Devolved identity politics

Salma Yaqoob: A strengthening sense of English identity in the face of recession cannot be left to those who want to exclude outsiders

For most black and Asian people, English nationalism conjures up uncomfortable associations. Many, like my parents, remember living through the rise of the National Front in the 1970s and associate it with reaction, racism, and worse. With Britain heading deeper into recession, and the far right again re-emerging as a growing political force, there is an understandable nervousness about any political discourse centred on notions of English identity. This is particularly the case when the discourse is so often framed as a reaction against those of us who see our identity as more complex than one all-embracing category, whether it is nation, gender, class, faith or race.

The appeal of this brand of Englishness is understandable, if simplistic. Two decades of new Labour's embrace of casino capitalism has seen a dramatic growth of inequality. Swathes of the white working-class feel abandoned - used as cannon fodder at election times, and left stranded thereafter. Poverty and disadvantage have fuelled resentments and tensions as people feel in competition over scarce resources. While the recent announcement in the budget of £1bn to be spent on council housing is to be welcomed, it is wholly inadequate to address the already huge needs, as housing waiting lists and the scale of home repossessions grow.

A dangerous mixture of myths have been fostered in which too many people too easily ascribe their difficulties in securing housing or jobs to newly arrived immigrants. The simplistic answers of the far right have found fertile ground. Non-British and non-Christian identities have been situated as problems or threats, whether through attacks on asylum seekers and refugees, demonisation of Muslims and Islam post-9/11, or the more sophisticated critiques of Britain's multicultural model.

But grievances underpinned by economic injustice, and the tensions they give rise to, are not just confined to disadvantaged white working-class communities. As someone who runs an advice surgery in inner city Birmingham, the sense that another ethnic grouping or nationality is always doing better is quite common, whether it is Pakistanis expressing such concerns about Somalis or African-Caribbean people about Pakistanis. Such tensions were an important underlying cause of disturbances in the Lozells area of the city between members of the African-Caribbean and Asian communities that left two people dead.

Rob Berkley, director of the Runnymede Trust, has summed up the challenge ahead:

There is an urgent need to ensure that a re-emergence of class onto the political agenda will not feed divisions, but promote equality for everyone … it's possible to have a progressive debate on race and class in 21st-century Britain that can lead to better outcomes for all.

The challenge for progressive politics is to build coalitions among the most dispossessed and excluded, anchored in a commitment to multiculturalism, social justice for all, and tackling exclusion from economic and political power.

Only a political culture that acknowledges the realities and specificities of disadvantage associated with race and class can marginalise the appeal of those with the worst kind of identity politics: whether of a white, Asian or black communalist nature or religious sectarianism. Such a politics must seek to shape a political discourse within the mosaic of communities and between them. continues here

14-YEAR-OLD VICTIM ATTACKED BY 19 THUGS RELIVES HER NIGHTMARE

IN the shadows of a grimy tower block, the baying mob swarmed all over the sobbing schoolgirl like feral dogs—and savagely stole her childhood.

Again, and again, and again, they took turns to violate her 14-year-old innocence at knifepoint. There were 19 of them.

As she shrunk into a ball pleading for mercy, she was frog-marched round the grim east London estate in a two-hour display of depravity that shook all Britain.

Today, cuddling a pink teddy bear from her toddler years in the police safe house that has become her world, the young gang rape victim tells the terrifying story to the News of the World.

“They punched me, kicked me, smashed my head against the wall, stripped me and slammed me onto my back,” says the girl we are calling Jane to protect her identity. “More gang members were arriving by the minute. They were loud and jeering.

“They asked me if I was a virgin. When I told them I was, they laughed and said I wasn’t going to be one any more.”

And so began the ordeal that would change Jane’s life forever. In BROAD DAYLIGHT, she was dragged around THREE different locations and repeatedly attacked.

At least FIVE passing witnesses turned their faces the other way while the 19 gang-members aged between 13 to 16 fell upon their prey.

Earlier this month nine of the adolescent savages were convicted of kidnapping and raping Jane.

                                                                   Trigger

The spark for their monstrous brutality was a simple schoolgirl remark she made to a pal, telling her she was right to think about ditching her boyfriend.


But that boyfriend was a member of a notorious gang called The Kingshold Boys in Hackney—and when what Jane had said was reported back to him her fate was sealed.


“The ring leader’s girl and I were schoolfriends,” says Jane. “I said I didn’t think he was right for her. But she told him what I’d said.”


Jane shivers with fear in her chair in the safe house she rarely leaves. She has become a virtual prisoner here because of post-traumatic stress disorder. The physical scars have healed but the fear remains.

It is evident in her voice as she relives, in her own words, the chilling nightmare that began in March 2007.


“I bumped into her boyfriend after our chat and he accused me of trying to break up his relationship,” she said. “He went to hit me but a lad with him stopped him. I was very frightened. Soon people were telling me the gang were going to get me.


“The day it happened I was walking home from my cousin’s after school. As I turned the corner, the ring leader was waiting with three friends.


“They pinned me to a fence. Then the leader put me in a headlock and told me I was coming with them.”


Jane was marched into a block of flats on the rundown Parkside estate yards from her home. She was hurled under the stairs and ordered to perform oral sex on all four youths.

“One of the gang pulled out a knife and told me if I didn’t do what they wanted, they would stab me up. They were pushing it into my throat. I was crying and pleading with them. At that point, a lady walked past us in the flats and I made a run for it. But the leader came after me. He struck me hard on the head, put me in a headlock again and started dragging me down the road.”


At that moment she could have been saved the horror that lay ahead at the next location, a small block of flats in Skipworth Road.


“It was so obvious I was in distress,” she says. “I was crying, in a headlock and surrounded by four boys. But on the way we passed a father with two children and another two men. None of them came to help. They just looked the other way.
                                                                       Knife

“I was taken up the stairs of the next block to a first-floor landing. They threw me into a corner and again the sex acts started. They told me they would kill me if I didn’t.


“Then one of them, who had a bike with him, told me to take off my tracksuit bottoms or he’d put me in hospital. I was shaking so hard. I was only just gone 14. Mum had only just started letting me go out close to home on my own. When I wouldn’t take my bottoms off, the ring leader punched me in the eye while the others kicked my legs and lower body.


“Then the bike boy slammed me onto the concrete floor on my back and, as the others held me down, he raped me.


“One of them was trying to video it on his mobile. I was crying because it was hurting so much—but the ring leader just laughed.”


Then came another chance to save her—a woman walked past them into one of the flats.


“They threw a jacket over me and told me to shut up as she went past. Then they said I could go. I pulled my tracksuit bottoms on and ran. But they were playing with me—they ran after me and caught me.”
Battered

Now battered Jane was dragged to a 10-storey tower block on the grim Frampton Estate. She says: “More gang members arrrived. All of them were on their phones calling others up. They were surrounding me, laughing and whooping. They were like a pack of hunting dogs.”


Along came the fourth witness to abandon Jane to her fate.


“We went past a woman and she mouthed to me, ‘Are you all right?’ I shook my head and I know she saw the fear in my eyes. I thought she would get help—but she never did.


“I was taken to the ninth floor of the tower block where I was thrown onto the landing. Another gang member pulled a knife out and I was forced into more sex acts with five others. I was like a zombie.


“In the end, there were 19 there. They were all laughing and encouraging each other, calling me a slag and a ‘headchick’. Some were punching me. I was slammed against the wall six times. There were so many grabbing at me, pulling my clothes off. I’d reached the point of giving up. I really thought I was going to die.


“Then I recognised a boy I’d known for years, I felt relieved. He was a friend. But when I asked him to help me, he looked at me hard and said, ‘No, I’m with my boys now’. I will never forget that.


“Then I was forced into a sex act with him too—and then with others. If I refused they smashed my head against the wall.” continues here

Brave mum tells of gang rape terror

A mum-of-three who was the victim of a horrific rape in Belfast has spoken for the first time about her nightmare ordeal — to warn other woman of the risk of such an attack. 


Mary Hodkinson is facing an agonising wait to see if she contracted Aids in the brutal incident which occurred in a house in south Belfast earlier this month. 

After the horrendous sex attack, Mary was thrown out on the street bleeding, battered and semi-naked. 

She also fears the sickening sex attack may have been filmed. 

A 31-year-old foreign national has already appeared in court in connection with the incident. 

Mary revealed to our sister paper Sunday Life that she made the choice to speak out to try and prevent another woman undergoing the same ordeal. 

The 33-year-old mother, from the Village area of Belfast, is just one of a growing number of women who have been raped in the south of the city in recent months. 

Revealing her ordeal unfolded after attending what she believed would be a house party, Mary said: “The only thing I am guilty of is meeting a couple of guys who were so nice and who told me they were living in my community. I walked back with them and they invited me in for a drink and told me there would be other people in the house. 

“I was going back to my area and I thought I would know people at the house and would be safe. 

"But once I got in, it was a different story and I think this man was waiting for me.” 

Mary was forced into a bedroom where she was beaten and raped. 

Admitting her world has been turned upside down since the attack, she continued: “I will never forget the evil in this man’s eyes and I can still hear his mates laughing as they kept the door locked. Once he got me into the room he turned the light off and when I tried to escape and turn it on again he started to beat me. 

“He smashed my head off the radiator before kicking me in the legs. 

“This man was huge and very strong. I tried to defend myself as best I could but I didn’t stand a chance. He was a monster. 

“He was yelling all sorts of abuse at me and when he was finished, he started hitting me again and threw me out on the street when I didn’t even have a chance to get all my clothes on. 

“They were all laughing at me as I was thrown on to the street in a distressed state and bleeding all over. The whole experience was terrifying and I couldn’t believe it when I noticed a video camera on top of a cabinet as I was being pushed out the room.  continues here

Wannabe gangster who shot teenage girl in the head while dancing with a gun in his hand is jailed for eight years

A wannabe gangster who shot a teenage girl in the head while dancing around with a gun was jailed for eight years today.

Wayne Bryan, 20, said by police to be fascinated by guns and gangs, had been drinking and smoking cannabis but thought it was 'cool' to dance with the weapon which accidentally went off in his hand.

Sophie Finucane, 16, who was enjoying a sleepover party with girlfriends at her house, was shot at close range in the head.

Bryan had been invited as they were friends, Manchester Crown Court heard.

Sophie, who had been 'excited' after buying a new dress to attend a school prom, was given just 40 minutes to live after bullet fragments lodged in her brain.

Miraculously Sophie, living with her mother in Manchester at the time, regained consciousness after 10 days in intensive care.

Her father, John, kept a bedside vigil, and is now looking after Sophie at his home in County Cork, Ireland.

Sophie is still unable to walk, has lost use in her right arm, her vision is damaged and she suffers seizures. She will never make a full recovery.

Just three days before the shooting police raided the Gorton home of Bryan, who had a long criminal record, and found a magazine with seven bullets. He was bailed by police.

Today officers denied this was a mistake and branded Bryan a 'coward' for getting rid of the gun before handing himself in an hour after the shooting, around 5.30am on June 14.

The weapon has never been found and police warned someone will die because it is still on the streets.

Unemployed Bryan admitted reckless wounding, possession of a firearm, possession of an imitation firearm and two counts of possession of ammunition at an earlier hearing at Manchester Crown Court.





Jailing him for eight years, Judge Andrew Gilbart QC said: 'This is a sad, tragic, terrible case.

'Guns are a scourge in parts of Manchester. Their possession is seen as something to be expected or proud of. They are neither.'

He quoted from a statement given to police by Sophie's father.

It said: 'I feel sad my only child will miss out on the three fundamental things in life; work, marriage and children.

'But that said, thank the Lord she is with us today.'

The prosecution accepted Bryan did not intend to shoot Sophie and had found the gun in the house.

But the court heard Bryan had been in and out of the courts for violent assaults and burglary, but had repeatedly been given non-custodial sentences.

A picture found by police on his mobile phone shows him posing with a revolver, and another with the words West Gorton Crew - a Manchester street-gang Bryan associated with.

He had also repeatedly been picked up by police and found to be wearing body armour - which he had tested by firing at with a Webley handgun.

On the night Sophie was shot, Bryan told police he found the gun in a bag at her house during the sleepover party.

'He took it out and began to dance around with it,' Adrian Farrow, prosecuting, told the court.

'He was drunk... and also smoking cannabis all day. He was waving his arms around.

'He described the feeling of holding the gun as being, "good" because it was a gun.'

Sophie was blasted in the left side of the head. Fragments of bullets are still in her brain and cannot be removed.

Bryan fled with the gun and bullets before going back to the scene with his mother to hand himself in.

Outside court Andy Tattersall, senior investigating officer for Greater Manchester Police branded Bryan a 'coward' for getting rid of the gun before helping his stricken friend.

'I personally think he should have got a longer sentence, but the courts are restricted by rules that govern sentencing.

'Wayne Bryan is a young man fascinated with gun and gang culture.

'What was his first reaction when he shot Sophie? His first reaction was not to help Sophie, it was to gather the gun and gather the bullets and run. continues here

VIDEO: Hapless immigration minister is hit with a custard pie as he repeats pledge to keep UK's population below 70 million

Immigration Minister Phil Woolas was hit with a custard pie at Manchester University in a protest against plans to eject more asylum seekers.

The Labour MP was speaking at a debate on environmental issues when a female member of the crowd raced onto the stage and slammed a pie in his face.

The Oldham East and Saddleworth MP looked stunned and was taken away and cleaned up - but he returned a short time later to continue the debate.



Mr Woolas hit the headlines earlier this week after making a string of controversial remarks about his new role.

He appeared to call for a limit on immigration to keep Britain's population under 70 million and criticised the failure to spend enough on asylum removals.

Members of the group 'No Borders' claimed responsibility for the stunt. The pie thrower rushed up and threw what what was described as a 'vegan pie' at Mr Woolas from a distance of 1-metre and scored a direct hit on his chin.

The group say they believe in free transport regardless of borders and say their actions were a response to the Minister's recent comments.

Outspoken Mr Woolas has risked further controversy by reviving his promise that the population will not rise above 70million.

Mr Woolas, who has come under fire following a recent series of gaffes, insisted his pledge did not amount to a 'numerical cap' but said Britons had to be reassured that immigration would be controlled.

He added that he was responding to predictions that the UK population will soar from 61million to 70million.

He also insisted that he had not been gagged by his bosses.

There were reports that he had been pulled from the BBC's political flagship Question Time.

The minister has barely been out of the headlines since his appointment in this month's reshuffle.

Last weekend, he suggested the population of Britain could be capped at 70million, only to backtrack 24 hours later.

On Monday, he attacked Labour's inability to remove asylum seekers, saying it had caused unrest in society.

He followed this with views on the splitting of Church and State - at odds with Government policy.

In an interview with BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Mr Woolas said: 'I have just read that I've been gagged for two weeks and yet here I am.'

Mr Woolas said there had been a series of predictions that the UK population was heading up to 70million.

He said the Government's tough points-based system for migrants, which comes into effect next month, will respond to these concerns.

The system allocates work permits according to whether applicants have skills needed by the UK economy. But it does not effect EU nationals who have the right to live and work in the UK.

Mr Woolas said: 'We are introducing the biggest shake-up in immigration policy for 45 years... that is based on a points system which allows the Government to move the hurdles up and down - the criteria by which people can come into our country to work.

'That will allow us to control the population. That is not the same as a numerical cap. We don't think that's appropriate.'

Murdered teenager Hannah Foster made despairing 999 call after abduction

A kidnapped teenage girl dialled 999 in an attempt to escape from her attacker but was cut off by the emergency services. She was then raped and strangled, a jury heard yesterday.

After being bundled into a van, Hannah Foster, 17, an A-level student who wanted to become a doctor, dialled the number in the hope that the operator would hear her conversation with her abductor. But because the operator could not hear what was being said, the system automatically disconnected her.

Hannah’s parents, Trevor, 57, an auditor for British Gas, and Hilary, 51, a former nurse, and her sister, Sarah, 20, were in Winchester Crown Court as Nicholas Haggan, QC, opened the prosecution case in what he said would be a distressing trial.

Mr Haggan said that DNA evidence would help to prove that Maninder Pal Singh Kohli, 40, a sandwich delivery driver, murdered Hannah. “He snatched her from the street. He drove off with her in his van. He found somewhere quiet and he raped her. He then strangled her and dumped her body,” Mr Haggan said. “When he thought he might get caught, he fled to India.”

Mr Haggan said that Hannah disappeared in March 2003 while walking home from a bus stop after a Friday night out with friends.

“At 11pm that evening, Hannah managed to use her mobile phone to contact the emergency services,” he said. “She was unable to speak to the operator. It’s quite obvious from the recording that she was in a moving vehicle. In that vehicle with her was a man, and that man was speaking to her in a heavily accented voice.

“Hannah probably thought that the operator would listen to the conversation and work out that she was being held against her will.”

She would not have known that there was a system to prevent accidentally dialled emergency calls from blocking up the system, he added.

Experts who analysed the recording were able to make out Hannah pretending her name was Sarah and the man saying something like: “Hold your head down, please.”

Hannah’s body was discovered two days later by a 14-year-old boy in Allington Lane, West End, near Southampton. It was lying among brambles about 15ft from the road. A postmortem examination showed that she had been strangled. Although she was fully dressed, her clothing was described as “dishevelled”. She had scratches on her legs, and there were traces of semen.

It is claimed that on the same day Mr Kohli was in tears as he told a friend that he needed to go to India to see his ill mother. The friend noticed a red mark under the man’s eye, which Mr Kohli is said to have claimed he got in a fight with two men. Despite Mr Kohli threatening to kill himself if his friend did not lend him money for the flight, the friend refused, the prosecution said.

The next day, Hannah’s handbag and phone were found at a recycling centre in Southsea, Portsmouth. Mr Kohli flew to India from Heathrow the following day.

A few days later, Mr Kohli’s supervisor, James Dennis, saw a recording of theCrimewatchprogramme that featured an appeal about Hannah’s murder, and contacted police. Mr Kohli’s sandwich delivery van was seized and semen stains and traces of Hannah’s blood were discovered inside, Mr Haggan said.

CCTV and Hannah’s telephone records were said to place the two together at the time of the murder.

Mr Kohli was extradited to Britain in July last year, and a DNA sample from him matched the semen found at the crime scene, Mr Haggan said. continues here

Illegal immigrant firebombs homes in attack

AN ILLEGAL immigrant fire-bombed two homes in a terrifying revenge attack.

Tatenda Murenha, 27, struck in the dead of night following a long-running feud with people associated with Hemp Nation shop, in Heaton, Newcastle.

Murenha despised worker David Hildrew because he was passing information to the police about him, Newcastle Crown Court heard.

So he plotted his revenge and set about building a number of petrol bombs out of beer bottles in his home in St Anthony’s House, in the Byker Wall, Newcastle.

The court heard the failed asylum seeker wanted to send a warning to his enemy and the attacks followed a number of confrontations.

Prosecutor Paul Caulfield said Murenha had thrown water through Mr Hildrew’s letterbox six weeks earlier, along with a box of matches and a note threatening “next time it’s for real”.

Then, in the early hours of December 19 last year, Mr Hildrew heard four loud cracks in the backyard of his home in Spencer Street, Heaton, Newcastle.

Mr Caulfield said: “Mr Hildrew went to his kitchen window and was astounded to see the entire yard ablaze. There was a strong smell of petrol.”

A passing police officer heard the sound of breaking glass and chased after Murenha as he ran towards Chillingham Road.

He saw Murenha pull out two more petrol bombs and throw them at the Hemp Nation shop where Jason Brown was asleep upstairs.

Mr Caulfield said: “Fortunately for him, although substantial damage was caused to the shop window, he was oblivious to the fact the defendant had attacked his premises.”

PC Ronald Thompson followed Murenha and confronted him, spraying him with CS gas and hitting him with a baton as he struggled to restrain him.

Murenha continued to resist arrest and threatened one of the officers at the police station, saying: “I’m going to do to your family what I tried to do tonight,” the court heard. continues here