Since I posted the piece on meeting three representatives from Haringey’s Youth Council and Youth Parliament and said how knife and gun crime was a key issue that worried them – we have had a major gang fight between gangs from Wood Green and Tottenham yesterday afternoon with four stabbings. I will try and get this raised in Parliament – as for all the Government’s knife or gun summits, the problem and the causes of the problem stumble on untouched. The police work hard – but it is clear that what is needed is a massive effort and resource – a continuing focus not just when the headlines hit if we are to impact this at all. So many issues involved – and they all need addressing!
Category Archives: Blog
Modern slavery in Haringey
Early start with the Freedom Breakfast – organised by Pastor Nims Obunge of the Peace Alliance. These are uplifiting occasions when Nims forces us (the Haringey community) to raise our eyes above our daily grind and brings out our better selves as we wrestle with really trying to make the world a better place. This year the ‘breakfast’ is focused on celebrating the abolition of slavery 200 years ago. A variety of speakers take the podium and each table also is posed three questions to discuss and then feedback to an invited panel – politicians, police chief, a representative from Amnesty and myself.
My speech (read in full here) was really focused on the continuation of slavery in modern terms – i.e. human trafficking, which is increasing and endemic and is alive and sick in Haringey as elsewhere. In fact the police busted a big trafficking gang locally who were charging people between £3,000 and £5,000 to come here and were then sold into mainly prostitution.
So whilst we have come a long way since the slave trade per se – but clearly still have a long way to go.
Enthusing young people about politics
Met with three members of Haringey’s Youth Council and Youth Parliament. Bright as buttons and keen to engage with their MPs (me and David Lammy – being the Haringey MPs). We talk through some ideas such as tours of Parliament and perhaps setting up a ‘Question Time’ where the young people from all the schools can come and put questions to me and other invited politicians.
A real pleasure to meet them – and they were soooooooo on the button. Bullying, how to get young people enthused about politics and gun and knife crime were the key issues.
In the picture you can see left to right: Shayan Moftizadeh (16), Member of Yourth Parliament, Adam Jogee (15), co-chair of Haringey Youth Council, and Uniqer Redguard (15), Member of Youth Parliament.
Speaking on the Iraq war
Did the first session of the Stop the War Coalition’s Peoples’ Assembly marking four years since the day we visited the illegal war on Iraq.
Many speakers in first session and chaired by Tony Benn. We are all on the same side here today.
My speech was really about how we need to build, or rather help Iraqis rebuild, the infrastructure of Iraq. And of course, to mention, that Tony Blair’s war to save Iraq from Saddam has precipitated a humanitarian disaster.
Seeing the new Eurostar terminal
Visited St Pancras to see how the new Eurostar terminal is progressing.
LCR showed us the works. The opening is on November 14 – and I have to say, it is a very exciting new station. I love that they are using the high level standard and model of New York’s Grand Central.
So we will see a station the like of which we haven’t really seen before in this country. Proper boutique shops (like in airports), farmers’ market with fresh produce, eateries and the longest champagne bar. And trains!
Why must I know Lord Levy’s middle name?
Catching up on some of the media coverage from whilst I was away, I’ve been reading the claims that some of the cash for peerages accusations being thrown at Labour’s fundraiser Lord Levy have been tinged by anti-Semitism.
Now – there’s a whole heap of evidence that there is something very rotten at the heart of Labour over money and peerages, so I approached this story with a fair degree of scepticism.
But there is one point that has struck me as valid – why do we keep on being told Lord Levy’s middle name? It’s Abraham – and so telling us his middle name in a news report emphasises, deliberately or not, that he’s Jewish.
By comparison, we don’t get told Ruth Turner’s middle name. Actually – strictly speaking this isn’t true, we do – because Ruth is her middle name. But her first name is Caitriona and – just as Abraham = likely to be Jewish, so Caitriona = likely to be Irish.
But whilst “Michael Abraham Levy” is a commonly used phrase, “Caitriona Ruth Turner” is only rarely used. (Try doing a Google search on the two – I just did and whilst “Michael Abraham Levy” gets 884 hits, “Caitriona Ruth Turner” gets just 5. Levy gets more coverage in general, so that explains some of the difference – but not the 884 to 5 margin).
The BBC website is a good example of this lopsided behaviour. Ruth Turner’s profile doesn’t tell us anything about her family background and doesn’t use Caitriona, whilst Lord Levy’s profile uses “Abraham” and “Jewish”. So – why does being Jewish matter to the BBC whilst being Irish doesn’t?
And it’s not just the BBC – Michael White in the Guardian uses Abraham too but Ruth Turner is just Ruth Turner.
All a bit rum. I’m very loathe to leap to the assumption that people in the BBC and elsewhere in the media are being deliberately anti-Semitic, and I’d like to think that even a charge of inadvertent anti-Semitism can be explained away, but I’m stumped for a decent explanation for the repeated use of “Abraham”.
To be fair to both Michael and the BBC, they’re by no means the only people I could have highlighted, but they’re the ones with examples most easy to find when sat at a computer with an internet connection. Perils of having big popular websites!
But anyway, I’ll email a copy of this blog posting off to Michael White and Mark Thompson at the BBC and let’s see what they say.
Who is going to be looking after your DNA?
Labour’s national DNA database-by-stealth has been in the news again, though there is also good news that some decent ethical oversight of the whole exercise might be put in place. Typical however of Big Brother New Labour – do the database first and worry about whether it’s the right thing to do or not afterwards!
You can take part in the Lib Dem campaign on this issue on our DNA database website.
The missing ingredient in international aid
I’ve been thinking – dangerous for a politician! Out of all the briefings I’ve had since becoming the Lib Dem Shadow Secretary of State for International Development about all the injustices and challenges of the developing world, the one that jumped out at me was the plight of children – orphaned, displaced and traumatized, sometimes for generations.
When war wrecks a child’s life – be it the murder of their families, loss of their home, displacement or injury – they are left vulnerable and fragile. Where natural disaster, war or protracted conflict rages the world rushes in with medicine, food, water and shelter – obviously. But there is something more that is needed – even at that first point. It is education.
So instead education often stops – and this stores up huge problems for the future. So I’ve just launched a new website http://www.teacherswithoutborders.info to consult on some ideas around this problem. Do take a look and send in your views – thanks!
Sunday's radio appearance
This Sunday I’ll be appearing again on The Westminster Hour: Radio 4, 10pm.
Middle East visit, part 2
So – without going into the detail of every briefing and every person we met – my overarching and enduring feeling on the Middle East was that it was the ordinary people – both the Palestinians and Israelis – who were being let down by the lack of resolution and by leaders who could not move forward.
Yes – the Palestinians are being squeezed by the choking off of funding and the brutality of the wall up against their windows – but it is equally in Israel’s long-term interests to find a solution. The paranoia of living armed to the teeth does them no good either – albeit their discomfort is more emotional than physical when compared to the poverty of the Palestinians.
With complex and teetering political situations for politicians on both sides of the Middle East divide, it needs brave men and women to take this forward and the United States and the world community to hold both sides safe whilst forging the two-state solution.
Looking at the increasing settlements and the ‘wall’ it seems a forlorn hope. But it cannot be beyond the wit of humankind to create a step-by-step process towards a viable state for Palestine and a secure state for Israel. I remember growing up with the Berlin War, the Cold War, apartheid and the IRA – all of which seemed insoluble and intractable – and all of which are now changed states.
And there is a window of opportunity as the regional powers shift and vie for their communal interests. This is a period when the moderates in the region need each other – and the hardliners of Syria and Iran with the help of Russia and China can perhaps be persuaded to work with the world community rather than against it.
A couple of other interesting bits and pieces from the three days: seeing a group of Darfurian refugees visiting Yad Vashem (the memorial museum to the Holocaust) – refugees from one genocide learning about another genocide. Very moving. And then coming out of breakfast at the hotel on the third day and bumping into – Paddy Ashdown. It’s a small world – as they say. He was making a film about Jerusalem with Channel 4!
Lynne Featherstone 