News

Yesterday Ed Miliband gave his inaugural leadership speech. 

There was a lot of pressure and anticipation in the run up to this.  It didn't go bad either. Ed began with a touching narrative about his immigrant parents and how the UK accepted his family as they sheltered from the Nazi regime.

It was somewhat disappointing that he followed this with anti immigrant rhetoric within minutes, without a mention of how immigrants shaped this country. 

A new charity that will support and strengthen families in Britain will be launched within the next fortnight.

Faith in Britain will promote active citizenship and participation in public life by providing mentoring to broaden the educational and employment choices of young people, advice to parents and leadership training.

Congratulations to the New Labour leader Ed Miliband.

This was an extraordinary victory given that his brother David Miliband was ahead throughout the Labour leadership campaign and throughout the count until the last round. But won he has and richly deserved.

Labour members have made their choice. They want the party to move closer to it's working class roots, and make a clear distinction from the coalition parties.

Sadly, there is never a shortage of African, Caribbean and Asians who will deny even what their political party bosses know to be the truth: persistent structural inequalities on the grounds of race in all areas at all levels of society. This is what the coalition Government leaders said at an OBV event:

Community workers were rewarded for their contributions at the London Peace Awards held recently.

The GLA supported event attended by London Mayor Boris Johnson aims to acknowledge the contributions of people who have worked to promote peace and cohesion in London.

The event which is now in its tenth year is held across London boroughs. It was set up by the Peace Alliance to organise programmes that increase community cohesion, reduce crime and raise awareness of community safety.

This was the message from David Miliband to the Labour Party in his first address to the Labour Party in Manchester and his first since losing the Labour leadership contest to younger brother Ed on Saturday.

He was defeated by a narrow margin of 1.3% of the popular vote in part due to strong union backing for his brother Ed.

David who was the bookies favourite for the Labour crown for the duration of the race addressing the party faithful this morning spoke of his respect for his younger brother and the importance of party support.

The Naomi Campbell and Charles Taylor blood diamonds affair dominated the headlines for a considerable number of days.

There was plenty of talk and pictures of the events leading up to the diamonds being allegedly given by Taylor former President of Liberia to Campbell.

What we most certainly did not see was an endless stream of reports outlining the path that blood diamonds take in reaching western jewellers to satisfy the insatiable demand.

The people of Liverpool it seems are not interested in entertaining the sentiments of Nick Griffin who was forced to abandon an unscheduled stop in Church Street Liverpool, when more than 100 people staged an impromptu demonstration this week.

Alan Brown, regional co-ordinator for Merseyside Unite against Fascism said there had been no pre warning that Griffin would be in Liverpool.

It is not known if his appearance was meant to coincide with the Liberal Democrat conference being held at the Echo Arena.

Reports from a leading Manchester newspaper have confirmed that a 27 year old Asian man was repeatedly kicked in the face by a group of up to eight youths who hurled racist abuse at the victim while they attacked him breaking his jaw. The attack happened in broad daylight in Church Street Rochdale on Monday.

Linda Carty, a British grandmother, has been sentenced to death over the alleged murder of another woman in the US state of Texas nine years ago.

The BBC Newsnight programme recently featured an in depth exploration of the details of this exceptional case.

Carty a 51-year-old British grandmother is going to be executed by lethal injection within months.