Samuel Kasamu: With one in four primary schoolchildren from an ethnic minority background, Conservatives must face the demographic facts

Samuel Kasumu is Founder & Trustee of Elevation Networks.  Follow Samuel on Twitter.

Last week, the Runnymede Trust helped to produce a report for the All Party Parliamentary Group on Race and Community. They found that over 14% of women from ethnic minority backgrounds were unemployed, compared to 6% of white women. I observed -  as Labour’s David Lammy took the credit for highlighting a problem - that is in no ways a new phenomenon, and also looked to see where the Conservative voice would come from to comment on thisreport. Would the two Conservative women Ministers for Women & Equality have something to say? Well, no! I guess they were too busy dealing with the challenge of redefining marriage.

The new census has highlighted why we as a party must not ignore such issues, since ethnic minority communities have increased in their overall size of the UK population, and will increase further, even if immigration is controlled. Britain is changing. We have a population that is evolving in more ways than one and, as a party, have been slow to catch up.  Less than 90% of the UK population is now white. Interestingly, less than 50% of London is white, with many of the capital's population being born outside of the UK. Boris will not always be Mayor, and even he, with his great popularity, struggled to attract minority voters in May.

The reality is that the United Kingdom will never be the same again. With one in four children in primary schools from an ethnic minority background, it is surely time to realise that the centre right of politics must continue to reorganise and rebrand. We must broaden our appeal without compromising our core values - a challenge that our American counterparts in the Republican Party are also facing. The only way that a Conservative majority will ever be won in the future will be through building new relationships, being prepared to understand the meaning of diversity, and being brave enough to champion policies that promote fairness. 

Samuel Kasumu: The Conservatives must win a new generation

Samuel Kasamu is Founder & Trustee of Elevation Networks. Follow Samuel on Twitter.

Much talk has been had in recent months about the need for the party to broaden its appeal in order to have any chance of winning a majority in 2015 and beyond. Critics would even suggest that this new phase of modernisation within the Conservative party will need more than just another three years. Some Members of Parliament have actually confirmed this idea through the setting up of a group titled ‘2020’.

But I think those critics are wrong. There is enough time to demonstrate we are the party with the right ideas to take the nation forward, but we will need to be more radical. We must break down barriers and perceptions amongst various types of voters, and of course mustn’t forget that there is about 10% of the population that still do not vote for us: ethnic minority voters.

Samuel Kasumu: We must celebrate National Citizen Service

Samuel Kasumu is Founder & Trustee of Elevation Networks.  Follow Samuel on Twitter.

To say that the Big Society as a political concept has divided opinion ever since it was brought to the public’s attention would very much be an understatement. I have been an outspoken voice with regard to how it has failed to translate into tangible outputs, particularly with regard to supporting small charities and social enterprises. But its flagship youth policy, National Citizen Service (NCS),  is something that we can all celebrate as a legacy piece that will help to develop a new generation of community activists for years to come.

NCS is now in its second pilot year, and the results have been fantastic. 97% of the young people that have been on the summer scheme have said that they would recommend it to their peers. As the programme expands we hope to see charities benefiting from a new generation of volunteers. The five week programme is designed in such a way as to give a young person the leadership skills and tools to serve his or her local area. This year will also see an expansion to the programme with a new graduate scheme, so all the young people that have been involved in NCS can have access to ongoing support as they continue on their journey. It will also see the programme rightly move from being overseen by the Cabinet Office to being a part of the Department for Education.

There have been a number of criticisms for the programme. The most common being that it costs quite a lot of money, and that the availability of this cash has coincided with savage cuts to youth services by local authorities across England. This does have an element of truth to it, as local authorities have identified youth services as an easy target when attempting to balance their finances in challenging times. Some of the most vulnerable young people have suffered as a result, and there is a serious need for someone in government to put pressure on local authorities to make sure they are still providing a good service for young people. But the reality is that the funding for National Citizen Service has not come from children's services budgets. Sadly, the cuts to youth services would have happened regardless of whether we had this programme or not.  The pilots have been partly funded by what would have been the community cohesion budget, had we still had a Minister for Community Cohesion. It was one of the first things to go once the coalition came into power.  RIP!

Samuel Kasamu: The challenge for the party in the Bradford West by-election

Samuel Kasamu is a social entrepreneur and political commentator

The coming by-election in West Bradford gives the Conservative party another opportunity to win what was a target seat in the 2010 general elections. Labour’s Marsha Singh actually increased his majority by 5% the last time around - and Jackie Whiteley, the Conservative candidate, will have a fight on her hands.

Singh must have had a lot of voter goodwill to hold this seat since 1997,  but there is no doubt that this election will ultimately add to the debate around two very key questions: can Conservatives win in the North, and can Conservatives win in areas with very large ethnic communities?

Bradford is a largely working class city that has a very distinctive history. It had a very rich manufacturing industry at the peak of the industrial revolution, and was once known as the "wool capital of the world". But now it suffers disproportionately from unemployment, with its youth unemployment levels much higher than the national average.

Samuel Kasumu: The Conservative Party must do much, much more to become a party for ethnic communities

Samuel Kasamu is a social entrepreneur and political commentator

David Cameron’s mission of transforming the image of the Conservative Party has had many successes. However, there continues to be a unique challenge: the Party still suffers from a very low level of support amongst ethnic communities.

If anyone thinks this is an insignificant issue, we need only look at the last general election. Conservatives received 16% of the overall votes of Black and Asian voters, and Boris Johnson is currently having some tense times in his quest for re-election. 2010 was the first time a general election was won by a party that had not managed to win the majority of the seats in London. Our capital is the most diverse city in the world, with over 300 languages spoken and over 50 indigenous communities with a population of more than 10,000. Boris is struggling, particularly in inner-city areas in London - areas where you would tend to find larger concentrations of ethnic communities.

Race relations is a political challenge that has roots back in the early years of post-war Britain, and the Conservatives have simply never been able to form a discourse that is both a coherent and credible alternative to Labour's. Many of the Commonwealth migrants that we see today are the relatives of people that fought for our country during the Second World War. Some are also economic migrants that came in the late 1940s to support the rebuilding of Britain after the war and must now be accepted as part of Britain’s rich history. The contributions of ethnic communities must be valued and appreciated, and our Party must not be seen to shy away from talking about "race".