Delivering leaflets this morning in the spring sunshine, for the forthcoming Westminster LBC council by-election in Abbey Road ward, I understood why certain parts of St John’s Wood are considered by estate agents to be the bees’ knees in the London property market. Devotees of House and Garden will have a field-day, if they are allocated a delivery round like the one I had. It’s a whole world away from where I cut my political campaigning teeth: in the tower blocks of Birmingham Ladywood, in the 1969 parliamentary by-election — which we won, against all odds. It only shows LibDems can win anywhere, if they work hard enough (or are lucky!). As we have never won anything in Westminster since the London boroughs were created in the mid-1960s, all the more reason to take a good crack at this one. The candidate, Mark Blackburn, is a businessman who lives in the ward. And yes, Beatles’ fans, it is that Abbey Road!
Pondering the lifestyles of the rich has been counter-balanced in my mind today by the plight of the poor and marginalised — specifically refugees and asylum-seekers, as I have been reviewing a new book for Liberal Democrat News called From Outisde In: Refugees and British Society, edited by Nushin Arbabzadah (Arcadia Books, £11.99). It’s fascinating anthology of reportage, memoirs, fiction and poetry by refugees of all ages, and many nations, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. The columnist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown — who wrote an introduction to the book and as a Ugandan Asian is a refugee herself — made a passionate speech at the book’s launch, sponsored by the British Council, on the top floor of Waterstone’s, Piccadilly, the other evening. As she said (here I paraphrase), the British are a funny lot: so welcoming on the one hand, and so hostile on the other. And for the refugees themselves, no matter how well they integrate into the host society, they never lose their sense of loss.
Links: www.westminsterlibdems.org.uk and www.arcadiabooks.co.uk
