The Washington Post has just published a very interesting article on Senator Obama and the other leading Black politicians forging ahead in U.S. politics today. Read the article on the Washington Post’s site here.
You can also watch Obama’s most recent speech by using the controls below. In the speech given in Concord, New Hampshire, he talks about the foreign policy challenges facing the U.S.
This weekend Ealing Central and Acton CLP selected Councillor Bassam Mahfouz as its Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for the next General Election. Mahfouz becomes only the second ethnic minority Labour PPC to be selected in a winnable seat, after Rushanara Ali was selected to fight Bethnal Green and Bow in April.
The new seat, which comes into being at the next general election after boundary changes, has a notional Conservative majority of 84 and will be one of the closest fought three way marginals in the country.
Mahfouz who is parliamentary researcher to Karen Buck MP and Stephen Pound MP is Ealing Labour Group’s spokesperson on transport and the environment. He will be up against Conservative GLA member Angie Bray AM and Jon Ball, a television and film executive, for the Liberal Democrats.
Joseph Harker, TMP advisory board member and deputy comment editor of the Guardian, bemoans the lack of balance in cyberspace debates on race.
White men, are you all stupid? Before you accuse me of racism, or indeed sexism, let me say that I take the question from the book by Michael Moore, who is a white man (though probably not stupid; but is he alone?).
What got me thinking was reading the thoughtful piece posted on the Guardian’s Comment is Free site by Manish Vij, who believes the Simpson’s character Apu Nahasapeemapetilon to be a racist caricature. I’m not a regular viewer of the show, and don’t have any strong opinions on it, but he put across some cogent arguments.
The responses he received, though (now numbering nearly 400), repeated the by now wearisome onslaught faced by any ethnic minority writer flagging up the issue of racism. Overwhelmingly negative, it seems that nearly every commenter either didn’t understand his argument, or didn’t want to. Each (rare) comment expressing empathy with the writer was immediately drowned out by a welter of antis.
Now I don’t expect everyone to agree with him, and wouldn’t even want that - after all, the pages are supposed to be about a healthy debate. But it’s not healthy when every minority opinion is given such sledgehammer treatment. (I exclude Muslim-Jewish issues, on which both sides have well-established lobbying power.) It’s not that the individual comments are necessarily offensive (though there are many examples of these); it’s just that there’s no balance.
A new way of comparing poverty and wealth trends across Britain shows inequality has reached levels not seen for over 40 years. This is according to research released today by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. A second report, published simultaneously, has found that the public believes the gap between rich and poor people is too large.
Researchers working on the first report found that households in already-wealthy areas have tended to become disproportionately wealthier and that many rich people live in areas segregated from the rest of society. At the same time, more households have become poor over the last 15 years, but fewer are very poor.
Allowing more detailed comparisons than previously possible, the report contains comprehensive maps which are based on census and survey data illustrating the changes in poverty and wealth across Britain from 1968 to 2005.
The widening gap between rich and poor has meant that ‘average’ households (neither poor nor wealthy) have been decreasing in number. The report raises questions about what Britain will look like in ten years’ time if trends continue as they have.
TMP regular, Yue Ting Cheng, explores the mentality of the “gang”.
Funny how everybody wants to be seen in the right “group”. Divisions exist in society at all levels. They begin at school, from those who wish to define themselves as being into a certain type of music/culture (mods, rockers, punks, soul boys etc), to people who support different football teams and, on a street level, gangs who operate in different “patches”.
In workplaces and organisations there are often dividing lines between factions - you’re either in, or not, and if you’re not, the writing may well be on the wall. I remember at school there were the “tough” and “cool” kids who smoked cigarettes around the oak tree at lunchtime and breaks. When we played football, after ability people would pick their mates. On day trips to the local theme park, the kids with no friends would probably be left behind and laughed and humiliated at whilst others indulged.
I have rarely felt the need to pick sides; as far as I’m concerned the “team” will often pick itself. I am weary of any group that resorts to threatening people verbally or physically for not being “compliant” with their views or wishes as it perpetuates both the gang mentality, and often shows a complete inability to build alliances or work with others.
Within party politics people give themselves or others various labels - “Lefty”, “Loyalist” “Moderate” “Right winger”. Whilst I would clearly define myself as “left”, I have come to that conclusion through rationalising and interpreting the world we live in, rather than by proximity to people who are of the “left”.
New statistics show that as schools prepare to break up for the holidays, over 1 million teenagers could be wandering the streets because there is nowhere else to go.
The alarming statistics are revealed today in the ‘Oona King’ inquiry report. The year long inquiry consulted 16,000 UK teenagers and recommends radical action to transform their lives, including a youth hub in every community to tackle anti social behaviour and crime.
Far reaching recommendations of a year-long Make Space Youth Review chaired by Campaigner and Broadcaster Oona King (left) and launched today by youth icon Lily Allen (right).
The Review, undertaken by children’s charity 4Children and supported by Nestlé, comes at a time of unprecedented debate about the welfare of young people in the UK – with statistics demonstrating worrying trends on all aspects of teenagers lives from risky behaviour to youth-on-youth violence and anti-social behaviour. The Review has spent 12 months touring each region of the country and consulting over 16,000 teenagers of all ages to find out what life is truly like for young people today in the UK and how they believe that improvements can be made.
Launching the report today, youth icon Lily Allen said: “I want to see a new start for teenagers in communities where they have nothing to do, nowhere to go and nowhere to call their own. The Youth Review has consulted 16,000 teenagers across the country and their message was clear: they said to give young people more of a stake in communities and give us more opportunities. The number of teenagers who go off the rails is a problem for us all and instead of helping them only after they’re in crisis we need to stop them getting into trouble in the first place.”
The Guardian reports today that the government’s much vaunted Sure Start centres are failing ethnic minorities, according to research by the University of Hull.
Sure Start Local Programmes (SSLPs) support children under 4 and their families by integrating services such as early education, childcare, health and family support in specified geographic areas. All programmes work within a framework of key principles which include ensuring that all local families are able to use Sure Start services, and are culturally appropriate and sensitive to particular needs.
The research report found, amongst other things, that experiences and practice vary widely, because SSLPs ability to respond to the diverse needs of their communities was affected by the complexity of the ethnic composition of the population and the balances between ethnic groups in it. The most successful work was based on a good understanding of these complexities and a willingness to be flexible in creating and delivering services.
Five Labour Ealing councillors have defected to the Tories in the wake of the selection of Viendra Sharma as Labour’s by-election candidate in the Ealing Southall constituency. The five are led by the controversial Ealing councillor, Gurcharan Singh, who is reported to be furious that he was not on Labour’s selection shortlist. For more, log onto our friends at Pickled Politics.
BBC News and BBC Asian Network commissioned the Unversity of Chester to carry out research into Britain’s imams, which they publish today.
The research found that:
- 6% of imams in Britain speak English as a first language;
- 45% of imams have been in the UK for less than five years;
- 50% of imams are from Pakistan, 20% from Bangladesh and 15% from India; and
- 66% of imams speak Urdu as a first language with 52% giving sermons in the language.
The academic leading the research, Professor Ron Greaves of the University of Chester, said:
“The study reveals a deeply conservative body of individuals maintaining traditional languages, types of qualification and still largely recruited from the place of origin.”
You can listen to this morning’s BBC Radio 4 Today programme report on the research here (26mins in), and read a report on the research here.
Does the fact that 6% of imams speak English as a first language matter, when many imams may still speak English to a higher level than the average Briton who speaks English as a first language? Should imams be giving their sermons in Urdu or English? Does it really matter where they come from? Please let us know what you think by posting comments below.
News reaches TMP that Ealing councillor, Viendra Sharma, won the parliamentary selection in Ealing Southall last night by some 200 votes!
He will go on to fight the by-election there for Labour on Thursday 19 July. Sharma was selected after the Labour NEC controversially decided to shortlist two men – Sharma and Jo Sidhu, a barrister – having overturned the decision to declare an all women shortlist in the seat.
Sharma will be up against businessman, Tony Lit, who is the Tory candidate, and Nigel Bakhai, an equipment demand planner for Xerox, who is the Lib Dem candidate.
