The mayor of Margate appearing on You're Fired (uncut) looked about as enthusiastic about the theme as a lion would after being asked to be a vegetarian.

Surely he would have a say in what should represent his town.

Deleted - mis-post.

Outside of London, mayors actually have a say in virtually nothing!

AS soon as she questioned the business strategy she was going to be on a hidding. Anything that can be remotly sen as negative against gays automatically brands them homophobic.

She was probably the most sensible one in the team. The rest were as you might put it "away with the fairies"

It made zero sense to market a resort at a group that represents less then 10% of the population. Margate as far as I know does not have that many gays neither.

If they were marketing say package holidays it would make sense but that was not the task.

They couldn't criticise her gender - Sexist
They couldn't criticise her skin colour - Racist

They could criticise her because she wasn't comfortable around gay people - Homophiobia (fair game)
I guess they didn't know her religion or they could have criticised her for being a Christian (fair game).

Perhaps someone was worried that she might eclipse Howard, so alleged Hompohobia was the ideal weapon to use against her.

It's amazing how some believe that they have the right to be liked by people. News flash - there is nothing is this world that says people have to like you.

Tolerance, that is all everyone is entitled to, not respect or even to be liked.

This doesn't make sense. If 'they' couldn't criticise her for homophobia why are 'they' criticising her for homophobia

It doesn't say that ...

Still don't see your logic. Sorry.

Can't see the logic?

If they criticised her because of the colour of her skin - They would be racist.
If they criticised her because of her gender - They would be sexist.
They didn't, necessarily, know her religion - No-one (important) would care if they criticised that.
She wasn't comfortable around gay people - Oh she must be Homophobic, everyone will condemn her if that is alleged.

That is my logic.

Who is they? No has criticised Mona. Why would her gender be criticised? She is a woman.

Whoever started the idea of her alleged homophobia.

Why would any of the candidates, not saying it was necessarily any of them, criticise another? To manipulate them into getting fired perhaps.

It said in the newspaper reports that Howard was hurt at Mona's comments because he was bullied when younger for being gay. In the show we didn't see any homophobic comments. However, Mona revealed on her Radio Five interview yesterday that Howard gave strict instructions that, while the cameras were actually on, nobody must refer to his homosexuality on the task or ask for his insight into the task as a gay man. They therefore couldn't target the gay market as well as they had hoped. Surely this is abit odd? He is clearly openly gay so why did he want to hide it? Is it possible that this whole story started because he saw offence which wasn't there?

Probably not.

He's perfectly entitled not to want his sexuality brought into the 'game'.

I dare say that Kate would also very much like to be considered on her business skills rather than having people base their opinions (both good and bad) on her appearance.

I don't think the comparison with Kate is a fair one. If the task were to develop, say, a beauty product for a young woman then I would expect any of the young women to bring their own experience of such products to the task. It makes commercial sense to do so. Likewise, Debra's team were criticised for not executing a sensible campaign to attract gays to Margate. They were criticised for presenting a sterotyped image of gay people and a poor advertising campaign. Since they had a gay person on their team with knowledge of marketing from a professional point of view and a consumer of products aimed at gay people, then it was poor commercial sense not to utilise this knowledge. It's not about his sexuality as such, more using his first hand knowledge of the target audience.

I see your point and agree with what you say (Kate was a very poor analogy), but "Howard gave strict instructions that, while the cameras were actually on, nobody must refer to his homosexuality on the task or ask for his insight into the task as a gay man" which I think is quite fair.

Quite refreshing when one considers the amount of times that self confessed "sales people" can muck up selling tasks and "managers" or "Human Resources" (I hate that phrase, however well it reflect what the company thinks of you) people can muck up team leadering etc...

How do you not understand what nanscome posting here? It's so crystal clear to me. Strange!

At the end of the day, if I was in a greengrocers and a certain shelf had a sign saying 'This Is The Place For Tomatoes', if I was a banana then I'd feel like it doesn't apply to me so I'd simply find a different shelf to go on.

It's not that I'm being prejudiced against tomatoes, it's that the sign says it's for tomatoes and not bananas. So therefore I'm not included.

I'm not homophobic, and I was behind Mona 100%. She was against it being such a divisive theme.
Then again, maybe Claire Balding on You're Fired was right, the main problem with the theme is when we start labelling people as this or that.
(Well no matter what she says, I'm a banana and that's that )

Interesting though that some or all of the contestants appear then to be able to control what is broadcast about them, if that is the case? I would've assumed that it would be a 'warts and all' approach, and anything could be said and aired, as long as it wasn't illegal or intimidatory?

But the shelf analogy is a bit misleading. I'd describe it more as the whole grocers, if a grocer had a sign saying 'this is a great place to get tomatoes' I'd still go in there to buy bananas the idea that one ostracises the other is illogical and does veer a little on the 'phobic side.
In the end I believe she was sacked for things we did not see on the episode.

I think she was sacked because she just wasn't very good at anything - she very rarely stood out from the crowd. It would be pretty shabby had she been sacked for making the original alleged comments, and then the BBC not even referencing this at all...

Yes overall she was shabby and I'm sure that contributed but she wasn't the shabbiest on this task by a long shot that title definitely goes to her erstwhile leader.

Unless your mayor is ray mallon

Hardly, she was one of the smartest candidates.

Then again, isn't picking a gay theme in the first place veering a little on the hetero-phobic side.

Although I suppose you could also look at it that the family theme is prejudiced against single people.

Okay I give up. This issue's too complicated.