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Today, New Nation, one of Britain’s two main black newspapers has published the results of a survey of prominent black people regarding the Tory London Mayoral candidacy of Boris Johnson.

Johnson claimed last week that some of the comments made about him from the black community did not reflect the sentiments of black Britons. He told the Evening Standard that “the attacks on me were a put-up job, and in no sense represented the black community”, despite the fact that in October a black Conservative Councillor, in London, Enley Taylor, said “it is very worrying to me that I belong to a party that is prepared to overlook clearly racist statements by its mayoral candidate because of political expediency.”

Those who contributed to the survey include Courtney Griffiths QC and broadcaster and journalist, Henry Bonsu. Of Johnson’s reported comments on black people, Griffiths said “it reflects a deep-seated racism which of course as a politician he tries to camouflage”, whilst Bonsu said “I’m aware that Boris, because of his background, is unlikely to have any black friends but I wonder who is advising him.” Bonsu went on to say “if he really thinks that the things he has said are not offensive then he is not fit to be leader of a diverse city such as London”.

Most curious of all were the comments of the singer, actress and well known Tory supporter, Patti Boulaye (pictured right with former Tory leader, Iain Duncan-Smith MP), who said “who’s Boris Johnson?”.

This week the Evening Standard has run a series of special reports by Andrew Gilligan into the activities of the Mayor of London’s Director of Equalities and Policing, Lee Jasper (left).  Jasper is referred to as a “former street hustler” in the reports and allegations are made that City Hall monies have been channelled to and squandered by Japser’s friends. The charges are vehemently denied by Jasper and the City Hall.

Gilligan (right), came to the fore in 2003 when, whilst serving as a correspondent on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he reported that the British government had “sexed up” a dossier produced on Iraq’s weapons capability in order to assist in making the case for going to war against Iraq that year. In 2005 he joined the Evening Standard as a defence and foreign affairs correspondent and is a confessed supporter of Tory Mayoral hopeful, Boris Johnson.

This weekend, Simon Woolley, founder and director of Operation Black Vote, a politically neutral organisation, has condemned the Evening Standard reports as an attack on the London’s ethnic minority communities. Woolley said,
“The unprecedented coverage, vicious in its content and tone, constitutes a Right wing political assassination attempt on one of the nation’s key Black figures. In terms of journalistic rigour it marks a new low in which the paper and its reporter Andrew Gilligan have sunk. In political terms it could spectacularly backfire for its intended beneficiary Boris Johnson.” Read the rest of this entry »

The independent MP and former Labour cabinet minister, Clare Short, has accused the Prime Minister of tokenism for sending Baroness Amos to the EU/Africa summit this weekend in his place. Today Short claimed that Amos (pictured above with former President Obasanjo of Nigeria and President Kufuor of Ghana in March this year), who will be attending as the UK’s representative, is being sent because she is black.

Gordon Brown is boycotting the summit due to the presence of Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe. Commenting on the Prime Minister’s decision, Foreign Secretary David Miliband MP said:
“It would have been absurd to sit there through a discussion on good governance and human rights and pretend there wasn’t absolute meltdown going on in Zimbabwe.”

However, Clare Short, a former international development secretary, speaking on BBC Radio 4’s World at One programme, said of the decision to send Baroness Amos in Brown’s place:
“I don’t see any reason to send a kind of pseudo minister and I think that it’s not right to send her because she’s black. I don’t see any other reason for sending her.”

Baroness Amos became the first black female to enter the cabinet in 2003 when she succeeded Short as international development secretary. Later that year she became leader of the lords, a position she held until June this year.

Before entering the cabinet Amos had served as Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Foreign & Commonwealth Affairs from June 2001 with responsibility for Africa, the Commonwealth, the Caribbean, Overseas Territories, Consular Issues and FCO Personnel. Her experience in African affairs led the Prime Minister to nominate her to become the EU’s ambassador to the African Union this year.

In light of Baroness Amos’ experience, Short’s comments have provoked outrage in some quarters.  Labour sources have told TMP the comments are “outrageous” and that Amos is being sent on merit alone.

Miliband described the comments as insulting saying:
“[Baroness Amos] has got a lot of knowledge about Africa as a whole, not just about Zimbabwe, and I think she will be a very good advocate for the UK, but also for the sort of relationship between the EU and Africa we want to see.”

Letters of complaint can be sent to: Clare Short MP, House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA; or, you can email using the form here.

Editor of TMP, Chuka Umunna, will be appearing as a studio guest from 12pm on BBC2’s the Daily Politics programme presented by Andrew Neil and Jenny Scott today.  Chuka will be joined by Andrew Pierce, formerly of the Times and now at the Daily Telegraph.  You can watch the programme online here.

An interesting article penned by TMP contributor and former Labour deputy leadership candidate, Jon Cruddas MP (left), and the Chair of the Compass parliamentary group, Jon Trickett MP (below), has been published today in the New Statesman.

Cruddas, a backbencher, won plaudits for his successful deputy leadership campaign, which saw him win more votes amongst Labour Party members than any other candidate and beat three cabinet ministers to claim third place in the race. Increasingly influential Trickett led calls on the government to rethink the renewal of Trident and Britain’s nuclear deterrent, and also has done a lot of work pointing out the need for Labour to win back the 4.5 million voters (including many ethnic minorities) who have deserted the party since 1997. Both are respected in No. 10 and in the wider party.

In their piece, they argue that the Labour Party needs to change the way it operates and move away from the “machine politics” of times past, and they urge Gordon Brown to move in a more identifiably social democratic direction and away from Blairism. This has already started a debate on Labour supporting blogs regarding who should be appointed Labour’s next General Secretary.

To read the piece, click here.

Following the publication of the widely welcomed REACH Report in August this year, Communities Secretary Hazel Blears (below) has today announced a national role modelling programme aimed at boosting the number of positive Black role models for young Black men to aspire to.

The programme is one part of a package of measures aimed at countering a culture of low aspirations and low attainment amongst some Black boys and young Black men. The independent REACH report highlighted the barriers that are preventing some Black boys from fulfilling their full potential. The group said that if more Black boys and men overcame these barriers, it could benefit the economy by £24billion over the next 50 years.

The independent group – drawn from a range of disciplines working with young Black men - made clear that too often the only images of successful Black men were those of rap artists - who can glamorise crime, guns and gangs - or sportsmen. Black boys and young Black men needed a greater diversity of images and portrayals, showing that Black men can be, and are, successful in a wide range of fields.

Hazel Blears said:
“Young Black men want and need to see role models from everyday life who have been successful in business, in retail, as doctors and accountants - and to be reassured that these paths are open to them too.
“It is these men who will provide the most powerful antidote to a culture of low aspiration that is seeing too many of our young Black men fail. We have listened to the Black community and the recommendations of the REACH report, and we are determined to do everything we can in helping to turn things around. There will always be the rap stars and the bling, but I think you can cut through it.
“Black pupils made the biggest improvement in this year’s GCSE results and the attainment gap is closing. We must continue to boost the attainment of our young Black men if we are going to see improvements in other areas too. A concerted focus on what is happening for Black pupils both in schools and outside is a vital part of getting this right. “

One of the measures outlined by Government today consists of the creation of the first ever Black Boys’ National Role Model programme. An independent panel comprising fashion designer and businessman Ozwald Boateng (right), entrepreneur Tim Campbell, founder and Director of Operation Black Vote Simon Woolley and Metropolitan Police Superintendent Leroy Logan plus four young Black men, will spend the coming months identifying and recruiting twenty national Black role models who will work to help raise aspirations of Black boys.

Read the rest of this entry »

Belated congratulations to Labour Party Vice Chair for Youth, Dawn Butler MP (left), who was elected by her Parliamentary Labour Party colleagues to be one of their nine representatives on Labour’s National Policy Forum (NPF).

The NPF is the 184 member body responsible for overseeing policy development in the party. Dawn joins BAME Labour’s NPF reps, Gloria Mills, Ahmad Shahzad, Sen Kandiah and Keith Vaz MP as one of the few ethnic minority members of the NPF.

TMP would like to draw readers attention to a new website, Liberal Conspiracy, established by our friend (below) Sunny Hundal - the man behind group-blog Pickled Politics and Cif blogger of the year.  The site is dedicated to shaping and spreading liberal-left ideas and values in Britain:

“We can no longer depend solely on political parties, trade unions or fragmented single-issue lobby groups to drive change. The internet gives us new tools to organise ourselves from the grassroots, all around the country. It’s not about replacing older institutions, but building new ones to join them. We want to strengthen democratic liberal-left organisations, local and national, so this movement can be sustained over the long term. We want to be that online hub of information and collaboration.”

You can check out the website here.

Cutting off support to failed asylum seekers is tantamount to starving them out of country argues former Labour deputy leadership candidate Jon Cruddas MP.

A new film is being shown to MPs today by Amnesty International that aims to shame us into action. It’s about a group of people forced into abject poverty: sleeping rough, eating food out of bins, depending on churches and charities for clothes. Not only that, many live in fear of being forced to leave this situation for somewhere that may be much worse. This is all happening in the UK, under our very noses. And few politicians will go near the issue because these people are refused asylum seekers.

When someone reaches the end of the asylum process - often after poor legal representation from start to finish - their support is cut off and they are denied the right to work, access to benefits and the right to NHS hospital treatment except in an emergency. They are forced into destitution. Some get “hard case support” but many believe this is a ploy to make them sign up to return to their home country - and many asylum-seekers are simply too scared to go home, or are unable to return.

And many people can’t be removed. For people from much of Somalia and Iraq or Zimbabwe, their home country may simply be too unsafe to go back to; in some countries there is no safe airport to fly to. And many people don’t have valid travel documents as they were confiscated in their home country or they have been told to destroy them by the agent that brought them here.

Read the rest of this entry »

Everyone at TMP would like to congratulate Lord Ahmed (left) and Baroness Warsi (right) on securing the release of British primary school teacher, Gillian Gibbons, jailed last week in Sudan for allowing her class of school children to name a teddy bear Muhammad.

Ahmed and Warsi led a British delegation that held talks with Sudanese President al-Bashir, who subsequently pardoned Gibbons yesterday.

Commenting on her release at Heathrow today, Gibbons said:
“I would like to thank Lord Ahmed and Baroness Warsi and I would like to thank all the people who have worked so hard to secure my release and make my time more bearable.”

The Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, said:
“I applaud the particular efforts of Lord Ahmed and Baroness Warsi in securing her freedom. I am also grateful to our officials for all their work behind the scenes.”