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Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, completed his government reshuffle yesterday. He delighted ethnic minority Labour Party activists and supporters by appointing Britain’s first Muslim Minister, first ethnic minority Attorney General, and he increased the overall tally of ethnic minority ministers from four to five.

The 39 year old, Shahid Malik, becomes Britain’s first Muslim minister and has been appointed as a parliamentary under-secretary at the Department for International Development (DfID). The MP for Dewsbury was only elected in 2005 and was the sole member of the new intake of MPs to be placed on the Home Affairs Select Committee. He was also previously a member of Labour’s National Exectuive Committee.

As predicted on these pages yesterday, Baroness Patricia Scotland QC has been appointed as Britain’s first ethnic minority Attorney General and will attend cabinet in that role. Scotland is the first black female QC.  A former Lord Chancellor had wanted to elevate her to the bench but Labour propelled her into the Lords instead. Scotland is believed to be highly rated by Brown and thrived, first as a junior minister at the Foreign Office, then at the Lord Chancellor’s department and the Home Office.

David Lammy and Parmjit Dhanda remain as parliamentary under-secretaries of state, but are moved from Culture to Innovation, Universities and Skills, and from Education to Communities and Local Government, respectively. Lammy arguably remains Britain’s most senior, elected, ethnic minority politician, having served as a minister since 2002 in a variety of roles.

Gordon Brown’s close advisor, Shriti Vadera, becomes a Baroness and is appointed as parliamentary under-secretary of state at DfID. She is a former executive director of City investment bank, UBS Warburg, and was a member of the Treasury’s Council of Economic advisors. She is largely credited with forcing through PPP on the London Underground.

Professor Sir Ara Darzi is one of the world’s leading surgeons, specialising in the field of minimally invasive and robot-assisted surgery.  Iraqi born Darzi, who is Armenian by descent, becomes a peer and is appointed as a parliamentary under-secretary at the Department of Health.

Finally, Sadiq Khan, MP for Tooting becomes an assistant government whip. Khan won the Newcomer of the Year in the Spectator’s 2005 Parliamentarian of the Year Awards. The lawyer and former chair of Liberty is highly regarded for his intellect is tipped for rapid promotion in future reshuffles.

Labour initially decided to declare an all women shortlist in Ealing Southall, to pick a successor to Piara Khabra MP as Labour’s parliamentary candidate in Ealing Southall at the next general election, after Khabra announced he would not be standing again. Labour’s National Executive Committee have now decided on an open shortlist, now there is to be a by-election in the seat following Khabra’s death. The NEC will be deciding on the shortlist next week on Tuesday 3 July, with the hustings taking place the day after. The by-election will be held at the same time as that in Sedgefield on Thursday 19 July.

Britain’s most senior ethnic minority politician, Baroness Valerie Amos, who has served in the cabinet since 2003 – first as International Development Secretary and then as Leader of the Lords – leaves the government today. The first black, female cabinet minister has been nominated by Prime Minister Gordon Brown to become the EU’s ambassador to the African Union.

Baroness Patricia Scotland QC is widely tipped to enter the cabinet either as Baroness Amos’ replacement or as Attorney General. Sources say Baroness Scotland, who has studiously kept a low media profile, has not engaged in the usual party political infighting and is an eminent lawyer (the first black female QC, no less), would be a perfect candidate to succeed Lord Goldsmith in a post which many have said needs a less “political” occupant.

Meanwhile, Labour activists will be watching closely and hoping to see the other two ethnic minority ministers – David Lammy MP and Parmjit Dhanda MP – presently parliamentary under-secretaries at Culture and Education respectively, make it to at least minister of state level. Others tipped for promotion include Tooting MP, Sadiq Khan, who is presently Jack Straw MP’s parliamentary private secretary, Brent South’s Dawn Butler MP and Shahid Malik MP.

The Black Socialist Society’s representative on Labour’s National Executive Committee, Keith Vaz MP, has kindly passed us a copy of his latest NEC report and update, for TMP readers’ perusal. Click here to view it: kv-nec-report-25-june-2007.pdf.

Keith is a member of the NEC’s organisation sub committee, which decides where to declare all-women shortlists for the selection of Labour’s parliamentary candidates. Seats which are presently under consideration are Ealing Southall, where there is to be a by-election following the death of Piara Khabra MP last week, and Walthamstow. The recent decisions to declare all women shortlists, in Ealing Southall in particular, have been controversial.

There has been much debate (including on these pages) about the wisdom of declaring all women shortlists in constituencies such as these, where there are high ethnic minority populations – 52.67% in Ealing Southall and 40.83 in Walthamstow – given that all women shortlists have yet to select an ethnic minority woman.

Labour sources believe it is possible that the party will revert to an open list in the case of Ealing Southall, given that there is now to be a by-election in that constituency, whereas it is thought unlikely that the decision to declare an all women shortlist in Walthamstow will be overturned.

Outgoing Prime Minister, Tony Blair, has said the new EU constitutional treaty agreed by EU member states last week is “quintessentially” in Britain’s interests.  Here, the Labour Movement for Europe’s Owais Rajput, gives his take on the treaty, which will be finalised later this year.

Eurosceptics deride the package of reforms contained in the EU’s Constitutional Treaty as a “radical new departure” or a “revolutionary change” to the nature of the EU. It is not. It is a pragmatic set of adjustments in response to problems with the existing system.

The EU has enlarged from 15 to 27 members, making the decision making in the Council more cumbersome. The pragmatic response is to enlarge the area in which decisions are taken by a majority vote. This the treaty does, except in areas of vital national interest such as tax, foreign policy and national security.

The automatic “buggin’s turn” rotation of the presidency for a short six month period is widely criticised. The pragmatic response is to allow the heads of government to choose a person to chair their meetings for a longer period. This the Constitutional Treaty does, setting that period for two and a half years.

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Writing today on the Guardian’s Comment Is Free website, TMP editor, Chuka Umunna, argues that the Labour deputy leadership race opened up a debate about how we build a fairer, more democratic society, which is what Labour has always been about.  Click here, to read the article.

A personal view on the Bernard Manning school of humour from TMP regular and GMB officer, Yue Ting Cheng.

I turned on the TV the other day to hear the death of controversial comedian Bernard Manning, at the age of seventy-six. Manning was a comedian who made his career popping jokes at ethnic minorities, and many people regarded him as racist, although he himself strenuously denied this.

Manning was a product of the times and, at his peak in the 1970’s, the kind of jokes and views he projected were seen as “acceptable” to audiences at the time. How times have changed. There are still those that regard him as “misunderstood” or perhaps, in his own words, “some people don’t have a sense of humour”.

My immediate thought upon his death was, what is the general public’s image of him inside their heads? To a lot of white working class people, they may well have laughed (and continue to laugh) at the kind of humour he uses. The unfortunate truth is that I can truly say, hand on heart, that I have met far more racist people in society than those who are prepared to challenge the stereotypes and myths – much of the time its plain ignorance, fear of the unknown, or not knowing what’s around the corner, and not understanding how a changing world produces large influxes of different people. Other times its pure prejudice.

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An outrageous and disgraceful posting appeared on Kings College London’s Conservative Society’s official blog this week, immediately following the sad news of the wonderful Piara Khabra MP’s death.

The blog describes itself as carrying “an array of articles from current affairs to political agendas, from Conservative Future to society news and events.”

On Wednesday 20 June 2007, the Chair of KCL Conservative Society, Arleen Ouzounian, made the following observation (at 11.06am):
“2 months ago to the day, I reported that Ealing had been forsaken, but not lost, by 2 out of the 3 MPs in the Ealing area (Piara Khabra due to illness and Andrew Slaughter due to eloping with his mistress, Hammersmith and Fulham). Today I can confirm that Piara Khabra, Britain’s oldest MP of 82 years, has died whilst being treated for liver problems in Hammersmith Hospital.”

She then goes on to say that,
“hopefully there will be a byelection called within the next three months and Ealing will finally be given an injection of Tory blood. Feels like Christmas has come early!”.

Speaking to TMP on the post, Julian Bell, Khabra’s parliamentary aide, said:
“Its dispicable that somebody would show such callous disrespect at this sensitive time. We are deeply saddened by such comments.”

The post, which suggests that Conservative Future has some growing up to do, was subsequently amended in light of the uproar it caused.  To read the original post for yourself, click here (to read the amended version, click here).

Writing on the website of Compass, the fastest growing left-of-centre pressure group in Britain, Jon Trickett MP argues that the progressive momentum of Labour’s deputy leadership contest must continue. He argues Labour must now compose a policy agenda to win back the support of groups which have traditionally supported it, as well as maitaining middle class support. In it he cites the example of Harlow where Labour has a majority of 97 votes and comments:
“It is simply not possible to hang on to [Harlow] seat with middle class votes alone. White collar employees in that seat number 33,000 but there are 36,500 manual workers, almost 6000 public sector employees and 1200 Muslims registered to vote in Harlow. These groups are moving against New Labour because of a whole series of issues such as public sector experimentation, the war, insecurity at work and so on.”

To read his piece in full, click here.

White British pupils not only form the majority of low educational achievers; they also do worse than children with similar income levels from other ethnic groups according to a new report. If white children do less well at primary school, they are more likely than any other ethnic group to remain low achievers.

Research commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation provides a comprehensive review of existing research and public documents alongside new analysis. The report explains why tens of thousands of young people leave school every year with no or very few qualifications.

Nearly half of all low achievers leaving school are white British males. Boys generally outnumber girls as low achievers by three to two and have poorer reading and writing skills in primary school. Children with early reading and writing problems are more likely to become low achievers at the age of 16.

Chinese and Indian pupils are most likely to succeed while Black Caribbean pupils are the least successful, though their results have been improving faster than average. Black Caribbean pupils are also over-represented among the group of children who do well at primary school but who end up with low achievement when they leave school.

In 2006, nearly 5% of all pupils in state schools (28,000) received no GCSE passes and almost 25% (146,000) scored no passes above the ‘D’ grade. The authors, analysing earlier data, found that 14% of low achievement was attributable to school quality, and that both school quality and expenditure on pupils varied considerably among local authorities.

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