The measure, initially opposed by the LibDems but now warmly embraced by them, is a quick way to achieve populist sentiment without actually doing anything.

Britain’s ‘problem’ with immigration extends as far as Eastern Europe. It is Eastern European migrants who were widely blamed over the past few years for ‘taking’ British jobs. Yet this new cap on immigrants doesn’t extend to Eastern Europeans- because that would go against our European membership.

Businesses and restaurateurs have been up in arms about this new cap because they stand to lose out under this new system.  A black market of specialist chefs and restaurant staff is reportedly  already developing.

Non European migrants are generaly unable to access benefits when they arrive here. They already pay a premium for the privilege of coming to and settling in the the UK.

Who does this immigration cap actually help?

It doesn’t help businesses who need international staff.

It doesn’t help Britain’s billion pound food industry.

And it doesn’t help British workers who still find themselves out-skilled by Eastern Europeans.

This cap is another obstacle in the way of people simply trying to improve on the geographic circumstance of their birth.

The Lib Dems should be ashamed to be a part of this.

This time it’s Chris Huhne with revelations that he left his wife for a former aide.

We’ll leave it to the Daily Mail to make the snide comments, but is this how the coalition will fall apart? Because of too many Lib Dem sex scandals?

As we assess the possible implications of £6 billion of immediate budget cuts and further reductions in public sector spending to be announced on the 22nd June Black and ethnic communities anxiously wait to hear exactly what the new Governments approach to tackling race inequality will be.

Since the election we have seen or heard precious little by way of policy response to the acute and specific needs of Britain’s black communities.

Although these are early days for the new coalition Government, the speed with which budgets cuts are being implemented make this issue an urgent priority for black communities.

This weekend we have heard much from Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg who, speaking to the Observer newspaper, has clearly set out his principle position when he says speaking of the budget reductions:  “We’re not going to do it the way it was done in the Eighties.” Clegg wants to try and ensure that both the massive social tensions and inner city blight that we witnessed in the 1980’s are avoided. The plan is to make sure the pain is equally shared among all in society and that the poor vulnerable are not disproportionately affected.

This was swiftly followed by PM David Cameron today in a sort of “good cop bad cop” routine where we were warned that the economy was in worse shape than the  Government thought and that the cuts would be so extreme that they: “would change our way of life”.

This Government is in danger of being seen to be talking out of both sides of its mouth on this matter. Clegg’s progressive position is undermined by news filtering out of DCLG that £30 million allocated to funding traveler sites around the country is to be cut by 100%. Hardly protecting the most vulnerable in our society. There are very also strong indications that there will be dramatic reductions in specific race equality funding streams such as the Tackling Racial Inequalities Fund.

If black communities are to be protected from the already disproportionate effects of this recession brought about by huge rises in black adult and youth unemployment and impending cuts to an already fragile black voluntary sector, then the Government will need to introduce urgent special measures to ensure that our communities, the majority of whom live in deprived neighbourhoods, are not permanently sealed into a desperate inner city underclass. If not, then a rerun of the civil disturbances of the 1980’s is almost inevitable. And that may well mean additional funding in some areas of spending.

So who has the major responsibilities in relation to race in the new Cabinet? Well traditionally, three Government departments lead on domestic race equality policy issues. These are Office of Deputy Prime Minister, the Home Office and the Department of Communities and Local Government. Minister Eric Pickles is now Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government.

He has vast experience at local Government level and was Shadow minister for this post during his time in opposition.
The new Minister for Race Equality is Lib Dem Andrew Stunell MP. He has he has shown a keen interest in antisemitism, climate change energy, transport issues and international affairs.

However, Stunell is not known in Black communities. It will be interesting to see to what extent he is able to deliver on reducing racial inequality.

In addition Prime Minister Cameron has installed as Home Secretary and Minster for Women and Equality Theresa May .

Both Theresa May and Eric Pickles will have a joint lead role in delivering race equality policy.  Providing back up will be Lib Democrat Lynne Featherstone who was the former Lib Dem spokesperson on Youth and Equalities issues and a long time member of the London Assembly. Featherstone is now junior minister responsible for equalities at the Home Office.

These two great departments of state will lead the Governments efforts around consultation and partnerships with black community organisations in addition to driving the policy agenda to tackle racial inequality. Ministerial colleagues all of whom have individual responsibility to deliver race equality in their individual departments will support them.

Leadership of the equalities agenda must start at the top

With a virtually all white and largely male Cabinet, we are yet to see any comprehensive policy commitments to tackling racial inequality. Although the appointment of Andrew Stunell MP as Minister for Race is a good move, what is worrying is the lack of any real experience or understanding of the breadth, depth and complexity of racial discrimination or any real hands on experience of effectively reducing race inequalities in the Cabinet itself.  In this important regard, the make up of the current Cabinet reflects that lack of understanding. The fact that there is virtually no black representation nor real experience of effectively tackling racism in Cabinet is not viewed as problematic.

It is really quite remarkable that a country as diverse as the UK, living as we are in an increasingly globalised 21st century world has produced a coalition Government that is nothing more than a faded reflection of a bygone age. Not so much new politics as business as usual.

The reality of living in Britain in 2010 for the vast majority of British citizens from African, Caribbean, Bangladeshi and Pakistani communities is one of living their lives as third class citizens. Higher levels of unemployment, poorer quality of housing, educational failure in inner city schools, huge health inequalities, under protected as victims of crime and over policed as law abiding citizens are all issues that continue to blight to many lives. Our particular experience of these social and economic problems shared as it is with poor white neighbourhoods is profoundly magnified through the lens of racism. We are all poor together but racism acutely aggravates the black experience of poverty and deprivation.

Labour’s arrangements to tackle racism

Despite the attempts of the previous Government to tackle racial inequality in the large majority of important areas of social policy, real discrimination grew under New Labour as social mobility decreased. Where there were reported areas of progress these were largely cosmetic, ad hoc and incremental in nature.

They also established a Government Office for Equalities under the Deputy Leaders Office of Harriet Harman. Now this office is directly responsible to the Home Secretary Theresa May. This may give a higher profile to its work. The GEO developed a gender and sexuality policy agenda that, though weak in some aspects, established clear objectives and measurable meaningful outcomes.

This was in advance of any other previous arrangements and was in part based on the pioneering and effective model established by myself at the Greater London Authority under the them Mayor Ken Livingstone.

This provided a potentially useful monitoring and regulatory framework that has the basic potential to deliver. Reform will be necessary largely around realigning and slipstreaming race equality reporting and policy formulation with the budget process. This would have the benefit of ensuring that effectiveness and value for money of these policies can be fed into budget priorities.

As a lead for Mayoral equality at the GLA for 8 years (2000 – 2008) I lost count of the number of well meaning policies that were extraordinarily expensive and yet failed to deliver real change.

These budgets were reallocated to those schemes that were seen to be delivering real outcomes and value for money. The result was the GLA Group became the most diverse city administration in the UK. Since the election of Boris Johnson we have seen a dramatic reduction in the levels of employment of black people, women and disabled peoples.

In ensuring the effective use of the public purse only those policies that were demonstrably making a real difference were funded. Also important was to standardise and rationalise all back office equality functions as far as possible. In real terms we saw growth in equality spending that could justified by real and demonstrable progress in employment, promotion, retention and the provision of services and access to City wide procurement contracts. This focused approach led to spectacular results with year on year increases in diversity representation and for the first time since the abolition of the GLC the city administration reflected the diversity of the city itself.

In 2005 Labour published the first cross government race equality strategy Improving Opportunities. Strengthening Society. Publishing annually alongside the Race Equality in Public Service reports they provided detailed information on how Government was doing in driving down discrimination and setting out a vision for the future.

In summary Labour’s approach was to establish specific equality schemes and individual departmental equality targets.

These were owned by Ministers and co-ordinated at Government level by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister Harriet Harman. Progresses against these targets were then published every year.

The Government needs to act quickly to reassure Black communities

Since the election we are now in position of standing on the sidelines watching the introduction of unprecedented spending cuts and waiting to find out how will this Government take forward the agenda for race equality. British Black communities who are already suffering acute deprivation may be forced, despite the reassurance of Deputy PM Clegg, to endure disproportionate levels of public spending cuts that could result in devastating social consequences for inner cities areas across the country.

It will be interesting to hear from the Prime Minister, Clegg and Trevor Phillips Chair of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission if the Government in setting out its budget proposals has carried out a Race Equality Impact Assessment as required by the Race Relations Amendment Act 2000. Failure to properly assess potential impacts will undoubtedly lead to the burden of the cuts being felt most keenly by the poorest communities.

The forthcoming budget due on 22nd June 2010 will need to be comprehensively assessed for evidence of disproportionate impact on poor black communities.

One would hope that the Commission is pressing Government to publish these assessments so that we can see to what extent issues of race inequality has informed Government decision making process.

If this Government wishes to seriously tackle these issues then it will need an to identify an experienced Cabinet Ministerial lead on race, produce a race equality vision underpinned by a robust and effective policy strategy backed up by a more intelligent and flexible use of existing resources.

Leadership on equalities must come from the top

However a critical signal is set by the Cabinet itself and Black communities, Civil Service, local authorities and other public sector bodies will judge the seriousness of the Governments approach by who they appoint to lead on race equality issues. Leadership on race issues from this Government, if it’s to be taken seriously, has to come from the top.

Black representation is important in Government and public life generally. It reflects the rich and growing diversity of the country, it energises the democratic process and gives it currency with communities that have little trust or confidence in liberal democracy. It also makes a statement about what kind of country Britain aspires to be: one that seeks to embody the principles of equality and fairness.

Of course the Liberal Democrats don’t help in this regard as they failed to select a single black candidate in a winnable seat and therefore much to their shame have an all white Parliamentary party. In that regard the new politics much trumpeted by the Conservative / Liberal Democrat alliance looks to have distinguished itself by contributing to the whitening of Parliament.

In fact the Lib Dem’s leader Nick Clegg has failed to transform his party as promised into a political gathering of all talents representing the country as a whole despite professing a radical commitment to ensure ethnic diversity in his party.

In relation to the Tory Party, well here at least, you have to give Cameron some credit. Unlike Clegg, he has sought to transform his party on the issues of black representation bringing in an additional Black and Asian MP’s to bring some much needed colour to the Tory Party. He too however, then failed to find any of his long serving Black MPs to serve in any capacity within his Cabinet.

Tory Baroness Warsi, an unelected politician who was quickly dragged into Cabinet as a tokenistic gesture, is not well regarded as a champion for race equality and is often wheeled out simply to act as an occasional fig leaf for Tory Party indiscretions. She has no real brief and no substantive policy portfolio. It’s painful and ultimately counterproductive to watch someone being used in such a patronising and tokenistic manner.

The fact that no Black Tory MP’s were considered capable enough to be brought into Government is illuminating and may exemplify a worrying lack of understanding in relation to the social and economic position of Black Britons.
So with no one in the Cabinet with any real experience of dealing effectively with race equality issues, it remains to be seen how this Government intends to fulfill its statutory duties to tackling racism. Whatever their view we will need to develop a consensus around what we say should be the race equality priorities and consultative arrangements for the new Government.

Black community organisations will need to work together and produce an agenda for change

That’s why I am currently working on pulling together a unified effort at developing a coherent agenda for change. It will be important for leading national Black, Asian and ethnic minority organisations to produce consensus proposals on what any new consultative arrangements and policy priorities should look like. The temptation will be for various organisations to seek bi lateral, race or faith specific engagement with Government.

This would be a critical error and would simply reinforce the old politics of divide and rule, competitiveness around funding and undermine our collective political efforts to reduce race inequality. Neither would communities themselves tolerate such tactics.

That’s why I’m working hard to lead on the efforts of the 1990 Trust under the leadership of the Chair Dave Weaver in partnership with Operation Black Vote to co- ordinate a unified approach to establishing new effective consultative arrangements and inform Government policy decisions. The 1990 Trust has recently written to Minister Eric Pickles seeking an urgent meeting where we will seek some clarity on the current Government intended policy approach

Given the expected huge impacts of budget cuts on black communities it is now vitally important that we metaphorically “circle the wagons.” If not then we could be back to the situation that existed in the 1980’s where there was a deeply hostile and fractious relationship with the then Conservative Government. We must remain united if we are to maximise our influence in mitigating the worst affects of these spending reductions.

And there are those who are predicting huge social upheavals as a result of these cuts. Writing in the Financial Times May 24, for example, eminent historian Simon Schama describing his analysis of the impact of the cuts stated,

“Far be it for me to make a dicey situation dicier but you can’t smell the sulphur in the air right now and not think we might be on the threshold of an age of rage.… in Europe and America there is a distinct possibility of a long hot summer of social umbrage.”

Schama identifies a “time-lag between the onset of economic disaster and the accumulation of social fury,” after the initial shock what follows next is “fearful disorientation,” that may potentially be followed by “organised mobilisation of outrage.”

If this new coalition Government is really committed to protecting the most vulnerable and ensuring freedom, fairness and responsibility then it will need a clear and effective race equality agenda and consultative arrangement. Failure to protect black communities and continue a focused effort to reduce race inequality will inevitably result, in my view, to a rise in social tensions and a rerun of the disturbances of the 1980’s.

Bad thing about blogging: Date stamps on your posts show when you’ve not posted anything for a while… oops.

So, to catch up, here’s my views on recent events:

John McDonnell urged to stand aside for Diane Abbott: Why should he? Are Labour backbenchers incapable of understanding what their party is all about? New Labour’s dead folks- don’t put the same cadavers as the next party leader- or do you really like the feel of those Opposition benches?

Oil Spill: You gotta clean it up Barack. Environmental disasters don’t look good on your record.

David Laws resignation: WTF? You’re a millionaire but claiming expenses for a second room? WTF?

David Laws resignation to keep sexuality secret: Good thing you’re a Lib Dem.

Cumbrian shootings: WTF man? WTF?

Ken Livingstone running for mayor again: Jury’s still out on this one.