on me. But is it any different elsewhere? Even in Kenya?

Back to the Standard Life boss - Trevor Matthews he apparently used the N word during a staff meeting. The Australian who heads the company's UK Life and pensions division. His response - typical - 'I deeply regret saying what I did - it is not in anyway a reflection of what I think...I had made a serious mistake by using a colloquialism that is not in any way acceptable today'. All the same - what Jade Gooding said and now Jo O'Meara (both are celebrities I made to understand
Well he has the full backing of the company.
I got the comment from one of the many free newspapers flying around in London. No one else has bothered to follow up the story - the silence is very reassuring indeed.