Although the Shah/Livingstone story is proving useful in detracting attention away from the incompetence of Jeremy Hunt and Nicky Morgan, my own feeling is that the main focus at the moment is to try to sway the voters in the upcoming elections.
The London Mayoral campaign is, I feel, a disgrace. In the Guardian magazine yesterday, there was a feature about this contest. British Asian voters have received letters from David Cameron and/or Zac Goldsmith, specifically targetted at them as Hindus, Sikhs or Tamils. Hindus are reminded of David Cameron's hosting of PM Modi, warned about a "Corbyn-Khan "experiment"" and told that Khan is "dangerous". One of the recipients of this letter took great exception to Cameron talking about her "community". In the feature she said "No David, you and I are members of the same community...." She also didn't like the assumption that, as a Hindu, she was automatically a supporter of Mahendra Modi.
Another lawyer of Tamil origin had received a letter from Zac Goldsmith who wrote "As a government minister, Sadiq Khan did not use his position to speak about Sri Lanka or the concerns of the Tamil community in parliament. His party are beginning to adopt policies that will mean higher taxes on your family and your family's heirlooms and belongings. We cannot let him experiment with these radical policies." He then received a letter from Cameron saying That Goldsmith would "keep our streets safe from terrorist attacks". The clear implication he understood to be, as a Muslim Khan would not.
It seems that many of the Asian people who were sent these letters took great exception to the assumptions that were being made about them, their lifestyles, their allegiances, their prejudices, etc., and to what appeared to many of them to be an attempt to cause alienation and fear between different groups.
This isn't the first example of specific racial groups being targetted in ways that some people may well find manipulative, divisive and distasteful. In the last election the Conservative Party made clear to Hindus that they would not support Labour's proposal to further legislate to include caste discrimination in anti-discrimination laws. Senior Hindu figures then "suggested" to Hindus that they vote Conservative because to vote Labour would be like "turkies voting for Christmas".
In my view, we need politicians and Mayors who seek to unite this country, rather than those who try and create or exacerbate distrust between communities in order to obtain votes.
