I attended Waltham Forest’s 101st Citizenship Ceremony, as guest of honour, on Wednesday morning. It was a fantastic and moving experience that lifted my spirits for the whole day. I was particularly delighted to present new British citizen Maureen Paul (pictured with me above) who comes from Dominica, where my family is from. Continue reading “Waltham Forest’s Citizenship Ceremony 101”
I had a brilliant time on Monday night, taking part in Colourful Radio’s ‘Front Line’ show, which aims to raise the profile of local government and the work of councillors.
Pascoe Sawyers (pictured above sitting, with myself and Councillor Emma Hoddinott from Beverley in West Yorkshire), Director of the Leadership Academy for the Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA) for local government (www.idea.gov.uk) is the presenter of the Front Line programme, which has now been running for the past seven weeks, going out on Colourful Radio at 8pm every Monday Continue reading “At the Front Line with Colourful Radio”
Just before Christmas, I posted a story about the Voice Newspaper and why I believe that the leadership of the Labour party should do more to cultivate the UK’s ethnic media in the same way they cultivate the mainstream tabloids and broadsheets – particularly when you consider that four out of five BME citizens will vote Labour if they actually go out and vote.
On top of this, I have also recently been informed that one-fifth of all Labour party members are estimated to be of Black or Minority Ethnic Origin. This is a staggering figure considering that BME communities only make up eight per cent of the UK population.
With this in mind, I was therefore absolutely delighted to open this week’s Voice newspaper (which came out this morning) and see this fantastic interview with Jon Cruddas MP, who is running for Deputy Leader of the Labour party.
The interview confirms to me why I chose to back Jon Cruddas and why I will continue to back him. Here is someone who actually wants to reach out to Labour’s traditional supporters and win back their trust.
Jon Cruddas is the first and only Deputy Leadership candidate to have done an interview in the Voice.
As a Black councillor, I have been even more reassured by this interview that Jon will be a powerful voice for BME members if he becomes the Deputy Leader of our party.
I popped up to the BBC Television and Radio studios in White City on Tuesday morning, to take part in a studio debate on Radio 4’s flagship political programme ‘Today’ with presenters Sarah Montague (pictured above left) and Edward Stourton (pictured above right).
The independent local government Think Tank, the New Local Government Network (NLGN), has published a new pamphlet entitled ‘Local Government: Young at Heart?‘, which calls for councillors – particularly young councillors – to receive better pay and conditions. The NLGN asked me to go on the programme to talk about what my role as a councillor involves Continue reading “Debating Councillor Allowances on ‘Today’”