News

An analysis of the voting in May’s General Election shows the following.

The increase in UKIP’s support was far greater than that of any other party, including the SNP. It won 12.6 per cent of the votes, an increase from the 2010 election of almost 10 per cent. SNP’s share went up three per cent to 4.7 per cent and won 56 seats. UKIP, which had two MPs before 7th May, lost a seat.

The urban club scene in the UK is often held up as being the epitome of multicultural Britain, from Grime to Garage from Rave to Reggae, the cultural domination of black music and fashion is easily spotted on every weekend in the bars and clubs of most major cities.

As a life long Conservative member and supporter it pained me to see that immediately after winning the Election, the Tory’s priority was to abolish the Human Rights Act. Theresa May as the Home Secretary appears to want to push through a Snoopers' Charter that risks turning the UK into a police state. I doubt if many voters told their Tory candidates that the Human Rights Act was high on their list of priorities or that they wanted a snoopers’ charter to be introduced as a matter of urgency.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/24/observer-leader-lab...

In the white male-dominated world of professional football, it is good to report two rare victories.

The first is the story of Annie Zaidi, who is Youth Engagement Coach at Leicester City Football Club Community Trust. Annie is a Muslim coach with Leicester City Football Club, and the first ever South Asian woman to get a level two coaching certificate from the Football Association. Her story can be seen here.

The horrific death of Birmingham black man and father of two, 29 year old Kingsley Burrell at the hands of the West Midlands Police Service and Birmingham NHS workers, provides another tragic commentary on the reality of institutionalised racism within the criminal justice and mental health systems.

The Inquest held in Birmingham and heard over the last seven weeks, broke the heart of all who had this misfortune to be forced to hear it.

I guess with any meteoric rise there’s always the potential for a spectacular fall. And so it is with less than a week gone by since Labour's brightest star, Chuka Umunna announced he would run for the leadership of the Labour party, he has just announced he’s withdrawing from the contest. He stated in his resignation letter that:

My son is part of today’s Hip Hop generation: The heavy bass, the fast beat, and at times the even faster rap. When Micklemore’s ‘Can’t hold us’, comes on the radio, my son like many of his age go into a frenzy imitating every detail of the hurricane rap.

http://www.obv.org.uk/news-blogs/2015-elections-record-number-bme-mp-s-m...

It seems there’s no stopping the meteoric rise of Chuka Umunna. Having announced that he will run for the Labour leadership, some bookmakers have just made him favourite, and they rarely get these things wrong.