Tulip Siddiq

I was lucky enough to be invited to the launch of ‘The Road to Copenhagen’, a new Government pamphlet setting out the UK’s case for an ambitious international climate change agreement in Copenhagen.

It took place in the London Zoo was attended by Gordon Brown, Hilary Benn and Ed Miliband. You can see my photos from the event here.

We had a very productive meeting with Harriet Harman about Young Labour issues.

We talked about the role of young members in the Labour Party, Young Labour events at Annual Conference and the support for young members who want to run for public office.

We also lobbied the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party about extending the £1 youth rate for young people who want to join the Labour Party. Additionally we discussed the need to have a Minister who looks after youth affairs.

Here’s a photo of the Young Labour executive with Harriet Harman:

I was invited to attend an event with Gordon Brown last weekend in Stratford. I decided it was worth making the long journey to the east for the Prime Minister!

It’s not the most optimistic of articles but you can read more about the event here and you may even spot a little familiar face in the photo.

We had the chance to ask questions at the end of his (quite humorous!) speech and I asked the Prime Minister about the opportunities for young women to advance in the Labour Party.

Several female ministers have resigned from the cabinet in the last few weeks and although I don’t take Caroline Flint’s words about being ‘window-dressing’ at face value, I wanted reassurance from the Prime Minister that the Labour Party still believes in equal rights for women.

Unfortunately he didn’t answer my question because he ran out of time. If you’re reading this Mr Brown, you still owe me an answer! Yes I’m happy to meet with you at No 10 of course……

Ok I think the lack of sleep is getting to me! You can see my photos from the event here.

I did a lot of anti-BNP campaigning before the European elections last week. Unfortunately the BNP managed to win two seats although it is worth bearing in mind that the BNP won less votes this time than they did in 2004.

Did anyone else see Nick Griffin’s victory speech? It was truly awful.

One of the main events I hosted was with the Rt Hon Douglas Alexander (Secretary of State for International Development) in East London. It was essentially a ‘Get Out The BAME Vote’ event and we had a Q&A session with the BAME press.

Claude Moraes who has been elected as one of our London MEPs and Rushanara Ali (PPC for Bethnal Green and Bow) both spoke at the event.

You can see the photos from the event here.

I also wrote to my local newspaper about the threat of the BNP. My letter is in this week’s edition of the Ham and High and for those that don’t live locally, here it is:

Dear Editor

I read with great interest your article last week ‘Winston’s words on Europe’. In the views expressed below, a young lady called Jennifer states that she’s not really interested in the European elections, that she’s never voted before but that if there is a racist party, she wouldn’t want them voted for.

I need to point out that Jennifer’s statement is commonplace (especially amongst my peers) and worryingly contradictory.

The truth is that if the turnout for the European elections today is low, a racist party such as the BNP stand a greater chance of being elected as this election is based on proportional representation.

I understand that a lot of people, both young and old, are disillusioned with politics at the moment but there’s no point in saying that you don’t want a racist party to be voted in if you do not vote yourself.

The British Nationalist Party consider people who are not ‘white’ to be ‘guests of Britain’ rather than British. They deny that the Holocaust ever happened. They believe mixed-race relationships should be outlawed. In their 2005 general election manifesto, they stated that the answer to violent crime is to allow every household to have a gun. The final nail on the coffin is that they have been circulating a poster with three white men entitled “British Jobs for British Workers” but these men are actually American!

If you’ve never voted before, this is the time to break the habit of a lifetime in order to avoid a culture of intolerance from developing in Britain.

Labour and Green councillors won a narrow victory in securing an investigation into low pay for cleaners, care workers and dinner ladies at Camden Council.

In a disputed decision, the Tory/Lib Dem run council will now research the issue of low pay at Camden Council in time to discuss the tendering of part-time worker contracts in July 2009.

Cllrs Linda Cheung (Lib Dem, Hampstead Town) and Cllr. Nick Russell (Lib Dem, Kentish Town) voted against reviewing low paid contracts and the possibility of introducing the £7.60 an hour London Living Wage at Camden, while Cllr. Theo Blackwell (Labour, Regent’s Park) and Adrian Oliver (Green, Highgate) voted in favour. The decision to go ahead with 2-2 was made by the casting vote of the Chair. No Conservatives were present at the meeting.

Chair of the Committee and Opposition Finance spokesperson Cllr. Theo Blackwell said:

“It doesn’t surprise me that the Lib Dems are against the London Living Wage, they also oppose the National Minimum Wage.”

“The council outsourced residential caretakers and now wants to privatise Talacre sport centre staff. They are doing so without a commitment to pay people a decent London minimum. Everyone knows if you depress wages at the bottom it impacts on wages higher up the scale. If you carry on like this pretty soon you’ll have a recruitment crisis, or no local people will be there to do these jobs.”

“It’s clear that the view from on high is that the council doesn’t want to open what it sees as a can of worms. The council legal advice is suspect. They say it can’t be done, despite other councils committing to this and the Mayor of London seeing the higher London rate as good morally good and for morale and productivity.”

In the 2009 Budget Labour proposed an amendment to stop bonuses for senior council staff (totalling £300,000 a year) until the issue of low paid had been addressed. They also argued against proposals that 3 Lib Dem backbench councillors should be paid an extra £5000 a year for their work.

Cllr. Blackwell added:

“High wages and bonuses are no problem for the council, but when they consider low pay it suddenly becomes all to expensive. Camden’s own figures for school cleaners, cooks and low paid carers show that this would cost £1 million, about 1% on council tax. Last year Camden made a surplus of £13 million through cutting services and higher charges for the very services they continue to pay people poorly.”

As the Euro elections creep closer and closer, I’ve been spending most of my time campaigning. Obviously I’ve been knocking on doors in my own Regent’s Park ward as often as possible. I had a good session with Nash who is leader of the Labour Group and our local MP Frank Dobson last weekend.

Yes it was very windy that day!

I also went campaigning in Bethnal Green for Rushanara Ali on a less windy day. Here I am with one of the local Labour Party members.

I’ve also arranged a few telephone canvassing sessions for the North West where the BNP leader Nick Griffin is standing. We need to get the message out (particularly to apathetic Labour voters) that a vote for any other party gives more support to the BNP. If you’d like to help with any campaigning over the next few days, please contact me.

What can we make of the recent disruption in relations between the government and the Muslim Council of Britain? Once feted as the voice of Muslims in Britain, the organisation has been severely rebuked by the government over allegations that one of its leaders was supporting violence against Israel. Hazel Blears has now called for further clarification on the MCB’s position. Does this mean that the government has put dialogue with the Muslim community on hold?

The Guardian newspaper correctly refers to the MCB as ‘Britain’s largest Muslim group’ and I do not doubt its credibility as an organisation. After all, it is a body with over 500 national, regional and local organisations along with mosques, charities and schools. However, it cannot be seen to have the authority to speak for the 1.6 million Muslims in Britain.

Whether the MCB has promoted itself as a voice for people like me is a separate question. My concern is that the government itself has taken the easy route by promoting the MCB and not listening to individuals. I am pleased that the government wants to engage with the Muslim population as they are an integral part of society. However, attaching this amount of responsibility and importance to a single organisation is, frankly speaking, at best lazy and at worst, misguided and damaging

In my personal opinion, and note that I do not speak for all Muslims, instead of using the MCB as a collective voice, the government should realise that Muslims need to be heard through representation in the political system. The danger is that through bodies like this, an individual view is believed to be reflective of the wider Muslim community. MCB and similar organisations have a purpose and should exist but real engagement starts when young Muslims become more involved in politics and become councillors, MPs, Ministers and policy makers. This requires cooperation from both sides of course.
Sadiq Khan, the Minister for Community Cohesion, told The Times: “The days of lazy politicians just speaking to one or two powerful community groups or leaders are gone. You need to speak to individuals and local community groups, even though there will still be a role for umbrella groups to play.”

What a relief! Sadiq, as one of the few Muslim MPs, sums up my frustration about indolent politicians. Sadiq is making a valid point but it needs to be taken further than just ‘speaking’ to individuals and local community groups. We need to get individuals and local community groups actively involved in politics.

A major obstacle exists within the culture of unpaid internships that is almost necessary before one can really enter into politics. This immediately puts BAME members at a disadvantage as statistics show that 75% of the BAME community live in 88 of the poorest boroughs across Britain. I was lucky that I had the means to intern for free for a whole year but not everyone can afford that luxury. After my internship, I immediately walked into a paid job in Parliament. Why can’t more MPs have paid internship schemes in their offices? Why can’t more local councillors have shadowing schemes and skills training for young people interested in politics?

Additionally, BAME involvement in politics is crucial for the nation because we need BAME votes to keep the BNP out. I campaigned heavily against the BNP during the Mayoral elections last year but I found at least 10 BAME households a day who were not registered to vote. The main reasons for not registering appeared to be apathy to politics or because they do not feel that government represented them. The only way to rectify this is to involve more people from different communities into government so that government starts to mirror the makeup of the nation that it is meant to serve. Politicians cannot all be from one type of background. Often BAME communities feel (and maybe wrongly so) that a BAME MP is more likely to understand and appreciate their concerns.

As the European elections approach, the threat of a BNP MEP is imminent. Again, society needs the help of the BAME vote to avoid this. The last major election I campaigned for was in Bangladesh in January. The voter turnout was nearly 87%, a figure which contrasts sharply with the poor turnout here.

People in Bangladesh voted positively, for democracy and tolerance and against extremism and ‘old politics.’ Women, students and young people, often first time voters, voted in masses to keep extremist politico-religious parties, like Jaamat-e-Islami, out of office.

We take democracy for granted in Britain and we always complain about being let down by politicians. We think by not voting we’re making a statement. But what about the people of Bangladesh? They didn’t give up on democracy in spite of their troubled past and military coups. It was first time voters who led the way because the political parties had managed to engage them during the campaign by raising concerns relevant to their needs.

If we want to keep the BNP out and establish a more democratic society, we need to engage our BAME community to take an active interest in politics which will ultimately lead to increased turnout. As we know in the Labour party: the more people who vote, the more extremism is likely to be rejected and the more likely it is for progressive parties to win. Perhaps if more citizens had been registered, we could have avoided the BNP representative sitting in the Greater London Authority right now. The loss of the BAME vote means society suffers as a whole.

Don’t get me wrong - organisations like the MCB are useful because they can serve to explain the religion better to non-Muslims and dispel misconceptions but ultimately the best way to connect with the BAME community is through active participation. Creating a political system which is engaged with, and represented by, all groups isn’t a simple task and it won’t get any easier by trying to aggregate communities into single voices. Many voices have to be heard and there’s no better way to do that than participation at all levels.

I’ve been discussing the proposed closure of the post office on Albany Street with Cllr Theo Blackwell today. He’s written a detailed blog about the closure here.

I wrote to the Camden New Journal about this important topic last week and you can see my letter here.

On another note, you have until 19 May to register if you want to have your say in the forthcoming European elections. Don’t forget that there is a serious risk that the far-right British National Party could get a seat.

You can find more information about voting here.

I apologise if I have not responded to your email this week. I am preoccupied with my imminent exams.

If you have emailed me about internships for the summer, the best place to look is on the w4mp website. I will also ask my colleagues about other opportunities and get back to all of you by next week.

I’m delighted to say that I have been selected as one of the Labour Party council candidates in Regent’s Park. I will be working hard for Regent’s Park with the two sitting councillors Nash and Heather.

The Camden New Journal reported the story here and they have twitted a few times about me here. (If the CNJ reporters are reading this - thank you for your kind comments!)

Speaking of twitter…..my article about politicians and social networking is on hold, not abandoned! Please email me if you have any thoughts on this topic.

I was extremely pleased to see that the Total Politics magazine printed my letter.

If you haven’t got a copy of the May edition, you can read my letter online here.

This edition seems to have a few articles from people I know including Jon who discusses lobbying in the EU headquarters and Philippa who writes about Tibet.

There’s also a detailed article about using Facebook effectively from Mark Pack. Although he makes some useful points about privacy settings, I can’t help but feel that politicians have jumped on the Facebook bandwagon a little too late. I’m sure I was first poked over two years ago so why is Facebook suddenly so topical now?

In the agony aunt section of the magazine, the Campaign Doctor bluntly tells a confused politician - “Don’t pretend you are down with the kids!”

Does anyone feel that’s what the politicians are doing with Facebook and Twitter? Or is it that some MPs can get away with it and others really shouldn’t even try? Or is it better late than never?

At least social networking means greater scrutiny of politics which is always a good thing in a democracy. I have to say that sometimes it does feel like these tools are being used ineffectively i.e. more for spin than to gauge public opinion.

I think I feel a detailed blog coming on about politicians and social networking! Tune in over the next few days as I want to watch Question Time now. (Let’s see what the public think about the very measured Budget…)

By the way, I better clarify that I don’t classify myself as a ‘kid’ anymore. It’s just that I am probably a little bit younger than the apparent Facebook ‘movers and shakers’……Nick Clegg, Simon Renwick, Lord West and none other than our John!

Sadly I’m not one of his 1,800 Facebook friends but unlike most of those people, I do have a smiley photo with him -