Author: Simon Woolley

Submitted 27 Feb 2013 4:12pm

Original Article

Who is your favourite MP? It is an interesting question. In today’s often cynical world we rarely look at the positive and almost always focus on the negative – ‘MP’s expenses scandal’, ‘MP forced to resign’, ‘MP sent to jail’.

But what if we encouraged praised and even rewarded MPs who do a good job for us? I think a number of intended consequences would occur. First and foremost, more politicians would have a greater accountability to us. Why? Because we’d be asking questions such as, in the last year how do you think you’ve furthered race equality? How did that translate to policy? Who were the groups that you met, what were their concerns?

Another positive consequence would be for our communities to positively engage in democracy, better understand how it works, and perhaps be inspired to go forward ourselves as a new generation of BME MP’s.

That journey may not be too far away.

On Monday evening at a packed House of Commons meeting room, the Charity Mosaic launched the first MP awards from a BME charity.

Former Para Olympian Dame Tanni Grey Thompson chaired the event and promised the award scheme would be a mechanism to bring ordinary people closer to our democracy: ‘It works better’, she said,

‘when you’re here letting us know your concerns, pushing us to make things happen quicker’.

Other Parliamentarians came to offer support to the project too including Chair of the Home Select Committee group Keith Vaz MP and Conservative Deputy Chair Alok Sharma MP.

I had been asked to be an adviser and panellist who will choose from the nominations. I accepted the honour, but told the mainly young audience although we’ll offer award to MP’s, this is really about you demanding more from them. Most MP’s would like to be recognised for being a standard bearer for racial and social justice. Therefore, with this award system, every BME MP will know there will be particular interest in what they have done, or not done to tackle inequality in our communities.

Other panelists included:

Shabir Randeree CBE (Chair, Mosaic Associates), Andrea Cooper (Director, UpRising) and Daniella Shaw-Gabay (Policy and Public Affairs Manager, Three Faiths Forum) and Neil Jameson (Executive Director, Citizens UK)