GFTU BGCM 2019 Minutes

as I said earlier. Now I am being taken seriously, believe it or not. Isn’t it

strange? You do have to put yourself on the line. As you can see, I survived. I

only got through the first round. This little upstart beat me! (Laughter) The

referees were never going to give me the right welcome back, but that is why I

left, but, do you know, the eight weeks of training told me and confirmed to me

exactly what this is about. I brought five generations of combat sport in one

gathering in the East End of London from five to 70. They will be the

movement and I do not care what Government of whatever political colour,

because I will always say this, a village of Westminster will never understand a

community of this green and pleasant land. A community of Westminster and

then I am prepared to engage, upper house, lower house, whomever it might

be, because this is too important for it to become a political issue. It is not

political football. It is too important for that. But I will always say it, and

continue to say it, in telling the truth to power, that scroll is signed by 240 sports

men and women who all came a similar journey to me. (Inaudible) was a boxer

in his prison cell. Without boxing he would not have been able to have

survived the extreme of Apartheid. Mohammed Ali fought in the ring and out of

the ring the injustices of his time. One Christian, one Muslim, transcendent, intergenerationally from 20 th century to 21 st century.

I got this given to me by City Asset Management: “Inflation is as violent as a

mugger, as frightening as an armed robber and as deadly as a hitman”.

Ronald Reagan, he was a Hollywood actor. He was the one that basically

suggested that a war on drugs was a war that he could win. As the Chair of a

university with 17,000 students and 1,300 staff trying to keep them safe, that is

what keeps me up at night. The pharmaceutical industry is with us. Until we

can find alternative hope and opportunity they will take the options that are

available to them. The gang members, the elders who are the social coaches

for all the wrong reasons have said, and they have said it to Sky, “If you give

those who we have on the streets an opportunity, we will let them go, because

we want something better than what we had. We cannot continue to fail them”.

So inflation is a powerful force that can seriously erode your spending power

and wealth. Not investing in our young people is arguably the most

160

Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online