What a day

Yesterday was a busy day. On top of the usual activities associated with campaigning I spent the day either meeting with or addressing groups of black people. I spent the morning at the press launch of Operation Black Vote’s manifesto, lunchtime was with the editor’s forum of the Voice newspaper and the evening was with ADVAD an umbrella organization for the Africa Diaspora in the UK.

The first of these events was with Operation Black Vote, this organisation is brimming with people who are passionate about the role that black people in the UK could and should have in British politics.

The press launch was held in Brixton which Simon Woolley, OBV’s National Coordinator, described as the “spiritual home of black Briton”. Onlookers fell into one of two categories, the first group were clearly interested and committed and were genuinely pleased to see black people getting involved and making a stand. The second and unfortunately larger group were clearly a little bemused by the whole process.

Although by itself the number of black and Asian candidates being fielded by a politically is not significant I am very pleased to say the Conservatives have the most. We have 41, the Lib Dems have 40 and Labour have 32. We have achieved this without quotas or positive discrimination. Well done us.

The next stop was to the offices of the Voice newspaper for the editor’s election forum, again in Brixton this gave the opportunity for a range of interest groups to address the main political parties face to face. It was a heated and passionate debate.

Finally I addressed ADVAD in Bethnal Green at a meeting looking more specifically at how the main parties would address issues affecting Africa and Africans both in Africa and here in the UK. Once again the meeting was full f passion and there were enough potential questions to fill much more than the two hours that the meeting lasted.