Simon Isherwood, the conductor with West Midlands Trains (WMT) who lost his job after asking whether such a thing as ‘black privilege’ exists in African countries like Ghana (which is 95% black), has given an interview to the Mail in which he describes the ordeal he’s been put through. I know a bit about Simon’s case because the Free Speech Union helped him bring a case against WMT in the Employment Tribunal. Earlier this week, the judge found that Simon had been unfairly dismissed and he is now in line for a five figure pay-out. Here’s how the interview begins:
Railway manager Simon Isherwood was so passionate about his job with West Midlands Trains, he was known to his line manager as ‘Mr. Northampton.’
There was nothing he didn’t know about train services to and from the market town.
Starting his career more than 11 years ago as a train conductor, Mr. Isherwood, 60, had risen through the ranks – twice winning awards along the way for going beyond the call of duty in customer service.
As manager of a diverse team of around 25 conductors, he liked to think of himself as someone who has always treated everyone fairly and equally regardless of colour, creed, gender or sexuality.
It was his idea to invite everyone in his team to take part in a morale-boosting ‘feel-good’ video during lockdown, set to the Billy Ocean song When The Going Gets Tough, which attracted 4,400 views on You Tube.
When the company then asked him to put forward two conductors for a poster campaign welcoming commuters back after lockdown, Mr. Isherwood’s first choice was a young man from Pakistan – simply because he was his best employee.
“I loved my job and there was nothing I wouldn’t have done for that company,” says Mr. Isherwood, proud of the way he as a manager judged others on merit and job performance alone.
“From the day I started I’d never had anything but promotion, praise and awards. They knew that if something went wrong I’d be the first one on the scene.”
So Mr. Isherwood was devastated when he was sacked by West Midlands Trains from his £49,000-a-year job for gross misconduct at a disciplinary hearing in March last year.
His crime? He’d forgotten to turn off his microphone following a diversity and inclusion online webinar, which he attended voluntarily at home after his morning shift at the station, on the subject of ‘white privilege’.
To his acute embarrassment, other managers – still logged on after the team talk ended – overheard Mr. Isherwood saying to his wife: “I couldn’t be a**ed because I thought, ‘You know what, I’ll just get f•••ing angry.’”
The private conversation went on: “You know what I really wanted to ask?… and I wish I had, do they have black privilege in other countries? So, if you’re in Ghana?”
Suspended the same day following a complaint by a manager from sister company East Midlands Trains, which organised the webinar, a mortified Mr. Isherwood apologised profusely to his bosses for the microphone lapse, his swearing and any unintended offence.
He insisted the first part of the conversation did not relate to the webinar at all but was in response to a note his wife had placed in front of him, asking, ‘Have you phoned the oven man?’ because their appliance was broken.
Yes, he admitted, he’d felt a little annoyed and insulted by some aspects of the webinar, presented by an outside consultant who was white, which seemed – to him at least – to suggest that all white people are born inherently racist.
His question about ‘black privilege’ – he maintained – was not intended as criticism or mockery of the webinar, but as a genuine one intended to help him understand better.
“We’d been asked to think of questions and I was just doing what I was told,” he says.
Worth reading in full – not least because Simon’s story is typical of the kind we hear every week at the Free Speech Union. Those who dismiss cancel culture as a culture war trope invented by conservatives in an attempt to cast themselves as victims often point to high-profile people like J.K. Rowling who don’t appear to have suffered any financial loss in spite of being targeted for cancellation. In fact, the vast majority of the victims of cancel culture are exactly like Simon – ordinary people whose lives have been destroyed after a handful of woke activists (or just one, in Simon’s case) urge their employers to punish them for dissenting from progressive orthodoxy.
And if you think you might be fired for challenging woke gobbledegook, join the Free Speech Union. Membership fees start at £2.49 a month.
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As an outspoken person with (I believe!) a strong sense of justice and an ever more finely-tuned BS sensor, if I ever again work for a company hosting these sorts of divisive, insulting and unnecessary “diversity and inclusion webinars”, I shall be keen and happy to pay insurance – membership of FSU!
Keep it up.
I wish Mr Isherwood and his family every success and happiness for the future. I hope his legal victory and the support of all good people will help him climb out of what is undoubtedly a very dark time for him.
Cheers, and here’s to the future, Simon!
I believe I can make a reasonable stab at the character who reported Mr Isherwood having come across plenty in my working life:
Senior management arse-licker, utterly bonkers woke, a serial trouble causer, invariably a bully, totally lazy, hypocrite, deceitful and always, always useless at whatever job they are given.
I really feel sorry for this man because seriously there but for the grace of God…
Nobody should have to be put through the torment Simon Isherwood has undoubtedly suffered. Hopefully karma will see to his accuser. The evil piece of shyte.
A company I worked for hosted some sort of meetings where only people of a certain skin colour were allowed to attend.
A huge, global company. I gather it’s still happening.
Go figure.
In other words, a typical virtue signalling, bitter, entitled, Leftie, entirely lacking humanity and compassion- a product of the education system of the last 40 years.
This is absolutely disgraceful. It was a perfectly logical and reasonable question. This wokery has literally overtaken free thought in this country.
The simple fact remains. Enoch Powell was a visionary.
Indeed.
Well … do they have Black privilege in Ghana?
How many ordinary people who hold ordinary views (ie equal to pretty much everyone’s views pre 2000) are holding back on saying what they really think? Millions I imagine. Wokery is nothing short of a cultural revolution without, at least so far, the imprisonments and deaths. But cultural death of a whole nation is sure to follow.
I just hope the unfair dismissal compensation is so great that it will begin to act as a deterrent to other unthinking company actions and actors.
I am the same age as Mr Isherwood, so grew up through the 1960s /1970s in a working class / lower middle class family. Anyone who thinks we ever had “white privilege” clearly knows nothing about what everyone (regardless of race, colour, etc) had to put up with during the those years whilst those at the top enjoyed all the riches generated by our labour. People like me worked with and studied with people from all sorts of backgrounds and we were all in it together – judging people only on what they did, not by who they were or where they came from. All this diversity BS is just another attempt at divide and rule – as those at the top don’t want all of us to be united against them. If ever there was a case for punitive damages being awarded then this is it. I hope Mr Isherwood is awarded compensation and re-employed.