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July 12, 2024 • Twitter.com/easterneye
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EARLIER this week, Novak Djokovic
warned that club tennis is “endan-
gered” by a rise in the popularity of
padel – a hybrid between squash
and tennis.
The seven-time Wimbledon cham-
pion said he feared for grassroots
tennis because the game’s organisers
had done a “very poor job” in mak-
ing the sport affordable and accessi-
ble for aspiring players.
Last year, former British number
one Dan Evans criticised the game
for being elitist and said it did not do
enough to attract working-class kids.
For far too long, tennis in the UK
has not felt like a sport for ethnic mi-
norities. Arvind Parmar, the only Brit-
ish Asian player to make an impact
at Wimbledon, retired 18 years ago.
Sally Bolton, the All England Club
CEO, admitted back in 2020 that
“there is a lot more we can do. And
we will. We are very committed to
that” when she spoke of increasing
BAME representation in the sport.
But so far there have been no con-
crete plans on how this will be done.
In 2021, the Lawn Tennis Associa-
tion (LTA) outlined a three-year In-
clusion Strategy to break down barri-
ers and increase participation in ten-
nis across Britain. However, there
has been no data published since as
to how this strategy is progressing.
Annabel Croft, the former British
No 1, has championed padel saying
it is a “very inclusive sport, there’s no
barriers to anybody trying to pick up
a bat and trying to have a go”.
At the moment the same can’t said
for tennis, and unless more is done
to improve inclusivity, the sport
could have a major issue on its
hands in the coming years.
Threat to tennis
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by SUNDER KATWALA
Director, British Future
“CHANGE”. That was what this elec-
tion was about.
Change, above all, from Rishi Su-
nak’s Conservative party. Fourteen
million voted Conservative last time.
Fewer than seven million did this
time. The Tories lost a quarter of the
vote to Reform on the right and an-
other quarter to their left. The losses
on either flank were enough for Su-
nak to lose power on their own. The
combination was devastating. When
it came to seats, the Conservatives
lost a handful to the Greens and Re-
form – while many were swept away
by the Liberal Democrats and Labour.
Labour won a crushing, yet curious
victory. This 1997-style landslide of
412 seats was won on the lowest turn-
out since 2001 and a lower vote share
than in 2005, or for any previous win-
ning government.
The new electoral map suggests
Labour has a “coalition of every-
where” – making sweeping gains
across Scotland, winning back every
‘Red Wall’ seat lost in 2019, having
the most seats in every region and
making once-in-a-century gains in
Cheshire, Somerset and Norfolk.
Labour’s game plan for a Com-
mons majority, to win people and
places that were not already onside,
was executed to perfection when
reaching out. But the message – that
the party was prioritising people and
places who do not habitually vote
Labour – was also heard by those who
normally do.
Bristol Central ousted Labour to
strengthen the Green voice – offering
a cosmopolitan counterblast to Nigel
Farage’s insurgency in Clacton on the
Essex coast. Islington North chose to
keep Jeremy Corbyn in parliament.
Labour’s support was down
among the under-40s group gen-
erally, but it fell most of all, by an
average of 20 per cent, in con-
stituencies where most voters are
not white.
Most black voters still voted La-
bour, on a reduced turnout. But
2024 was the first modern general
election when most British Asian
voters did not vote Labour. Focalda-
ta’s How Britain voted analysis
estimates the party averaged
43 per cent across Asian vot-
ers as a whole, with the Conservatives
on 20 per cent, and around one in 10
for each of the Lib Dems (nine per
cent), Greens (11 per cent) and inde-
pendents (10 per cent). Voting pat-
terns and the reasons for voters’
choices will clearly differ across dif-
ferent groups and generations.
Sir Keir Starmer’s party lost around
half a million Muslim voters – usually
to its left – as the ‘Gaza effect’ out-
stripped that after Iraq in 2005.
Alongside Corbyn in Islington, La-
bour lost four more seats to inde-
pendents in Birmingham, Blackburn,
Dewsbury and Leicester South, all
constituencies with large Muslim
electorates. Yet the party still holds 46
of the 50 constituencies
with the largest Mus-
lim populations, as
it held all of its east
London seats, on
reduced majorities,
and gained three
more,
removing
George Galloway
in Rochdale and
taking Peterbor-
ough
and
Wy combe from the Conservatives.
Pro-Gaza candidates won less sup-
port in the south than in the Mid-
lands and Yorkshire.
Meanwhile, Tory progress with In-
dian voters helped to make Harrow
East the sole constituency in Britain
where the Conservatives reached 50
per cent. The Church of England was
once called ‘the Tory party at prayer’,
but the Hindu temples of Harrow
might now contest that title.
There was even one Tory gain in
Leicester East, on a night of 250 loss-
es, as Shivani Raja, not yet 30, defeat-
ed both her Labour opponent and the
constituency’s previous two Labour
MPs. Keith Vaz came fifth with under
4,000 votes. Most Leicester East voters
found their veteran MP of three dec-
ades an unlikely champion of change.
Beyond Harrow and Leicester, La-
bour still holds 26 of the 28 Westmin-
ster constituencies where most voters
are Asian. Its strong parliamentary
presence offers Labour MPs opportu-
nities to reconnect – but a governing
party will struggle unless it roots
those efforts with voters from specific
groups in a more coherent approach
to engage fairly and effectively in a
diverse democracy with citizens from
all minority and majority groups at
the same time.
There is more change in the Com-
mons than ever before – 335 first-time
MPs and 15 retreads outnumber the
300 re-elected incumbents. With 90
ethnic minority MPs, it is the first time
the Commons reflects the diversity of
the electorate.
But there is less ethnic diversity in
the Starmer government than in re-
cent Tory administrations, with three
ethnic minority ministers around the
cabinet table – David Lammy, Shaba-
na Mahmood and Lisa Nandy – but
nobody among the ministers of state,
demonstrating a weak Labour pipeline
from its strong parliamentary repre-
sentation to bigger leadership roles.
The test of this new government
will be delivering change. The Rwan-
da scheme was scrapped on day one.
The party has a mandate to build –
favouring YIMBYS over NIMBYS –
and promises to focus on growth, the
NHS, energy as well as breaking down
barriers to opportunity.
Labour should govern for its new
“coalition of everywhere” – but the
election tactics of the opposition
made some people and places more
equal than others. It will be important
to rebalance that in government – a
decade of national renewal depends
on ensuring that everywhere really
does mean everywhere.
Starmer wins electoral
‘coalition of everywhere’
FORMER Conservative MP Alok
Sharma, who did not seek re-
election in last week’s general
election, will now take his seat in
the Lords after being conferred a
peerage by King Charles.
The 56-year-old Agra-born
MP was knighted as Sir Alok in
the King’s new year’s honours
list last year for his contribution
to tackling climate change
through his leadership as
president of the COP26 climate
summit two years ago. He now
becomes Lord Sharma.
Sharma was among seven
nominations made by outgoing
prime minister Rishi Sunak for
the customary ‘dissolution peer-
ages’, which also saw former
prime minister Theresa May be-
come a peer.
“Humbled to have been
appointed to the House of Lords
but so sorry to see many fine
Conservative candidates lose,
including in Reading West & Mid
Berkshire,” said Sharma in a post
on X last Friday (5), as his party’s
disastrous general election re-
sults became evident.
His former constituency was
won by Labour’s Olivia Bailey,
whom Sharma described as a
“decent person who I feel will
serve the area diligently.”
Sharma’s Reading West
constituency, like several others
across the UK, had undergone a
boundary change to become
Reading West and Mid Berkshire.
When he announced his
decision in September last year
to not contest the next general
election, Sharma said, “This has
not been an easy decision for
me. It has been the honour of my
life to serve as the MP for a
constituency in the town where I
grew up and a privilege to serve
in government and represent the
UK on the international stage.
“I will continue to support my
Conservative colleagues and ser-
ve my constituents diligently for
the remainder of my time as an
MP, as well as champion in par-
liament the causes I care deeply
about, especially climate action.”
Sharma was selected as a par-
liamentary candidate in 2006,
and has served as a Tory MP
since 2010. In his role as cabinet
minister since then, he was
appointed secretary of state for
business, energy and industrial
strategy and international
development, until he was con-
ferred a cabinet-level role as
COP26 president by former
prime minister Boris Johnson in
January 2021.
In Sunak’s administration,
Sharma was on the Commons
back benches, and often spoke
out to express his concerns
about the government’s delay in
certain targets towards meeting
the country’s climate action net
zero pledge by 2050.
“Chopping and changing poli-
cies creates uncertainty for busi-
nesses and the public. Ultimately
this makes it more difficult to at-
tract investment and pushes up
costs for consumers,” he said.
Sharma receives peerage in Sunak’s outgoing list
BUT COMMONS DIVERSITY NOT REFLECTED IN LABOUR CABINET, SAYS EXPERT
© Andrew Matthews/Pool/Getty Images
© Ricky Vigil/Getty Images
VICTORY MESSAGE: Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour
party has a mandate for national renewal,
according to Sunder Katwala (inset below)
HONOUR: Sir Alok
is now Lord Sharma