A Free Left Blog

Sadiq Khan is playing the race card again, this time in his campaign to be Labour’s candidate for London Mayor. Khan, who managed Ed Miliband’s successful Labour leadership campaign in 2010, was talking to George Eaton of the New Statesman about fellow candidate Tessa Jowell, and said: “I don’t think [Jowell’s] got the answers for the 2020s, the future business, we’re a modern city, we’re young, we’re diverse.” Sadiq Khan, MP for Tooting. We can see here that Khan thinks Tessa Jowell hasn’t got the answers and shouldn’t be Major in part because she isn't 'diverse'. He contrasts her to a ‘we’ which is ‘diverse’, as well as modern, young and of the future . It illustrates once more how this notion of diversity in the hands of left-wingers actually often excludes white people. On the left it's one of those words that actually means something different from its literal meaning; often only those who are attuned to the language can pick up the differenc...

“I will never, ever, vote Tory.” I’ve said this rather a lot over the years, but next year’s London Mayoral election poses a conundrum. Zac Goldsmith, the independent-minded, environmentalist Conservative MP for Richmond Park has thrown his hat into the ring for the Tory nomination. He ticks a lot of boxes for me that the Labour candidates don’t. I’ll be blunt: if I had to choose tomorrow between Goldsmith and any of the hopefuls from my own Labour Party, I’d go for Goldsmith without hesitation. Zac Goldsmith - hat now in the ring for London Mayor So, why? There are a few reasons. I would certainly never vote for a tribal Tory nor for one I had never heard of, but Goldsmith is neither. First and foremost I like and respect his staunch opposition to the expansion of the sprawling monster that is Heathrow Airport (he has said he will resign the Tory whip and call a by-election if the government decides to go ahead). I was born and grew up under the Heathrow...

The Labour Party of which I am part is hopelessly mixed up on race and diversity. On one hand we cosy up to organised racial (Black Minority Ethnic or BME/BAME) groups and promise them special favours. But then we turn to the old white working classes that used to form the bulk of our vote, telling them we are on their side, something they are increasingly less inclined to believe, and with some reason. This article of mine on the Spectator Coffee House blog takes a look at this mixed-up situation through a couple of interventions from shadow justice secretary Sadiq Khan either side of the recent Local and European elections (click here if you want to have a look). For more on this topic, see Identity politics and the left page .

Ed Miliband made quite a scene at Prime Minister’s Questions this week, goading David Cameron for the lack of women in his Shadow Cabinet and among Conservatives in the House of Commons Cutting abruptly from a few cursory questions about the dreadful flooding in south western England, Miliband gleefully laid into Cameron for his all-male Government front bench, which was lacking Theresa May and other female Cabinet members – in contrast to his own front bench, which had been filled up with women. He said: “I do have to say a picture tells a thousand words... look at the all male front bench laid before us. “You said you want to represent the whole country. I guess they didn't let women into the Bullingdon Club either, so there we go.... “Do you think it is your fault the Conservative Party has a problem with women?” As ‘Yah-Boo’ Westminster politics go, it was pretty effective. But it was also important for what it said about the Labour Party’s evolving po...