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The biggest independent gathering of progressives in the UK, the annual event where those attending actually get to help shape the agenda and speak out on and debate the things they believe passionately about like climate change, well-being, fighting global poverty, equality, democracy and building a better world for all, will be taking place on Saturday 9 June 2007 when Compass holds its national conference at Westminster Central Hall.

The issue at this year’s much anticipated event is not whether we globalise but how? Technology makes globalisation inevitable and provides a platform on which we can make the whole planet, and not just the Western world, more equal, democratic and sustainable.

This year’s event held in association with UNISON, The Guardian and New Statesman takes place immediately after the G8 summit in Germany and in the midst of Labour’s leadership elections and will include over 1500 people in attendance and 70 major speakers including: Ken Livingstone; Dave Prentis; Jon Cruddas; Frances O’Grady; Jon Trickett; Neal Lawson; Helena Kennedy; Peter Hain; David Held; Harriet Harman; Shami Chakrabarti; Dawn Butler; John Harris; Emily Thornberry; Keith Sonnet; Murad Qureshi; Claire Fox; Miranda Grell; Paul Mason; Helen Goodman; Pam Giddy; Hilary Wainwright; David Aaronovitch; Sukhvinder Stubbs; Mark Seddon; Tony Benn; John McDonnell; Nick Pearce; Tony Breslin; Kate Hudson; Catherine Fieschi; Angela Eagle; Gemma Tumelty; Sue Palmer; Sami Ramadani; Antonio Miranda; Colin Burgon; Franisco Dominguez; Hugh O’Shaughnessy; Katinka Barysch; David Goodhart; Roger Liddle; Vicky Pryce; Owen Tudor; Derek Draper; Neil Jameson; Catherine Howarth; Deborah Littman; Julie Camacho; Ahmad Amir Ali; Chuka Umunna; Louise Bamfield; Collins Magalasi; Simon Dubbins; Tim Horton; Gibril Faal; Nic Marks who’ll be joined by a broad-range of ministers, MPs, trade unionists, commentators and leading figures from across the democratic left and the wider progressive community.

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Sunder Katwala, General Secretary of the Fabian Society, has kindly sent us a link to the transcript of Wednesday’s deputy leadership hustings - click here to go to the transcript.

On 1 October 2007, the new Commission for Equality and Human Rights (CEHR) subsumes the responsibilities of the Commission for Racial Equality, the Equal Opportunities Commission and the Disability Rights Commission.  Here, its first Deputy Chair, Baroness Margaret Prosser, gives her view of its role going forward.

The CEHR, which is due to be up and running from 1 October this year, must be more than the sum of it’s individual parts if it is to be successful.  Designed to promote equality in the fields of race, gender, age, disability, religion and faith, sexual orientation and human rights, the new body has a massive agenda and consequent huge responsibilities.

But what do we mean by “success”?  What would it look like and how can it be measured?  These questions are not rhetorical but the answers may be subjective and less than tangible.  I set out here some of my own thoughts.

Firstly, the CEHR touches every citizen in Great Britain.  No one will be able to say that this body is “only” there for people other than them.  This is not a minority interest.  To get that message across the CEHR must reach out to individuals and groups, to policy and law makers, to workers and employers, building trust and confidence and enabling a common agenda to develop working towards building a fairer society - a society more at ease with itself.

Secondly, our message must be positive.  Promoting equality is not about sanctions or criticism.  It is about bringing “added value” to people’s lives.  Mixed communities are richer communities.  Diverse schools and workplaces help to break down the fear of the unknown and enable us to learn from each other.

Thirdly, the CEHR is not the fount of all knowledge; we must be guided by those with more experience than ourselves.  In particular, listening to those with intimate knowledge of their communities, the ups and downs, the initiatives that worked and those that didn’t, and particularly the ideas for the way forward where we can work together, hopefully bringing about some solutions.

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The Black Socialist Society will be holding its Labour deputy leadership hustings on Monday 21 May 2007 in the Grand Committee Room of the House of Commons from 19.30 to 21.30. 

A full house of BSS members and representatives from over 30 grass roots organisations, including the UK’s biggest trade unions, faith organisations and Black, Asian and minority ethnic pressure groups, are expected at the event.  All six deputy leadership contenders - Jon Cruddas, Harriet Harman, Hazel Blears, Alan Johnson, Peter Hain and Hilary Benn will address the hustings.

The Black Socialist Society, which was recently relaunched with a new executive committee in March 2007, has over 4000 members and is the biggest representative organisation for ethnic minorities in British politics today.  It is affiliated to the Labour Party, more than 20% of whose members, it is estmiated, belong to an ethnic minority.

Entry will be limited to Labour Party and BSS members.  Organisers are advising attendees to arrive early to avoid disappointment. 

At the first big Labour deputy leadership hustings, organised by Progress and the Fabian Society, the candidates were asked by an audience member whether they would favour the introduction of all ethnic minority shortlists in light of the lamentable numbers of ethnic minority members of parliament and the recent comments of Culture Minister, David Lammy, on the issue.

Black, Asian and minority ethnic (’BME’) people make up 8% of the population; there are 646 members of Parliament, of which 352 are Labour.  Presently there are 15 BME MPs (2.3%), of which 13 are Labour.  If BMEs were represented in parliament in proportion to their share of the population, there would be 52 BME MPs; if 8% of the Parliamentary Labour Party was BME, there would be 28 BME Labour MPs.  Notably, all women shortlists have failed to produce a single BME candidate.

When asked, Hazel Blears, Jon Cruddas and Peter Hain all spoke in favour of the introduction of all ethnic minority shortlists where appropriate, whereas Harriet Harman who represents one of the most diverse constituencies in the country (with the highest number of Black people as a percentage of the population (40%)), and Hilary Benn came out against.  Further details of the hustings will appear on this website shortly.

Jan Etienne, lecturer in social policy at Birkbeck College, University of London, argues that getting a clear message out and one that does not alienate a whole community is the first step towards achieving progressive consensus.

Reaching out to all communities, we are told, helps build stronger communities but in a society where vulnerable communities are relied upon to devise and deliver their own strategies and solutions to tackling the big issues of the day, where is progressive consensus?

How can young people feel confident or inspired enough to move forward if their leaders have no real interest in finding solutions for them? How can a demoralised and exhausted community find the strength to mobilise and remove itself out of poverty, deal with low academic achievement, tackle gun crime and at the same time cope with the reality of a society seemingly concerned only with those who are able to cope?

Delivering a clear message that says “We are on your side” is a first step to serious community involvement and engagement.

The latest Joseph Rowntree Foundation research into Poverty and ethnicity in the UK (April, 2007) found stark differences in poverty rates according to ethnic group. Over half of Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Black African children are growing up in poverty. Child poverty rates were greater than adult poverty rates across groups, so that children from minority groups were poorer than both white children and adults from their own ethnic groups.

The high rates of child poverty in some groups are of particular concern, both for their present welfare and their future opportunities.

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Jon Cruddas argues that it is trite to play off the votes of Middle England against those of Labour heartlands such as ethnic minority communities.

To win the next election Labour has to change. This will not happen by accident. As a party we have to consciously choose to change. The debates to be had over the next couple of weeks are critical in this process as they will demonstrate whether we have the will and the capacity to do so.

However, a worrying trend has emerged over the past few days. It is being suggested that anyone who questions the strategy that led to the collapse in our popular vote at the local elections - a further loss of 500 councillors when we had already reached a 30-year low - and a continuing decline in our membership is in some sense proposing a “lurch to the left”, or “wanting to go back to the 1980s”. It is trite to play off a swing-seat strategy in some mythical middle England with a core-vote strategy in the Labour heartlands - the former belonging to New Labour, the latter the preserve of those who simply want to inhabit the past. A more nuanced analysis is needed.

Labour lost nearly 5 million voters from 1997 to 2005, and not to the Tories. Four broad elements can be detected in this change: a significant movement away from us among workers in the public services; among black and minority ethnic voters; and among those described by marketing experts as “urban intellectuals”; and a huge shift away from us among working-class voters, especially manual workers. These voters did not go to the Tories, they went to the BNP and other nationalist groupings, the Liberals and Respect. Or they simply stayed at home. In fact the only group where Labour support has actually grown between 1997 and 2005 has been among the professional, administrative and executive classes - but we cannot go on to win with them alone.

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In a remarkably frank interview in today’s New Nation newspaper, David Lammy MP (pictured with Barack Obama), Britain’s most senior elected ethnic minority politician, has called on the Labour Party to introduce all ethnic minority short lists for the selection of parliamentary candidates.

The Culture Minister and MP for Tottenham said, “there should be 18 black MPs, 21 Asian MPs and the rest made up from other ethnic minorities if we were in proportion to our population. We aren’t just politicians. Let’s remember, the House of Commons is a house of representatives.”

The Labour Party is presently taking legal advice on the viability of the introduction of hybrid (all women and all ethnic minority men and women) shortlists, but Lammy goes further:
“I think the party will have to look in constituencies like my own where 50, sometimes more than 50 per cent of the electorate are from an ethnic minority background. And against a background that London 2020 is 50 per cent ethnic minority, the party does have to look at all-ethnic minority shortlists where the constituencies are failing to step up to the task.”

Lammy was one of the few ministers during the Blair era to have managed to maintain close relations with both Blair and Brown camps. As to whether the expected incoming PM will back this move, he says “I will be supporting Gordon Brown” and “I happen to know that Gordon Brown wants to renew the party and wants to renew that democratic legitimacy over the next period.”

In a wide ranging interview, Lammy says that discrimination is still a problem and that more needs to be done to tackle the problems of the African Caribbean communities but while government has a role, those communities must take responsibility too.

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TMP editor, Chuka Umunna, reflects on the fickleness of the media.

So Blair bows out and the Brown leadership campaign has started. Not a hint of razzle dazzle at the Brown launch, though there were the mandatory party workers clapping at appropriate moments. A welcome contrast to the glory and emotion of the Blair era, which sought to present the Labour Party as an American style jamboree, rather than a place for serious people to come together. The supposedly impromptu placard waving at last year’s Labour Party conference (on display again on Thursday) was, frankly, embarrassing.

Many seemed to have taken leave of their senses on the day the Prime Minister announced he was off. Nick Robinson, one time chairman of the Young Conservatives and now BBC political editor, demonstrated just how fickle the media can be when he proclaimed that Blair will “leave Downing Street after a decade in office without being forced out, and with a smile on his face.”

What utter nonsense. Blair was forced to announce his departure last September and would have stayed longer if he could. Robinson said as much himself when, last September, he said Blair had announced he would leave before this year’s Labour Party conference because he was “convinced that unless he personally promised that he’d be gone in a year, some in his party might conspire to have him out within weeks”.

Much as I admire what Blair has achieved in office, this fawning coverage of his departure was to behold, coming as it did from people who only months before had been so keen to slate him at every turn. In truth, as critical as some have been, Blair’s departure for them marked the passing of “one of us” - a fellow private school and Oxbridge educated member of the fashionable London chattering classes. It is these very people who have sought to make as much as possible out of Brown’s supposed personality failings, Robinson chief among them.

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Michelle Obama, wife of Barack and a high flying lawyer, has left her job to campaign full time for her husband. Michelle Obama was vice president of community and external affairs at the University of Chicago Hospitals, where she also managed the Hospitals’ business diversity program. Michelle worked as an associate at corporate law firm Sidley and Austin, which is where she met Barack, in the area of marketing and intellectual property, before leaving the corporate law world in 1991 to pursue a legal career in public service. She, like Barack, is a graduate of Havard Law School. Her role is seen as important, particularly in relation to winning the women’s and African American votes. The Times carries an interesting profile on her today.