London Diary

Will Bojo Provide the Mojo?

The battle lines are drawn for June 23, when the UK decides on whether to remain in the European Union or get out of it. The British public has been denied a referendum on Europe for 41 years but now the ‘Ins’ and ‘Outs’ of the vote are becoming clearer. Prime Minister David Cameron heads the ‘In’ vote, it is still not clear who will be lead the Out campaign but the candidates are lining up. Priti Patel, the Indian-origin cabinet minister who is being dubbed as the poster girl of the Out campaign made her case in an article in The Daily Mail at the weekend. Two totally opposing politicians, extreme right UKIP leader Nigel Farage and George Galloway of the far-left have come together to be part of the Out campaign.  As of now, it seems about 144 Tory MPs will go against Cameron, including Mayoral candidate Zac Goldsmith. But all eyes are on London’s mayor Boris Johnson, the most popular face in British politics after Cameron, who ended the suspense by announcing his support for leaving the EU, adding a huge boost to the campaign. He would be the favourite to lead the Out campaign but so far has refused to play a lead role.

That is not the only struggle facing politicians campaigning to leave the EU. They need to persuade supporters to wear the ghastly lime green and black striped ties, emblazoned with ‘GO’. UKIP MEP Gerard Batten at a rally described the tie as ‘hideous’. There was also online ridicule after Farage was seen sporting it on TV.  The tie has become the butt of jokes and diatribe from pro-EU supporters. The Speaker John Bercow said: ‘it is a very garish item, I am bound to say.’ A political commentator tweeted describing the tie as vile and decided ‘for the reason alone’ he was going to back the In vote.

Clearly, the next four months will see this issue dominate British politics. It could threaten to divide the Tory party and redefine both, the country and continent. Cameron’s former speech writer Ian Birrell wrote in a column, ‘For Mr Cameron, who infamously once insisted that Tories should stop banging on about Europe, the fight has become a personal crusade,’ and ‘this is the vote that will determine his place in history.’ It is clear if Cameron loses it will be an end of his political career. But if the Out campaign wins it will position Johnson very nicely for the Conservative leadership.

No sedition here!

While the JNU upheaval took centre-stage in India, some British universities are also brimming with outrage these days. Oxford University has been seeing its own share of furious rows, schisms and resignations.  As a commentator noted that earlier this month, during the famous debating society’s debate on the boycott of the Oscars ceremony because of the absence of black faces among the main nominations, and discrimination everywhere in the world, ‘comes a genuine and deeply disturbing racism scandal right here in Oxford.’ And it involves the Oxford University Labour Club (OULC), Britain’s largest student Labour organization, which now finds itself accused of blatant anti-Semitism. The British and Israeli governments have expressed their concern. An investigation has been launched by Labour party after Labour MPs demanded the party’s leader Jeremy Corbyn investigate the matter.

Alex Chalmers who recently resigned as co-chairman of the OULC accused members of the executive of ‘throwing around the term “Zio” (a term for Jews usually confined to websites run by the Ku Klux Klan) with casual abandon’ and added, ‘senior members of the club expressing their solidarity with Hamas and explicitly defending their tactics of indiscriminately murdering civilians’. Amidst this ongoing controversy, Ed Miliband has pulled out of an OULC dinner he was due to address next month. But unlike what happened in JNU there is no nationwide accusations of ‘sedition’ here.

Another Indian author debuts on the London scene

It was a historic venue, the newly opened Alef bookstore, next door to B221 Baker Street -the world famous fictional home of Sherlock Holmes. It was the book launch of a debutante author. A former banker at UBS who studied economics at Cambridge University, Radhika Swarup launched her first novel – Where the River Parts. It’s a Hindu- Muslim story set in the backdrop of the India-Pakistan partition with love and separation woven into it, since Independence. It is not simply an imaginative romanticism of the past for a young woman. She lived in Pakistan. She is the daughter of well-known former diplomat Rajiv Dogra, who served as the Consul General of India in Pakistan from 1992-94. Some of her experiences were quite chilling. She told Outlook:  ‘Everything was fine until the demolition of Babri Masjid. Pakistan declared two days of national mourning, and on the second day (8th Dec), a mob of 500 people stormed into our house, beating up the Indian security detail, and rampaging through the historic house that had been selected for the Consul General's residence by Nehru himself.  My brother and I were at home with my mother and two Indian maids.  We barricaded ourselves in the last room in an upper floor, and the mob had just reached the door to our room when the police arrived.  If they had arrived a minute later, there is no knowing what would have happened to us.’ 

Ebay buyers prefer men

If you are thinking of becoming a successful seller on eBay, make sure you pick a male-sounding username. Apparently, buyers on eBay are willing to bid more often, and shell out more money, for items sold by men rather than women. The recent study shows the 'inequality and discrimination put women at a consistent disadvantage.'  The team headed by Dr Tamar Kricheli-Katz focused on identical products and demonstrated that a woman selling a new product on eBay received on average about 80 cents for every one dollar a man received for selling the same new product. They said this was because people viewed the products sold by women to be of less value than those sold by men. Unfortunately, the study supports the idea that people tend to inherently assign a lower value to products sold by women. To test the theory, they put on sale a gift card worth $100 (£70) for the online retailer Amazon. When the seller was female, the 116 participants in the experiment typically reported a lower willingness to pay for the card. Women sellers were offered $83 for their card compared to $87 for the men. That is clearly online sexual discrimination!