Cocking a snook at the Malaysian Prime Minister has at last earned tabloid adulation for BRIAN COLEMAN, the Conservative GLA member for Barnet and Camden.

I have achieved a first in my political career: I have appeared in the pages of The Sun.

However, the respectable residents of Barnet need not worry: it was not on Page three. Although, with my ever expanding waistline, a friend remarked that I would have needed pages four and five as well if I was to appear topless.

I was quoted in my role as Conservative GLA equalities spokesman on the story that the Prime Minister of Malaysia had said he would deport any British government minister who turned up in Malaysia with his "partner", which was assumed to be a dig at Foreign Office Junior Minister Ben Bradshaw.

Co-incidentally, that very day I was due to attend a bash given by the Malaysian Minister for Tourism at a West End Hotel. Now in spite of my weakness for a glass of white wine and decent canaps, I tore up my invitation and attended the launch of the community fire safety campaign for Camden at Kentish Town fire station instead.

Come to think of it, the fire brigade lays on a good buffet. It was in fact my second fire brigade buffet of the week (which is ironic, given my views on the need for cooks in fire stations). On Tuesday I spoke at the fire brigade's black history month event in Southwark.

In our schools in Barnet we have been marking black history month for a number of years, but this was the first time the London Fire Brigade had held such an event and as chairman of the human resources and equalities panel, I was invited to say a few words.

My remarks caused a few ripples among some of the (all white) senior officers present and loud applause from the rest of the audience. Afterwards, I was embraced by Ken Livingstone's equalities advisor Lee Jasper, which is a slightly unnerving experience given some of the less than complimentary remarks I have made in the past about his activities.

So what revolutionary suggestions had I made that provoked Mr Jasper to hug a Tory? Well I had said that generations of London politicians had failed to get to grips with equality issues in the fire brigade, that I hoped to see a third of senior officers from the ranks of the black and ethnic minority communities in ten years' time and that in my political lifetime the London Fire Brigade should have its first black commissioner.

In reality nothing radical there, just a plea for the fire brigade to reflect the community of London which it serves. I suppose I could have said we should have an openly gay commissioner but then I suppose the Prime Minister of Malaysia would deport him should he happen to pay an official visit.

It appears to me that the people of London want public servants, whether firefighters or politicians, who can do an effective and efficient job and care not about their ethnicity or who they happen to sleep with. Remind me not to stand for election in Kuala Lumpur.

November 7, 2001 18:29