News

It's a humanitarian disaster, pictures of black people either dead or dying, fill our screens as aid agencies and well-known celebrities plead for the public to donate serious money. Thankfully we always do, usually in our millions. We've all seen the pictures, we all know the script.

It's the usual type of poverty porn that traditionally exploits the dead and dying Africans whose 'plight' can only be solved by foreign aid intervention. That may be a surprise to some, but there is a western media propensity to show the poverty-stricken.

It's a great shame that academics such as Kehinde Andrews fail to understand the Black vote and its effect on Black empowerment.

Charles Kennedy was not a brash, loud, full of himself type of politician or leader. He gained popularity and respect through his force of reason and his kind heart. Above all Charles Kennedy was driven by a profound sense of social justice. You only have to listen to his speech at the Iraq anti-war rally to understand what this man was about.

Having just endured one of the longest and most surprising general elections in modern times, OBV now turns its attention toward the 2016 London Mayoral elections. Over the next few months we will be focussing on the London Mayoral selection processes, of all the major parties.

http://www.obv.org.uk/news-blogs/dropping-bill-scrap-human-rights-act-st...

Notably absent from The Queen's Speech was the Bill to scrap the Human Rights Act and strengthen the role of the British courts against the European Court of Human Rights. Those in the Tory Party wanting this ill advised change are those obsessed with the way the European project has progressed from a 'common market' to a political union.

In analysing how the BME vote in May's general election might influence the result, OBV suggested that the BME vote held the key to number 10. Some though the idea preposterous, others thought we were being propagandist.

But it turns out we were right. The reality is the BME vote has now matured into the most significant urban vote in Britain. A research study commisioned by British Futures and conducted by Survation, shows that the BME vote had increased from 12% -to 20% depending on the particular constituency.

On Tuesday, 26 May, BBC Radio 4’s Soul Music series featured Billie Holliday’s moving recording of Strange Fruit. It is a blood chilling performance of a song which highlighted the lynching of black people in the US south.

Although recorded in 1939, it was written as a poem two years earlier by a Jewish communist, Abel Meeropol. Since then, dozens of singers have covered it, but none of them have come close to matching her hauntingly angry, pained delivery. For good reason, Time magazine in 1999 named her version the ‘song of the century’.

This question is not as absurd as you might think. Of course, given that the Labour Party have historically received up to 80% of the BME vote, if Labour’s Ed Miliband had won the Election, then many would have suggested that the BME vote was that crucial factor. But the Conservatives: could you make that claim?

Well, the new data released yesterday by British Future actually makes a strong argument that without the BME vote, David Cameron’s Conservatives would not be enjoying a majority Government. That fact is difficult to dispute.

WHEN CHUKA Umunna declared on May 12 that he would stand to become the first black leader of any political party and potentially the first black British prime minister, countless thousands rejoiced. Not just here in the UK, but as word quickly spread to the USA, Europe and Africa, including Nigeria the country of Chuka’s father, black people fizzed with the excitement that great change was afoot.