Barack Obama’s historic acceptance speech to 84,000 of the Democratic Party faithful in Denver, Colorado last night can be viewed below.
Archive for August, 2008
Where is our Usain Bolt?
Hugh Goulbourne argues that more needs to be done to ensure National Lottery sports funding benefits less affluent urban communities.
Like most other Brits I am clearly delighted at the unprecedented level of success of our Olympians in Beijing this year. But, I am surely also not alone in wondering why, given that this is the Peoples’ games, our medal haul does not reflect the wide ethnic and social mix of our great nation.
Our overall tally of 47 medals, 19 of them Gold and fourth place behind the three world super powers (USA, China and Russia), is clearly a tremendous achievement and the athletes, coaches and other Team GB members deserve a lot of credit.
Credit must also go to the National Lottery, and its founder John Major, which has funded our athletes and coaches over the past decade in the build up to these games. However, our euphoria should not overshadow the unfortunate reality, which even Major himself has admitted, that most of this money is not reaching the communities that are most in need of it.
Youth violence is not about race – Lammy
Skills Minister, MP for Tottenham and Britain’s most senior elected ethnic minority politician, David Lammy, has written an article for the New Statesman in which he argues we are failing miserably to provide Britain’s teenage boys with meaningful occupations, worthy role models or hope for the future.
Lammy, pictured above last month with US Democratic Presidential nominee, Sen. Barack Obama, Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Dawn Butler MP, says:
“In society, the fetishisation of money and the growth of consumerism add new pressures. In a “bling” culture, criminality easily becomes a short cut to symbols of wealth and power that will otherwise take years of hard work to achieve. Inequality plays its part, as young men from poor backgrounds feel they have the least to lose. Why, one boy asked me, was I worried about his grades at school, when he might not live long enough to get a job? This is the world of “get rich or die trying”.
Local campaigning is vital – or no seat is safe
Philip Glanville argues that local campaigning is the route to electoral success for Labour.
Following Labour’s losses in Crewe and Glasgow East, barely a day goes by someone or other being accused of plotting. Get any group of activists or wonks together and you’ll hear various ideas to get us out of this mire. Looking back at the successes and failures of the last year, it’s easy to pick out the ‘toffs’ campaign and problems at the top. But what about the deeper, more unsettling questions at the heart of the Labour party’s current problems?
Campaigning in Crewe, I was struck by the lack of long-term organisation. The late, great Gwyneth Dunwoody was a formidable parliamentarian and much-respected MP, but the local party in Crewe seemed moribund at best. Sadly, it was clear that canvassing and campaigning had not taken place for a generation. No historic data, no personal relationships, no record of local campaigning.
In estate after estate, there was no sense that Labour had been talking to local people. We hadn’t fostered a sense that the party was on their side – campaigning for better schools, safer streets and new homes. Ten pence tax and Gordon Brown did not create these problems, they merely exacerbated them.
