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There are less than two weeks to go until the race for the Democratic nomination for the 2008 U.S. Presidential election kicks off proper.

The last six polls of Democratic caucus voters in Iowa, all conducted between 13 and 19 December, show Senators Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton neck and neck, with Obama and Clinton leading in three of six polls each. They are both averaging 28.3%, with former Vice Presidential candidate, John Edwards, trailing behind with an average of 23.2%.

The Iowa caucus vote takes place on Thursday 3 January and the winner will be looking to use the momentum built up there to sweep to victory in the other states which vote in quick succession afterwards.

In New Hampshire, taking the averages of the last six polls conducted there of Democratic primary voters in the same period, Clinton is ahead with an average of 34% to Obama’s 27.8%. The New Hampshire primary takes place on Tuesday 8 January and is followed by Michigan (15 January), Nevada (19 January) and South Carolina (29 January). There is no polling data available for Wyoming which votes on 5 January.

Meanwhile, on the trail responding to claims that he lacks experience from the Clinton camp yesterday, Obama pointed to the support he says he has from her husband’s former foreign policy officials.
“Why is the national security adviser of Bill Clinton, the Secretary of the Navy of Bill Clinton, the Assistant Secretary of State for Bill Clinton—why are they all supporting me?” Obama said.
“They apparently believe that my vision of foreign policy is better suited for the 21st century.”

The British National Party has been reported to the Electoral Commission and the police over possible financial irregularities. Labour MP Jon Cruddas (right) used an adjournment debate in the House of Commons on Tuesday to make a number of charges regarding alleged illegal activity and financial irregularities in the internal operations of the BNP.

Speaking in the debate, Cruddas said
“Last week I wrote to the police to request an investigation into claims of illegal spying within the BNP,” he told the Commons. “Today I have been given a 20 page dossier entitled ‘Financial Irregularities in the British National Party: An Investigation by Searchlight Information Services’ which I am in turn sending to both the police and the Electoral Commission.”

He went on to outline a list of serious allegations against the BNP including the following:
■ the BNP’s 2006 accounts have still not been submitted to the Electoral Commission, more than five months (so far) after the due date;
■ the BNP failed to report a donation of £5,315 in the period 1 July 2007 to 30 September 2007 in contravention of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendum Act 2000;
■ BNP financial records were shredded at the home of the party’s former national treasurer in 2004;
■ the BNP has solicited donations from overseas to an organisation by the name of Civil Liberty, which Searchlight considers is merely a front organisation set up to circumvent the prohibition on donations to political parties from individuals who are not registered to vote in the UK;
■ the BNP attempted to earn insurance commission by means of an insurance entity that was not authorised by the Financial Services Authority and there were serious doubts whether the activity was exempt from the requirement for authorisation:
■ there is evidence that the BNP financed its insolvent position in 2006 by a failure to pay sums owed to HM Revenue and Customs in respect of Pay As You Earn (PAYE) and value added tax (VAT);
■ there are allegations that the BNP has paid workers in cash to avoid tax and national insurance contributions and to enable them to claim state benefits; and
■ the BNP claims to have spent at least £70,000 on printing equipment in 2005, but no such expenditure is shown in the accounts.

Cruddas also used his speech to reiterate his belief that the BNP leadership has acted illegally in the splits which have beset the party. He said that:
“the BNP have posted on their website a recording and transcript of a private conversation between the two people who were later sacked” and “it is the belief of the people concerned that their house, phone or computer has been bugged.”
He continued, “on Saturday 8 December members of BNP security, under instructions of BNP leader Nick Griffin, entered the house of Sadie Graham in the East Midlands by deception. Property belonging to Sadie Graham, including her personal computer bought for her by her father, was removed without consent. This is nothing less than burglary.”

Cruddas went on to say that this computer was later examined by the BNP, emails opened and read and the contents then posted on the Internet, which he insisted was a clear breach of the Data Protection Act. As the content of one email was referred to by Nick Griffin on the party website Cruddas concluded: “This clearly proves that the BNP leader has been privy to a criminal act.”

Cruddas ended by saying: “In conclusion what is being uncovered in the internal workings of the British National Party appears to be illegal in terms of data protection, bugging, theft and the operation of the Political Parties, Elections and referendums Act 2000.
“This is not the behaviour of a mature political party and I would like to see the police and the electoral commission investigate these charges.
“The fact that this is being orchestrated by the leader of a political party is most shocking. The BNP leadership and Nick Griffin in particular, are showing us its true colours.”

You can watch the speech below.

Early day motions (EDMs) are formal motions submitted for debate in the House of Commons by MPs.  Diane Abbott (left), MP for Hackney North,  has just submitted an EDM against the Conservative’s London Mayoral candidate and MP for Henley, Boris Johnson (right) in the following terms:

“That this House condemns the reference by the hon. Member for Henley of black people as `piccaninnies’, of Africans as having `water melon smiles’ and of African people that `left to their own devices, the natives would rely on nothing but the instant carbohydrate gratification of the plantain’; notes that the leader of the Conservative Party, the rt. hon. Member for Witney, has been asked by leading members of London’s black community to disassociate his party from these remarks and has refused to do so stating that the rt. hon. Member’s remarks have been `taken out of context and fail to properly represent what he has said in the past’; further notes that the hon. Member has never disputed the fact that he wrote these comments about black and African people; and believes that there is no context in which such remarks could be defensible or justified.”

To contact your Member of Parliament to urge them to sign up to Diane Abbott’s EDM, you will find the necessary details here.

Yesterday the Guardian’s G2 section did a fashion profile of Baroness Lola Young of Hornsey. Unlike more high profile ethnic minority peers such as Lord Ahmed and Baroness Amos, Baroness Young is one of many ethnic minority peers we hear little about.

Young was an actress during the 1970s and 1980s and went on to become Professor of Cultural Studies at Middlesex University in the mid 1990s. She was head of culture at the Greater London Authority from 2000 to 2004, the year she became a cross bench peer in the House of Lords. She sits on the Boards of the South Bank Centre and the Royal National Theatre amongst other appointments.

Over the Christmas period TMP will be profiling our unsung ethnic minority peers.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission joined forces with high profile faith leaders to claim back Christmas yesterday.  The Commission said it was responding to a growing feeling that it’s taboo to celebrate Christmas in our public spaces.

This year it is the traditional Christian nativity play that is the centre of the stories, with the usual reports of a local authority or public body falling prey to the accusation of “cancelling Christmas” and PC running amok. The resulting media furore is now a regular ritual of the holiday season.

Trevor Phillips, Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said,
“A lot of these stories about Christmas are the usual silly season stuff. But I can’t help feeling there’s sometimes an underlying agenda to use this great holiday to fuel community tension.
That’s why I asked leaders in different religious communities to join me in saying: It’s time to stop being daft about Christmas. It’s fine to celebrate and it’s fine for Christ to be the star of the show.”

In the joint statement, senior figures from the Hindu, Sikh and Muslim communities added their voice to the concerns raised by Phillips. Anil Bhanot, General Secretary, Hindu Council UK said “Hindus celebrate Christmas too. It’s a great holiday for everyone living in Britain. We would like Christians to continue to carry Jesus’ message of love. Barring the faiths of others does not fit in with the Hindu religion.”

Regular contributor to BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme, Dr Indarjit Singh, Director, Network of Sikh Organisations UK, said,
“Every year I am asked, ‘do I object to the celebration of Christmas?’ It’s an absurd question. As ever, my family and I will send out our Christmas cards to our Christian friends and others. In the spirit of Christmas, we in the Singh family will, as usual, force ourselves to have extra turkey, Christmas pudding and mince pies, the lot – all in the cause of inter-faith harmony. No one can say Sikhs don’t go the extra mile!”

This weekend Oprah Winfrey joined Barack Obama on the campaign trail in Columbia, South Carolina.  Talkshow queen Oprah is supporting Obama’s bid for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination.  You can watch them team up below.

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.