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| Version 1 | Version 2 |
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| A celebration of the Bangladeshi community | A celebration of the Bangladeshi community |
| (30 days later) | |
| A reception in the ornate surroundings of the Commonwealth Room at the House of Commons. Theresa May is here; Chuka Ummuna, Simon Hughes.There are TV stars, journalsits, doctors; summoned to salute the British Bangladeshi Power 100. Feels like a step change. | A reception in the ornate surroundings of the Commonwealth Room at the House of Commons. Theresa May is here; Chuka Ummuna, Simon Hughes.There are TV stars, journalsits, doctors; summoned to salute the British Bangladeshi Power 100. Feels like a step change. |
| You can find stats about the half a million Bangladeshis in the UK who belong to one of the most deprived groups in the country, but that's obviously not the only story. Within the document handed out with cocktails and salmon nibbles are biogs of MPs, industrialists, civil servants, barristers, writers, authors, sports stars and scientists. This is important, organiser Abdal Ullah tells me. "We want to celebrate talent and showcase success. We are communities growing in confidence and stature and in the depth and quality of our contribution." And who is this aimed at, I ask him. "It's for us to say well done and for others to understand that it is not just about curry and poverty in somewhere like Tower Hamlets. We are saying we are here; this is our country and we are making it better." | You can find stats about the half a million Bangladeshis in the UK who belong to one of the most deprived groups in the country, but that's obviously not the only story. Within the document handed out with cocktails and salmon nibbles are biogs of MPs, industrialists, civil servants, barristers, writers, authors, sports stars and scientists. This is important, organiser Abdal Ullah tells me. "We want to celebrate talent and showcase success. We are communities growing in confidence and stature and in the depth and quality of our contribution." And who is this aimed at, I ask him. "It's for us to say well done and for others to understand that it is not just about curry and poverty in somewhere like Tower Hamlets. We are saying we are here; this is our country and we are making it better." |
| It falls to Theresa May before she rushes off – and before anyone mentions the difficulty restaurants have getting Bangladeshi chefs into the country – to announce the list of those who make the top five for political achievement. And when she does, it is notable that the first of them is Lutfur Rahman, the controversial independent Tower Hamlets mayor, much maligned in the mainstream press. He is absent. Another of those lauded is Baroness Uddin, the peer who made housing claims "wrongly and in bad faith" and received an 18-month ban, the longest in House of Lord's history. Humbled, she was forced to pay back £125,000. Interesting that, despite it all, she made the list, I say to Ayesha Qureshi, another organiser; and I immediately think I've been a tad ungracious, but she understands. "She wasn't on the list last year," explains Qureshi. But maligned or not, she says, Uddin still wields a deal of influence. Talk to people. She does a lot; people remember, and the view they take is that bad is still outweighed by good. A disappointed community might have shunned the peer, but here's the thing: she's a finite resource, so instead it helped her and circled the wagons. Like it or loathe it, that's how it is. | It falls to Theresa May before she rushes off – and before anyone mentions the difficulty restaurants have getting Bangladeshi chefs into the country – to announce the list of those who make the top five for political achievement. And when she does, it is notable that the first of them is Lutfur Rahman, the controversial independent Tower Hamlets mayor, much maligned in the mainstream press. He is absent. Another of those lauded is Baroness Uddin, the peer who made housing claims "wrongly and in bad faith" and received an 18-month ban, the longest in House of Lord's history. Humbled, she was forced to pay back £125,000. Interesting that, despite it all, she made the list, I say to Ayesha Qureshi, another organiser; and I immediately think I've been a tad ungracious, but she understands. "She wasn't on the list last year," explains Qureshi. But maligned or not, she says, Uddin still wields a deal of influence. Talk to people. She does a lot; people remember, and the view they take is that bad is still outweighed by good. A disappointed community might have shunned the peer, but here's the thing: she's a finite resource, so instead it helped her and circled the wagons. Like it or loathe it, that's how it is. |
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