Despite being a favourite with the public, openly gay Ivan Massow has failed to make the Tory party’s candidate shortlist for the London Mayoral race in 2016.
Ivan Massow who created the first company to offer insurance policies and financial services to gay people in the 1990s, when many companies weren’t ensuring gay people or were offering crippling premiums, has lost his campaign to become London’s mayor in 2016 after the Conservative party snubbed him in favour of an MP, an MEP a London Assembly member and the Deputy Mayor.
The Conservatives also snubbed ex-footballer, Sol Campbell who is also a party outsider. The shortlist also snubbed women in favour of an all male line up.
Last week the Brighton-born mayoral hopeful, Massow, 47, released a video campaign in which he was asking Londoners to invite him to stay over for the night in order for him to get a hands-on look at what were high priority issues for Londoners in 2015/16.
Despite being the Head of Policy for London for the Conservative Party in the 1990s and having been asked to be a London Mayoral candidate for the party in that same period, his sudden resignation in a protest against the homophobic and antiquated Section 28 made front page news at the time, which made him unpopular with some Tory leaders.
Taking to his Twitter account last night Ivan said:
“Just heard by text that I didn’t make it onto the list. Really want to thank everyone who’s supported me and my team. It was quite a journey.”
