The Tories winning over who?

Read:www.newstatesman.com

I had to laugh at the New Statesman headline – “How the Tories are winning over black Britain”

Question marks completely tally the whole of this punch line in my opinion, especially considering this was written by David Matthews, the infamous journalist who loves to court controversy in the Black community. I’m not even surprised that he’s a Conservative Party member. From reading the whole piece it reads solely as Conservative propaganda.

One of the irritating parts of the feature story was his claim to associate Black middle class with the Conservative Party. Tell me why should being Black and middle class mean that you should support the Conservatives and not Labour?

In the next general election the Conservative Party have put forward nine BME candidates which I presume will bring the total of Conservative BME MPs to about seven or eight.

Whereas the Labour Party, who already have 13 sitting BME MPs, are putting forward four with one set to sit as an MP. Although the party is streaks ahead of the Tories, more still needs to be done in both parties.

If you look at how, earlier this year, the Tories (Cameron) got rid of the A-list (it enabled minorities and women to have a fair chance of being selected in winnable seats), again it begs the question as to whether the party really is what it says it wants to be – “More inclusive”?. So I do wonder from the feature story what makes the Tory party the new “Black party” as Matthews tries to insinuate.

Pushing people like Sayeeda Varsi, Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones and more recently Shaun Bailey, don’t get me wrong Shaun is a very genuine guy, but it highlights to me the Tories desperation to attract BMES by using highly talented BMEs in the party as puppets to draw others.

Who wants it more?

Grrrrr….

The embarrassing clash between the contenders for the Lib Dem leadership was hilarious.

Read story: www.bbc.co.uk/news

Nick Clegg and Chris Huhne arguing on live tv, it’s “good” to see the real side of politics, the politics we don’t get to see behind closed doors – Politics dirty tricks rears its head again. I guess we can presume Clegg will try to soak up every inch of publicity he can to deter Huhne’s campaign after this little stunt.

Just going off track here but I must mention Clegg’s appearance on Question Time. I know everyone’s saying it but I saw it for myself this time – Clegg’s mannerisms are a complete match for David Cameron. His hand gestures, the way he formulated his arguments, the pauses…he just looked like Conservative Cameron in another guise.

Now do we really want another Cam on our hands? And I’m so annoyed that nothing really sets all these parties apart? Their policies?, savvy wannabe leaders? They all seem interlinked in some way. And do we really want clones? Some where the interests of people have been lost and the narcissism of politicians is more apparent, and to be honest I think it has always been that way.

The question is do we even care if Clegg (shall we say calamity Clegg) or Huhne becomes the next Lib Dem leader and will it make any difference to the political climate.

Maybe it could, only if they take advantage of the frustrations people now have with both the Labour Party and Conservative Party. But are the Lib Dem’s “good enough”. And my question again – what sets them apart from the other parties? What can they offer that we want? Gosh, I’m sounding so pessimistic.

We will just have to wait for the chosen Lib Dem leader on December 17 and it’ll be interesting to see how the party turns around from there on.

Time to end trade embargo against Cuba

Can you imagine what Cuba would be like today if America never imposed its trade embargo against Cuba those 40 plus years ago?

The country’s economy would be far greater than it is today and by far prosperous for the people who live there. Instead today, due to American intervention, Castro’s efforts to capitalise on foreign investments and tourism have been failures. This is why I believe the promising growth in Cuba has been blighted by the US government.

Story about the United Nations calling for US’s end to trade embargo AGAIN (16th time): www.un.org

The country is dying a slow death because the US government is throttling its development. Sometime back in the mid 1990s Bush’s administration implemented legislation controlling the amount of time Cuban-Americans can go home to Cuba (once every three years instead of every year and they can only spend $50 a day instead of $167).

What is America afraid of? It doesn’t just lie with Bush because I know Bill Clinton implemented legislations against the country also.

The US administration has been quick to say that the embargo was made to also help bring democracy to the Cuban people but we haven’t actually heard what the people living there actually believe. I wouldn’t even trust what is said in US press because I’m sure propaganda has ensured that only one side is heard. But what do the people of Cuba actually think? And perhaps they are happy under Castro despite what some papers may say?

I’m guessing the only resentment they may feel is that if it wasn’t for the trade embargo they could be a prosperous country. If the US administration hadn’t imposed this ban wouldn’t communities be affluent?

There are so many levels to the US vs Cuba saga which would be too long to write on here but I just feel it’s time to end the trade ban, apparently the embargo was imposed after Cuba stole possessions belonging to US corporations etc back in 1962.

Don’t be swayed by the Ken Machine

I like Ken Livingstone, he’s a political rebel, he’s a decent London mayor and if I think about it there really isn’t anyone else out there who I’d like to see represent London. But is it me or does Kenny think that we’re all suckers for money or a quick save.

His latest gimmick pre mayoral elections – he’s announced that he’ll be freezing all single fares on public transport across the city. Yippee!! We yell – not really, I don’t think anyone is actually rejoicing in the announcement, because fares are ridiculously dear at the moment anyway.

So from next January all public transport will keep their current fares (that’s of course until he wins his next term as London Mayor). So those of us on Oyster cards can continue to pay single fares on the tube for £1.50 whilst those who don’t have the “big brother” cards will have to fork out a hefty £4.

I hear that at the moment only three per cent of tube fares are now paid in cash – my theory is that once everyone moves onto Oyster you can bet that those prices will soar!

So Kenny’s bid for the Mayor of London is away and running …I wonder what other treats the other candidates are likely to dish out to the London public!

On May 1, 2008, we get to vote. Oh but I’ve forgotten some of our other candidates: We have the Conservatives batty Boris Johnson, the Respect Party’s “cult SWP group” Lindsey German and representing the Lib Dems is Fiyaz Mughal who sadly only had two people attend a conference he was holding about his candidacy bid.

The choice is yours London – you decide, despite there not being much choice at all.

Kenny has actually denied that he is using the announcement of freezing travel fare as a ploy to win votes – he said: “You have a 25-year record of me cutting fares whenever I’ve got the chance.”

But you know what I would like to see if those periods of cutting fares coincide with his bids during mayoral elections.

Ming the Merciless calls it quits

Sir Menzies Campbell or as I prefer to call him Ming like in the comic strip Flash Gordon, as Gordon’s archenemy Ming the Merciless, evil ruler of Mongo. It’s quite fitting actually, because once again Ming has been defeated.

It was inevitable. The amount of opposition he was facing I’m in no way surprised that he handed in his resignation. His own party members turned against him, rampant vultures, pecking at every move he made, no wonder he gave up. It’s blatantly obvious that he would have stayed as the party leader if it wasn’t for that.

Anyway, enough of the comic strip analogy, Ming is far from evil in my opinion and from what I’ve seen on television debates he seems quite aware of what is happening in our communities and the “politics” apparent with politicians in both the Labour Party and Tory party.

But his reign crumbled at its roots. The mini mutiny that took place within the Lib Dem Party, with party members arguing that Ming was not the right person to continue leading their party but what they really meant to say was that he was too old – too traditional to be the Party leader.

Of course from the party standards his experience and insight count for nothing, it seems as though they feel that a younger, fresher face would perhaps bring the party back to being a real opposition – it did achieve a slight bounce up during the aftermath of the Iraq war but they failed to draw on that and ever since they’ve been sitting very quietly on the sidelines.

I see Ming as a very good politician but he doesn’t have the appeal that his predecessors have had, which is a shame. It looks likely that now party members have got their way they plan to get a media savvy “wannbe” opportunist leader in his place.