This is a must read article for all Labour Party members and supporters.
Here is an extract:
But I was reminded of why Labour needed to be out there when I was sent off to get out the vote with a young third generation Bengali girl. I learned how she had been sent to a pupil referral unit, but had sorted herself out and now had ambitions to go to college or university. With her beehive hair, long nails, fags and attitude, she was like many teenage girls. As we turned onto a new street suddenly she called in alarm and explained that she couldn’t be seen walking along there smoking a cigarette. “They’re traditionalist round here”, she explained taking lots of puffs and stubbing it on the pavement. “Women like me shouldn’t be smoking”. The traditionalists, she said, “take one look at me with my clothes and my hair and don’t think I’m proper Bengali”. I felt like I’d been transported back to the 1960s and my feminist blood boiled.
Later on I listened to a call she made to a friend. “I’m with two whites, and I’m sick of the dirts I’m getting from all the Asian men”, she said. I self-consciously enquired why it was a problem for her to be seen with white people and she said it just wasn’t the done thing. As I looked around I noticed it was true. Everywhere we walked she got daggers and I was overcome with second wavism.
So did Lutfur Rahman represent the traditionalist view in this election, I asked? She nodded and said that was why she was campaigning for Labour. It certainly gave me extra reason to keep marching up those last few staircases of the knock-up.
Also, read David Prescott who calls for Ken Livingstone to be suspended from the Labour Party:
This is a defining moment. You want a Clause 4, Ed? Ken’s just given you one.
Finally, this Lutfur Rahman leaflet illustrates why Lord Ahmed has no future in the Labour Party.
