A New Black Politics?

Analysis

BBC

News, Politics

4.6 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 31 October 2011

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The 2010 general election saw the largest influx of black and minority ethnic MPs to the Commons that Britain has ever seen. There are currently 27 sitting on the Conservative and Labour benches - up from 14 in the last Parliament.

But are we starting to see a 'new black politics'? Some suggest that the radical left-wing politics of the 1980s is no longer relevant in twenty-first century Britain, where there is a growing black middle class, a multitude of different black communities, and where black people are represented at the highest levels.

David Goodhart meets the black politicians adopting a more socially conservative standpoint to their predecessors and also talks to their critics: those who say that some of the country's most vulnerable people have been forgotten by the establishment; that institutionalised racism still exists; and that many of today's politicians do not represent the people they are meant to serve.

Interviewees include: David Lammy, Labour MP for Tottenham Shaun Bailey, former Conservative parliamentary candidate Linda Bellos OBE, leader of Lambeth Council 1986-1988 Bill Bush, chief of staff to GLC leader Ken Livingstone until 1986 Trevor Phillips OBE, Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) Kwasi Kwarteng, Conservative MP for Spelthorne Stafford Scott, race equality consultant in Tottenham

David Goodhart is editor at large of Prospect magazine and was recently appointed as director of the think tank Demos.

Producer: Hannah Barnes.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.
0:04.7	My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.
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0:36.0	Thanks for downloading this podcast from the BBC.
0:39.0	In this week's analysis David Goodhart asks whether Britain is witnessing the emergence of a new
0:45.1	black politics.
0:48.3	Black politics in Britain is changing.
0:50.9	A new generation is taking over with different attitudes and concerns.
0:54.3	It was watching the response to England's summer riots that brought this home to me.
0:58.4	I'm old enough to remember the Tottenham riots in 1985.
1:02.3	Police officer Keith Black was hacked to death in disturbances
1:06.4	following the death of a black woman Cynthia Jarrett. Bernie Grant, then the black leader
1:11.2	of Harangay Council Council famously refused to condemn the
1:14.3	writers. I condemn the behavior of the police in this whole affair. I also
1:19.1	regret the death of the police officer and I also regret the death of Mrs Cynthia Jarrett.
1:25.0	But you don't condemn the rioting?
1:27.0	The fact is that the young people were provoked in their own words by the police behavior not only on Saturday night but also throughout the summer.
1:37.0	Compare that with the unequivocal condemnation of this year's rioters by David Lammymy who succeeded Grant as Tottenham's second Black
1:44.8	MP. A community that was already hurting has now had the heart ripped out of it.
	...

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