The recent Shadow Cabinet reshuffle has witnessed appointment of six BAME members, including two Asian women viz. Valerie Vaz and the new Labour peer, Baroness Shami Chakrabarti.
Other Shadow Ministers from the ethnic minority background include Diane Abbott, appointed as the Shadow Home Secretary, Clive Lewis, the Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, Kate Osamor as Shadow Secretary of State for International Development and Dawn Butler, who is the Shadow Minister for Diverse Communitiesand Emily Thornberry as the Shadow Foreign Secretary.
Valerie Vaz been appointed as the Shadow Leader of the House of Commons and Baroness Shami Chakrabarti, the former Liberty head has become the new Shadow Attorney General.
A Solicitor by profession, Valerie, who is the sister of MP Keith Vaz, has been a MP in Walsall South since 2010, and in June 2015, Valerie was appointed by the Speaker to the Panel of Chairs. Since then Valerie has chaired debates in Westminster Hall and Delegation Legislation. Valerie is an elected member of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA). She is also the elected vice-chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP). Valerie chairs the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Epilepsy and is a member of the APPG among others on the British Library, Burma, Classical Music and Yemen.
In 2013 she visited Burma as a member of Mr Speaker’s delegation and met with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, the President and members of civil society. In 2015 Valerie was a member of the UK CPA delegation to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) historic first Women’s Forum in Malta.
Although Vaz had given her backing to Andy Burnham in last year’s Labour leadership elections, she has since offered her full support to her party leader Corbyn after he beat Burnham.
Not only the Shadow Cabinet has more women than in the Tory cabinet, it has a very interesting mix. Corbyn has pushed for gender equality within his cabinet and is made up of 16 women and 14 men. Some 25 MPs who resigned from Mr Corbyn's team have agreed to return and take up frontbench jobs in the reshuffle, perhaps in hopes that the Labour leader will lead the party to victory in the next general elections. This includes 10 MPs who left the frontbench over the summer.
It has also given opportunities to many able, yet 'unknown' faces, who have been successful Labour Mps for years, but seldom rose to such important roles. But the reshuffle has left some very capable BAME candidates out of the Shadow Cabinet, including Seema Malhotra and Chuka Umunna.
However recent reports have suggested that Ed Miliband might join the Shadow Cabinet or even more controversially, Tony Blair, while Barry Gardiner has become Shadow Secretary of State for International Trade.
With 33 positions filled, perhaps Jeremy Corbyn is likely to expand his team?
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The Labour Shadow cabinet, as announced:
Jeremy Corbyn, Leader of the Labour
John McDonnell, Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer
Emily Thornberry, Shadow Foreign Secretary
Tom Watson, Deputy Leader & Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
Diane Abbott, Shadow Home Secretary
Rebecca Long-Bailey, Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury
Clive Lewis, Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy
Richard Burgon, Shadow Secretary of State for Justice, Shadow Lord Chancellor
Keir Starmer, Shadow Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union
Kate Osamor, Shadow Secretary of State for International Development
Angela Rayner, Shadow Secretary of State for Education
Valerie Vaz, Shadow Leader of the House of Commons
Nia Griffith, Shadow Secretary for Defence
Jonathan Ashworth, Shadow Secretary of State for Health
Barry Gardiner, Shadow Secretary of State for International Trade
Debbie Abrahams, Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
Shami Chakrabarti, Shadow Attorney General
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Corbyn heckled over Shadow Cabinet reshuffle
The leader of the Labour party has been heckled by his own MPs after a poll showed the party trailing behind the Conservatives by 17 points. Party members were left angry, when Mr Corbyn failed to answer why he replaced Rosie Winterton with Nick Brown and reappoint Loiuse Haigh, an MP who actually never left the Shadow Cabinet. Conor McGinn MP and Holly Lynch MP both quit as Whips in protest to Mr Corbyn's decision to sack Rosie Winterton as the Chief Whip. He was also confronted over his views on Russian intervention in Syria, after he appeared to suggest Vladimir Putin's regime may not be responsible for a number of bombing raids in the country.
Lord Blunkett, a former Labour Home Secretary warned that Labour had jeopardised the party's reputation on security by appointing Diane Abbott as Shadow home secretary and Baroness Chakrabarti as Shadow attorney general.
While Chakrabarti defends allegations of hypocrisy over her 13 year old son's private schooling, Abott is alleged to have received £5000 donation in kind, from an organisation rumoured to have connection with extremist groups, which paid for her and an assistant to fly to Nairobi as part of a trip to Somaliland..
The Muslim Charities Forum was banned from receiving government aid after an investigation suggested links to a group alleged to fund Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood political movement, as well as poor performance in delivering against agreed objectives. She declared the funding in the register of member's interests in May, after the charity had its Government backing removed in August 2015. The Muslim Charities Forum however states that it is not extremist and abides by the principles of democracy and interfaith tolerance.
Corbyn unfloored
The newspaper Guardian has reportedly admitted that Jeremy Corbyn's travel on the floor of a packed train was inaccurate and based on a “gonzo news release” by two of the Labour leader's supporters.
Paul Chadwick, the newspaper's global readers' editor said that the claim of Mr Corbyn left sitting on the floor for 3 hours was not sufficiently checked before publication or corrected promptly enough when proved to be wrong. He clarified, that newspaper had published the story “too fast” and it had not intended to mislead its readers. Mr Corbyn had obtained a seat during his journey, but the information was not included in the news report that accomopanied the video.
