Posted by Seema Chandwani

London: credit where credit Is due

PrintAfter a tough few months of juggling work, looking after my sister, doing the CLP website and social media for Sadiq’s campaign and of course door-knocking plus observing the most boring count ever – I took off the weekend to relax. But as a self-confessed Twitter addict, I could not resist to have a quick peek in the evening only to find almost everyone on my timeline was engaged in an argument of who was responsible for Labour’s success in London. Was it Sadiq? Was it Corbyn?

Was this debate for real? Absent in this debate were two important factors that I feel is where credit needs to be attributed for what Labour achieved in London. Continue reading →

Democracy with a price tag is a dangerous precedent

Young Labour Labour Students Next GenerationAs a youth worker for over 17 years some of my best political conversations have been with young people. However, sadly many of those young people do not engage with the democratic systems and political parties in our country.

So I was extremely proud to hear not one, but three [one as a delegate from their Labour students group] young Labour members from Tottenham had been elected as delegates to the National Young Labour Conference taking place this month. It gave me comfort that young Labour members in my area were so engaged that they not only joined the party but also got involved.

Tottenham is one of the most deprived areas of the UK, although this may not reflect the socio-economic status of the elected delegates who live in Tottenham, we can make some assumptions that during times of austerity we know young adults are one of the groups hardest hit, therefore financial barriers would probably exist for many young members, even if not from Tottenham, but being from Tottenham is likely to increase the risk of financial exclusion. Continue reading →

Sexism is not merely “foolish” behaviour

Danczuk and the SunThe debate on whether what Danczuk has been accused of (accurately or otherwise) is worthy of suspension (and investigation) is a worrying one for a party that proclaims to be progressive. There appears to be, in some quarters, no real understanding of what the concern is.

Two examples of this can be found firstly in Danczuk’s apology where he states “there is no fool like an old fool”. And later in the John Stapleton LBC interview with Ken Livingstone, where John talks about Danczuk “being a much older man who has just fallen for a ‘nice pair of ankles’” (whatever that means?) he then went on to ask Livingstone “is it really justifiable to suspend him from the Labour party, we’ve all done daft things”. Continue reading →