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Writing in today’s New Statesman, TMP editor Chuka Umunna, reflects on New Nation’s Power List and the need for the role models of today to step forward and inspire.

In three and a half years working for a corporate law firm in the City, I often worked ungodly hours, bleary-eyed, on big-money transactions for many of the private equity houses that have become persona non grata of late. Not once did I hear the name of Damon Buffini.

But early this year, the GMB trade union waged an extremely effective campaign against the private equity sector and made Buffini, as managing partner of the equity giant Permira, its focus. It even parked a camel outside the church Buffini attends, to “highlight the quote from the Bible about a camel going through the eye of a needle”. So successful was it that the likes of the Daily Mail came out in support - unusual bedfellows indeed.

While I share the reservations about private equity’s penchant for playing hard and fast with people’s jobs, I was genuinely delighted to discover Buffini - a man who looks like me and has a mixed-race background to similar to mine - sitting atop the private equity pile.

Here is a man who came from a council estate in Leicester, and became not only the Thierry Henry of his industry sector, but also arguably the richest man of black parentage in this country. What a shame that he has come to prominence in the context of a public row about corporate greed.

After the murder of 11-year-old Rhys Jones, there has been a plethora of interviews with former gang members who grew up in circumstances similar to Buffini’s. Predictably, many have sought a career in music as a route out of the gangs and the council estates.

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TMP editor, Chuka Umunna, delves into the party of David, John and Boris. 

According to David Cameron, some or all of us are living in anarchy. Yesterday, on the Today Programme, he said that “we are not going to deal with anarchy in the UK unless [we] actually strengthen families and communities.” When asked, he did not clarify how widespread anarchy was, nor did he tell us which towns and cities to avoid. But according to Cameron, some place, somewhere, anarchy reigns in Britain today. I agree – it is staring him right in the face, in his own party.

The Tory disarray we have seen this summer is born of sheer panic. Cameron and his team pursued a strategy designed to present the Tory leader as Tony Blair’s heir apparent. Indeed, during a dinner with newspaper executives on the eve of his famous 2005 speech to the Conservative Party conference, he reportedly said that he was the true “heir to Blair”. What he and his team did not bargain on was that the great British public would tire of Blair and his brand of political showbiz. As Matthew Parris correctly stated earlier this month, now Blair has gone, the public are not pining for him but seem to want something altogether different.

It would appear that most people are satisfied that Gordon Brown is providing the change in style and substance they seek, which has led to unexpectedly good poll leads, the most recent being the Sunday Times/YouGov poll, giving Labour a 10 point lead and for Brown, strong personal ratings. Few have found fault, be it in Brown’s dealings with Bush, or his handling of the various challenges which have arisen.

So what has been the Conservative reaction? First, get Boris to run for Mayor. On 16 July, Boris Johnson arrived with a media scrum and bicycle at City Hall to announce his candidacy to run for Mayor of London. In his 2005 conference speech, Cameron claimed that he wanted to fight for a “modern, compassionate Conservatism” but Johnson represents anything but. Myself, Doreen Lawrence and others have been accused of “introducing some ludicrous (and highly dangerous) racial divide” into the London Mayoral contest, by daring to question Johnson’s use of certain language in relation to Black people. But, putting his utterances in that regard to one side, Boris has been plugging an unashamedly right wing mantra for years, as Compass has shown today.

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Writing in today’s Guardian newspaper, TMP editor, Chuka Umunna, argues that it will take more than appeals for new role models to solve the growing crisis of inner city teenage killings.

This has been a grim year for urban youth. In London alone, 17 teenagers were killed in the first half of the year, having been shot or stabbed. A report into gang culture by the Department for Communities is launched today, at a time when our inner cities are starting to resemble the notorious American ghettoes of gangster-rap folklore.
The latest killings - the vast majority of victims being black - have triggered a flurry of headlines and hand-wringing, but they were going on long before the media cottoned on.

I work at a charity for young people who have committed minor offences, or are at risk of doing so, in Lambeth, south London, and we know of three other violent young deaths which failed to register on the national radar. At the 409 Project, we are ideally placed to reach those parts which the police and others cannot. Take Darren, 14, a member of a notorious local gang. Gangs like his, he explains, have different categories of member, made up of “olders” (aged 20-plus), “youngers” (aged 16 to 19) and “tinies” (under-16). Each gang is, in effect, a large extended family.

Darren - a “tiny” - is presently excluded from school, having been involved in a stabbing on his school’s premises. The reasons cited by Darren for involvement with gangs are family related, but not in the commonly used sense of family breakdown. Darren has cousins and uncles who are all involved with the gang he is a member of, so through them he became involved too. In his eyes, gangs serve a function - “when things happen, people will be there to back you”. He says inner-city youngsters do not turn to, say, the police for protection, as they have no confidence that the boys in blue will come to their rescue.

In marked contrast, however, he trusts in our organisation; he feels at home with us. Another of our youngsters, 16-year-old Lloyd, who is no longer in a gang, maps out the “battleground” that people like him navigate every day. He describes how CCTV cameras have been installed in his school in an effort to curb the number of incidents there, and explains how the most trivial argument can spill out of the classroom.

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TMP editor, Chuka Umunna, explores Boris Johnson’s candidacy to become Mayor of London.

Finally the circus act which is Boris Johnson is being subjected to the scrutiny that comes with running for Mayor of arguably the world’s most multicultural city. People are beginning to look behind the mask of the clown.

Over the weekend the spotlight has been put on what we already knew but have forgotten in the midst of the “Have I Got News For You” appearances, alleged extra marital dalliances and musings on the “vicarious victimhood” of Liverpudlians – Boris is so far to the right of his party that his views would make even the driest Thatcherite blush.

His writings on race and Black people reveal the mindset of an old colonialist – the scruffy, public school educated, boat-shoe clad type that talks fondly of their family’s time in “Keeenyaa”, drinking, shooting and the rest, whilst the “nice little people” there tended to their every want and need.

In 2002 here he is on Tony Blair’s then imminent visit to the Democratic of Republic of Congo: “no doubt the AK47s will fall silent, and the pangas will stop their hacking of human flesh, and the tribal warriors will all break out in watermelon smiles to see the big white chief touch down in his big white British taxpayer-funded bird.” In 2003 he is reported cheerily remarking to Swedish Unicef workers and their black driver in Uganda, “right, let’s go and look at some more piccaninnies”. These are just a few snippets but you get the flavour.

Put in this context David Cameron’s keenness for Boris to run is puzzling to say the least. Cameron has sought to move his party to the centre ground, to look like a modern, grown up party at ease with the world and the cultural changes – racial or otherwise – which have occurred since the 1950s. Boris clearly is not.

Boris running for Mayor would have been an attractive proposition to his leader because, though he may be seen as somewhat of a Westminster village idiot, at least people know him. He has the distinction of being a Conservative politician and celebrity in one – a rare commodity.

Cameron has been already been accused of being all spin and no substance, and people have cited Boris running as another example of this. But it is not an accusation that deserves to be made in this case.

There is plenty of substance to Boris, which even a cursory reading of his pieces in the Daily Telegraph and the Spectator demonstrate. The problem is that the substance in this instance is just plain wrong if your aim is to win the Mayoralty of a city, a third of whose population is made up of ethnic minorities for whom your candidate has shown wanton disrespect.

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.

Piara Khabra died today.  He was the Labour MP for Ealing Southall and, at 82, was the oldest Member of Parliament. Born in India, he arrived in the UK in 1959 having served in the Indian Army during the Second World War. He was a teacher and social worker before he entered parliament in 1992 and built up a reputation as an assiduous constituency MP. He will be sorely missed and all of us at TMP send our best wishes and condolences to his family at this sad time.

Chuka Umunna
Editor, TMP

TMP editor, Chuka Umunna, looks at the accusation that certain of Labour’s deputy leadership contenders are “lurching to the left”. 

Many, myself included, feared the Labour deputy leadership election would be nothing more than a personality contest. Whatever Roy Hattersley and others may have said about the post, the contest to become deputy leader has been anything but a beauty parade. It has turned into a genuine policy and values debate about Labour’s future, as Polly Toynbee rightly points out.

Some of the contenders have shown they have the courage to say things many Labour people only dared whisper during the height of Blairism. Peter Hain, Harriet Harman and Jon Cruddas have all wondered aloud how we can make our society more equal than it has been over the last 10 years. They do not believe this is as good as it gets and they think Labour can do better.

So Hain has called for action to be taken in relation to City bonuses and this week suggested that those selling property should pay stamp duty to help first time buyers. Harman has called for a Royal commission on the distribution of income and wealth. Leading the charge is Cruddas, the backbencher who has come out of nowhere to become a front-runner. Having put housing issues firmly on the map, this week he said he was not hostile to a 50% top rate of tax for the very, very rich.

But this has sparked accusations of a “lurch to the left” and a drift back to the past by Labour’s very own “no turning back” brigade. John Hutton is just the latest member of this awkward squad, who has warned against getting sucked into an argument about regulating the incomes of wealthy people or tackling the gap between the very rich and the very poor, for fear loosing the better off’s votes (Tory George Osborne has made the same accusations for different reasons). But the “no lurcher” brigade’s claims simply do not add up.

In the 90s, Labour was obsessed with “Worcester woman”, “Sierra man” and all the “pebble dash” people. No one is suggesting Labour dumps the support of these people, many of whose votes the party won for the first time in 1997. Paradoxically, these new Labour voters have stayed loyal, so it is not their votes the “no lurchers” should be worrying about; it is the 5 million voters - public sector workers, manual workers, black and minority ethnic people and urban intellectuals - who have left in droves since 1997, that should concern them. Never mind the women’s vote Toynbee referred to, if these groups’ support (men and women) continues to wane, Labour will loose the next general election.

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TMP editor, Chuka Umunna, ponders who should be appointed to succeed Paul Wolfowitz as president of the World Bank. 

So, the arch neo-conservative, Paul Wolfowitz, has been given the boot – sorry, resigned - from the presidency of the World Bank. He supposedly did so with his reputation in tact.

The statement issued by the Board of the bank last week said they accepted that Wolfowitz “acted ethically and in good faith in what he believed were the best interests of the institution”, in the controversy which led to his departure - the promotion of his girlfriend, a World Bank staffer. If that were the case, why did he resign?

The Board went on to say that it was clear “that a number of mistakes were made by a number of individuals in handling the matter”, but they did not actually name Wolfowitz as a culprit. So are we to believe he was not personally at fault? There appears to be somewhat of an inconsistency here.

So now he is off, who should replace Wolfowitz to become the eleventh president of the World Bank?

The bank is primarily made up of two development institutions, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and the International Development Association, which are owned by 185 member countries. It is a vital source of financial and technical assistance to developing countries around the world.

The bank provides low-interest loans, interest-free credit, and grants to developing countries for education, health, agriculture, environmental protection and infrastructure. Ironically, in light of the allegations against Wolfowitz, the bank also works to promote good governance and reduce corruption in the world.

Traditionally, the president of the bank is a citizen of the U.S - the bank’s biggest shareholder - and serves for five year, renewable, terms. Though nominated by the U.S government, the appointment must be confirmed by the bank’s Board. That said, the U.S normally gets its way in this respect, hence the appointment of Bush hard-liner, Wolfowitz, back in 2005.

The attributes required of a World Bank president are pretty ill-defined. The bank’s website, rather unhelpfully, states that the president is chairman of the bank’s Board and president of its constituent organisations, which is a bit like saying the Prime Minister is head of the UK government – the description doesn’t tell us what the occupant of the post does every day or what makes a good Prime Minister. To the extent that there is any agreement on the qualities needed, the consensus appears to be that the World Bank president should at least be a political and, above all, economic heavyweight with some development experience.

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TMP editor, Chuka Umunna, reflects on the fickleness of the media.

So Blair bows out and the Brown leadership campaign has started. Not a hint of razzle dazzle at the Brown launch, though there were the mandatory party workers clapping at appropriate moments. A welcome contrast to the glory and emotion of the Blair era, which sought to present the Labour Party as an American style jamboree, rather than a place for serious people to come together. The supposedly impromptu placard waving at last year’s Labour Party conference (on display again on Thursday) was, frankly, embarrassing.

Many seemed to have taken leave of their senses on the day the Prime Minister announced he was off. Nick Robinson, one time chairman of the Young Conservatives and now BBC political editor, demonstrated just how fickle the media can be when he proclaimed that Blair will “leave Downing Street after a decade in office without being forced out, and with a smile on his face.”

What utter nonsense. Blair was forced to announce his departure last September and would have stayed longer if he could. Robinson said as much himself when, last September, he said Blair had announced he would leave before this year’s Labour Party conference because he was “convinced that unless he personally promised that he’d be gone in a year, some in his party might conspire to have him out within weeks”.

Much as I admire what Blair has achieved in office, this fawning coverage of his departure was to behold, coming as it did from people who only months before had been so keen to slate him at every turn. In truth, as critical as some have been, Blair’s departure for them marked the passing of “one of us” - a fellow private school and Oxbridge educated member of the fashionable London chattering classes. It is these very people who have sought to make as much as possible out of Brown’s supposed personality failings, Robinson chief among them.

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The impetus to set up this website stemmed from the fact that there was no space – magazine, journal, online discussion group - for those on the progressive left and from diverse backgrounds, to come together and talk about politics from the multicultural progressive perspective.

Usually the media focuses on Britain’s ethnic minorities when an event occurs which they think is of particular relevance to one of our many rich and diverse communities. This was seen with the recent attention given to the African Caribbean communities in the wake of the teenage shootings in London. Our South Asian communities were subject to the same scrutiny during police terror raids in Birmingham and East London.

But those of us who are part of those communities have a lot more to offer. Wouldn’t it have been interesting to hear from those who come from India and Pakistan, the newest members of the nuclear club, during the whole Trident renewal debate? The liberal press has anxiously pondered whether an equivalent of the U.S Christian Right is emerging in the U.K – what do Britain’s African Caribbean communities think about this, given their churches are amongst the fastest growing in the Britain today? What about faith schools? The government says it cannot deny our communities religious schools when there are so many Christian ones already in existence. The writer and broadcaster, Will Hutton, questions the sustainability of the Chinese economy given the lack of reform and alleged rampant corruption in that country – do British Chinese people, who have relatives on the ground in China, agree?

It is hoped that this site will help answer those and many other questions. We will primarily cover the British political scene, but we will be unapologetically international in our coverage too.

Finally, for the avoidance of doubt, we welcome contributions from any one - whatever your background. The only criteria we apply is that your post should be of interest to the multicultural progressive.

Chuka Umunna
Editor, TMP