Ed Miliband should listen to Len McCluskey’s real message

Len McCluskey, general secretary of Unite, has warned Ed Miliband of the need to keep Labour firmly on the left, in order to avoid defeat at the next general election. Specifically, Miliband has been advised by McCluskey to purge the shadow cabinet of its remaining Blairites, in the form of Jim Murphy, Douglas Alexander, and Liam Byrne.

Cameron needs to do more than attend the Stephen Lawrence memorial service to win the Black vote

When Conservative councillor John Cherry spoke openly about his fear of Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) children boarding weekly at a school in the West Sussex countryside, it was reminiscent of language that was not unusual in the 1980s and 1990s. The legacy of Stephen Lawrence’s murder, 20 years ago this month, was to trigger the Macpherson Inquiry, resulting in legislative reform that has driven out the worst such overt racist behaviour by those in public life.

Why did Kenyans elect a human rights abuser?

The Kenyan general election has been narrowly won by Uhuru Kenyatta, a man facing trial at the International Criminal Court for his alleged part in the killing of over a thousand people following the general election in 2007. The question must therefore be asked: why would a nation someone who stands accused of such crimes against humanity?

Why are South African police mimicking white supremacists?

The sickening killing of 27 year old Mido Macia in South Africa this week brought to mind the white supremacist murders in the US which amounted to ‘lynchings’. This, together with the recent high profile rape and murder of Anene Booysen – and even the Oscar Pistorius case – point to a latent violence in the country that the government seems reluctant to tackle.