Just been interviewed by the Pakistani Spectator which is critical of the current regime in Pakistan led by President Musharraf; so is a soulmate of The Wilted Rose, which is anti-Brown.
Some of the figures for hits on the blog are eye-opening – over 13,000 views for a number of individual posts, for example.
I’m quite interested in politics in Pakistan, though have only blogged on the assassination of Benazir Bhutto before.
Pakistanis are a major political force in the UK today, and there were 750,000 Pakistanis in the UK in 2001 according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Pakistanis in the UK are amongst the most entrepreneurial of British people and have started many successful businesses, despite the incompetence of policy-makers such as the Red Route on Stratford Road in Birmingham which a report I co-authored found was devastating to businesses, many of which are Pakistani.
However, out of only 15 BME (black and minority ethnic) MPs in the UK, only 4 – Shahid Malik (Dewsbury), Sadiq Khan (Tooting), Mohammad Sarwar (Glasgow, Central) and Khalid Mahmood (Birmingham, Perry Barr) – all of Pakistani heritage. Muslim News rightly points out that there should be at least 20 Muslim MPs in parliament.
The Conservatives have the talented Baroness Sayeeda Warsi in the House of Lords, and Cllr Rehman Chishti, (who I have defended here), a former aide to the late Benazir Bhutto, will be elected as Conservative MP for Gillingham & Rainham at the 2010 General Election. Other Pakistanis to be elected at the next general election will include Cllr Ayoub Khan (Lib Dem) or Shabana Mahmood (Lab) in Birmingham, Ladywood and Yasmin Qureshi (Lab) in Bolton, South East.
Someone I wish would stand for parliament, preferably in a safe Conservative seat (as all the marginals have selected now), is Ali Miraj. He would make an excellent MP and a fine addition to the Tory benches. Since there is every chance that many Pakistanis and other Muslim people will vote Conservative in the next general election (especially after the 42 days controversy), the Tories should get a move on and select many of the excellent Pakistanis such as Mr Miraj and others who I have met and who have impressed me.
Mountjoy