Earlier this week we spotlighted CCHQ's controversial decision to put a recent Labour-to-Tory defector on to the party's A-list. The response from the overwhelming majority of ConservativeHome visitors was predictably furious.
We can report much better news this morning. Mohammed Abdel-Haq has been appointed to the A-list (along with naming Paul Uppal this morning, 32 second wave A-listers have now been identified by this blog).
I should declare that Mohammed is a friend. He has been an enthusiastic supporter of the Centre for Social Justice since its beginning and was Chairman of the CSJ's 2006 Awards Panel. This is a key part of why he will help the party to diversify - not just because he is a British Muslim but also because he wants the party to have a heart for the most vulnerable people in Britain and overseas. Mohammed is a trenchant critic of human rights abuses in Muslim countries and of the failure of many British Muslims to integrate. A successful banker himself he joined the Conservative Party in the mid-1990s when it was not the fashionable thing to do. He believes in small government, strong families, personal responsibility and the primacy of the nation state. He fought Swansea West at the last General Election.
CCHQ's continuing attempts to hide membership of the A-list raises suspicions that the list will not easily withstand scrutiny. The fact that people of the calibre of Mohammed Abdel-Haq are on the A-list should remind all of us, however, that it does include many very good men and women.
