Dear Editor,
Time for the Guyanese to say ‘congrats’ (as you do) to two sons and two daughters of the soil doing brilliantly in the UK. First off, David Lammy MP who last week was given the shadow portfolio for one of the great offices of state – Foreign Secretary – by Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer. He was before that the shadow Justice Secretary. Lammy has been the Labour MP for Tottenham since 2000 and was a junior minister – though it has to be said not a roaring success – in the last Labour government eleven years ago.
David is one of the better media performers on the Labour benches and even has his own weekly radio programme on network radio. His parentage is solidly Guyanese, and he is a frequent visitor to his Mother’s land en famille. He is now in pole position to be a future leader as the most prominent black face on the Labour front bench. The Conservatives have more men of colour but they tend to be posher with Eton and other private school backgrounds
Well done, David and congrats once more to Trevor Phillips who is going through a purple patch in his second incarnation as a network TV presenter. Since taking over, Sunday on Sky News in May this year, he has turned it into a must watch programme for political journalists and other nerds, making news waves week after week. Thirty years ago, Trevor presented the London Programme on ITV and became Head of Current Affairs at London Weekend Television. Since then he has had a portfolio career, including heading up the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Leader of the Labour group on the London Assembly and recently writing a very readable (if somewhat controversial) weekly column in the Times. Trevor, too, is solidly Guyanese and even was sent back ‘home’ by his parents to have his secondary education at Queen’s College.
And two women members of the ‘Mafia’ are thriving too. Baroness Valerie Amos has just taken over as ‘Master’ of an Oxford College-University after heading the hot potato of SOAS in London and a career in the UN and Gina Miller/Singh is about to launch her new party – The True and Fair Party when the Electoral Com-mission agrees. She defeated the Conservative government twice in the courts in the run up to Brexit and became the poster girl for the ‘Remainers’. The creek water of Guyana runs deep in all of their veins. But, the big question, just who is coming to be the figurehead of the UK diaspora – The London High Commissioner? That mystery deepens.
Sincerely,
John ‘Bill Cotton/Reform’ Mair