What are the main issues that people in your electorate/UK are concerned about?

The issues most people are concerned about are jobs, families, schools, education, hospitals, law and order. The global financial crises have impacted Britain severely, it plunged the country into a deep recession never seen since the 1930s. We are now coming out of it and growth is fragile but steady. We must lock-in and secure that economic growth, protect front line public services and reform the electoral processes

The Labour Government have taken tough decisions to get Britain through the downturn, we have done so with fairness in mind. The Tories argue that public spending should be cut immediately, but this position is out of step with every other G20 government, right or left. If governments do not provide support when families and businesses most need help, growth is set back, jobs are lost, and the country builds up more debts – paying a higher price in the future. To cut now would push the economy back into recession, not reducing the deficit but increasing it.

What are the policies that the Labour party is bringing to address them?

Labour will continue to support the economy while growth is still fragile, sticking with our targeted increase in public spending over the next year to sustain the recovery. Our focus for the stimulus is strategic investment, putting in place the new digital, transport and energy infrastructures that will support the return to sustainable growth.

To support all families in a rapidly changing world that places new and rising demands on all of us by helping families to realise their aspirations — whatever their circumstances — and we recognise the huge contribution older people make to society and to family life. In the next Parliament, Labour will focus on helping families into jobs and out of poverty. Where parents, especially mothers, want to stay at home or work part-time we will do more to help families with younger children, reducing poverty in those vital early years of a child’s life. We will ensure that work always pays for hard-working lone parents.

To raise standards, promote excellence and narrow achievement gaps by giving the best school leaders and federations more schools to run, and by giving parents new rights and clear guarantees of high-quality teaching and support for every pupil — underpinned by increased spending. There are now over 3,500 Sure Start Children’s Centres and every three and four year old has access to free nursery education, which is rising to 15 hours a week. Children’s Centres will become the bedrock of a new national under-fives service: ‘one-stop shops’, open to all families, offering excellent affordable childcare, healthcare and parenting advice. The number of free early learning places for disadvantaged two year olds will be expanded, on the way to our long-term goal of universal free childcare for this age group.

Every parent wants their child to attend an excellent school – with the best possible teaching and facilities. So for pupils and parents Labour will set out in law guarantees of the excellent education and personal support they can expect.

Labour will continue to press ahead with bold NHS reforms. All hospitals will become Foundation Trusts (FTs), with successful FTs given the support and incentives to take over those that are under-performing. Failing hospitals will have their management replaced. Foundation Trusts will be given the freedom to expand their provision into primary and community care, and to increase their private services – where these are consistent with NHS values, and provided they generate surpluses that are invested directly into the NHS.

There are now record numbers of police officers – nearly 17,000 more than in 1997 – backed up by 16,000 Police Community Support Officers. Labour is committed to giving the police the resources to maintain these numbers, with funding assured for the next three years.

Every community now has a neighbourhood police team committed to spending at least 80 per cent of their time on the beat visible in their neighbourhood, and responding to non-emergency issues within 24 hours. To ensure that communities can determine local policing priorities, neighbourhood police teams will hold monthly beat meetings - at which local people will have a right to hold senior commanders to account.

What have you personally achieved for your constituency?

I am not standing for election so my contribution is more general rather than constituency based. I continue to articulate views that identify social justice, or 'fairness', with equality of opportunity.

Opportunity and reward cannot be hoarded at the top, and it is not enough to protect people at the bottom. Labour values demand a genuine meritocracy for all British people, we need to unleash the biggest wave of social mobility – to spread opportunity across society and to realise the aspirations of all those on middle and modest incomes. Social mobility is not an alternative to social justice – it is modern social justice.

Equality of opportunity has to be created, because it is the foundation of a fair society and a more equal society. We have to set out more consciously to shape an economy which provides more opportunity and spreads it across society.

That is not about a state-directed economy in an old-fashioned way but a state-shaped economy has come back into the centre of Labour.

If elected, what will you do for the British Chinese community?

Anyone elected would have to serve the whole constituency and not a particular racial community. It would be naïve to think that a Chinese MP would serve only the interests of the Chinese community, we have to move on from this thinking and be grown up about it. Any potential candidate seeking election to serve only that community is not worthy of being elected.

The Chinese community should be comfortable with whoever represents them irrespective of colour, race or gender. The link between the constituency MP and the people he or she represents is the bedrock of our democracy.

How would you encourage the British Chinese to be more politically active in the UK?

We need to do more to raise the profile of the Chinese community. A survey conducted in 2006, estimated that around 30 percent of British Chinese were not on the electoral register, and therefore not able to vote. This compares to 6% of whites and 17% for all ethnic minorities. This is a shocking statistic and this under-representation is mirrored throughout all aspects of public life.

British Chinese are not a homogeneous group. They are peoples with diverse origins, language and cultural backgrounds, originally from Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia and most recently mainland China.

The reasons why the Chinese community has been in the backstage of public life are complex and diverse. Maybe it is because of their reserved nature in host-guest environments. Or maybe it is because they are too busy with their lives earning a living or making advances in their areas of work and in their social structure. Or worse, fear of persecution by the authorities.

Simply asking these questions and exploring the issues raised is clearly a start, but what is to be done, what does the Labour Party need to do and where do we go from here? I do think that the Labour Party should recognise that the Chinese Community is pushing for its voice to be heard on a political level in the country.
The Black Asian Minority Ethnic (BAME) Forum, set up in 2007, rightly seeks to empower ethnic minority members within the Party and campaigns for greater representation of ethnic minority communities in public life.
There are also some simple practical things that can be done quickly. For instance we should move away from using the generic ‘Asian’ in all advocacy and communications. The vocabulary has the effect of bringing down the shutters and alienates the Chinese community because to them Asian means people from the Indian cub-continent. We need to discover a better vocabulary to encompass all.
And we are not sitting idly by, carping at the sidelines. Chinese for Labour works actively to promote the Party in the Chinese community.
Now, what do I mean by that - Chinese values are Labour values – working class families working hard, wanting the best for their children so that they can move up the social ladder, supporting the family and community network, enhancing entrepreneurship – these are intrinsic Labour values, and we sign up to these values.

Why should people vote for the Labour party?

Our country needs a strong and decisive government who will lock-in and secure economic growth, protect front line public services and reform the electoral processes. Only a Labour Government can offer an honest appraisal of what needs to be done and at the same time be compassionate with any deficit reduction programmes.

Our manifesto is radical, coherent, and imaginative. It is bold about public service reform as it is about market reform - more academies promised; all hospitals to be foundation trusts; taking over failing police forces; jobs guarantee schemes extended to all ages.

The right lesson to learn about reform is that it should be as bravely applied to markets as it is to public services. Governing is about changing the world, and that will always involve change which can be painful at the time but is always necessary for idealism to be more than just noise

But the contrast with the Tories is epic – in education, they won’t invest; in health, they won’t reform. And they want to spend huge amounts of money on secondary priorities such as paying people to do things they already do rather than cutting the deficit and protecting public services.

On constitutional reform, there is commitment to referenda on Alternative Vote for elections to the House of Commons and to a democratic and accountable Second Chamber; there’ll be a free vote on reducing the voting age to 16; legislation on fixed term parliaments; and a ban on MPs working for generic lobbying companies.

There is a commitment to reduce health inequalities. The experience of the last decade shows how hard this will be to achieve but we must continue to do. It may take a generation for important social changes to show up as reductions in inequalities in life expectancy. A new government must put in place a cross-department strategy to deal with the six major domains that cause inequalities in health: early child development, educational performance, employment and working conditions, sufficient income for healthy living, sustainable and healthy neighbourhoods, and action on prevention across the social gradient.

We must eradicate child poverty, and to meet the 2020 target of eradication we will have to demonstrate significant progress during the next Parliament. So, by 2015, the absolute minimum requirement would be to reduce the proportion of children living in poverty from 18 per cent now to 13 per cent.

We have to make the economy greener. Labour has set ambitious carbon reduction targets and we have to work with the US and China in achieving a global agreement. The move to a low-carbon economy will require us to change the way we produce goods, heat our homes and use transport.

As the world changes we will need to compete in new sectors which will grow rapidly in the years ahead. Labour will support industries where we have key technology strengths such as advanced manufacturing, low carbon, life sciences and the creative and digital industries to create jobs and opportunities for British industry. This offers Britain the opportunity to create high-quality jobs as we manufacture and export new products to the rest of the world.

We have to make society stronger by fairness, eliminating discrimination and inequality on the basis of race, gender, sexuality age, disability, religion or belief or social class. A Labour government has always been a champion for those whose rights need to be protected.

We have to re-build and re-balance the economy, as well as renew our society and politics. Reform cannot stand still – not least because we need to get more value and delivery from public services in a period of public spending constraint.
And, we will deliver our pledge of a future fair for all.

I know that most political parties do not and will not put up a candidate just based on their race or ethnicity, however, I am wondering if Labour had any potential candidates which would come from such background? If so, why did they not run this year? What is the system or process in selecting candidates within the Labour Party?

Labour has the best record of any UK political party in terms of Black and Asian representation. In our third term we had thirteen Black and Asian MPs compared to just two in the Conservative party and none in the Liberal Democrats. The first black MP, first Muslim MP, the first Black Cabinet Minister, first black Attorney General; first Asian and Muslim Minister to attend Cabinet and first black female Minister in the Commons – all were all Labour. But we’re determined see more Black, Asian and Ethnic Minority MPs in Parliament after this election. This isn’t about doing anyone any ‘favours.’ It’s a democratic imperative and one that the Labour Party takes seriously.

And, to-date there is no Chinese MP in the House of Commons. The Labour Party working with Chinese for Labour have put in place a strategy to ensure that we have a cohort of potential Chinese Labour candidates for the next council and general elections. This is a marathon and not a sprint, likewise, we will field candidates across the UK and safe and winnable seats. In a recent speech to Chinese community leaders, David Miliband said that he is confident that the first Chinese MP will be from the Labour Party.

If anyone out there is thinking of standing as a potential Parliamentary Candidate, come and join us in the Labour Party. The key things you will need are energy, time, focus and good organisation to pursue a seat. The formal selection process may last for up to three months but preparation starts months before. We will support and strongly recommend you attend the excellent training programmes put on by the Party and gain a thorough understanding of the selection process and the procedures you have to follow. The training will also provide you with practical skills such as writing your selection literature, presentation, interview and campaigning skills. Once you have identified your target constituency, you need to research the area, the type of seat (is it a marginal or safe seat and how the opposition has done in the past). You will need to gather as much information about the constituency and the local party as possible from many sources. Some of this preparation will involve your actual presence to build up your local knowledge and networks. It is important you have a thorough understanding of the key issues which matter to local residents and communities and how being a Labour candidate and then MP, you can address these issues and concerns.

It is about having a well thought out strategy, campaign plan and having a good campaign team behind you. You will need the help of several people who can help you put in the legwork and telephone canvassing to reach out to local party members and their affiliated organisations such as trade unions and socialist societies. You will need to secure nominations from branches and affiliated organisations to ensure that you reach the shortlist. If you reach the shortlist stage, you will need to spend a considerable amount of time reaching out again to party and affiliated members. They will be the ones who will turnout on the final selection night. This final stage is nerve-racking but at the same time extremely exciting and you will need to be at your best in giving your ten minute or so presentation and in dealing with the questions from members.

It is about your ability to convince the members that you will either win the seat for Labour and make a difference to the lives of the constituents and to the local party or at least make a significant difference to the Labour vote. Although the whole process can be very stressful, exhausting, demanding and may appear to make you neglect your family and friends at times, you will learn so much from it and about yourself too. It will certainly sharpen your political values and beliefs and made you more confident.

Any other comments for Dimsum readers?

Labour is the party of equality and diversity and we’re proud to represent not just families who have been in Britain for generations but also people who are from Chinese, Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities throughout England, Scotland and Wales. We believe that everyone has the right to be treated fairly and to have the opportunity to fulfil their potential.

We believe that everyone has the right to be treated fairly and to have the opportunity to fulfil their potential.

Our record since Labour took office in 1997 demonstrates our commitment to fighting racial prejudice and helping people from all backgrounds make the most of their talents and abilities.

From introducing a duty on all public sector bodies to promote equality and tackle racial discrimination; to improving results for ethnic minority communities in health and education; to the recent Equality Act which significantly strengthens our anti discrimination legislation - we’re proud of our record on fighting discrimination and racism.

As we approach the General Election, people from all communities will be concerned about how we ensure the economy recovers after the global recession; how we cut the deficit in a way which protects vital public services and jobs and how we create a future which is prosperous and fair for all – not just a privileged minority.

Labour has always been clear – there can be and will be no place in our society and in our politics for the poison and division of the BNP and other extremists, and we will work with faith communities, trade unions and community organisers to defeat their threat.
Remember, this is your country, you are no longer in transit. This is your home, this will be your children’s home. So, come and join us in the Labour Party to make this country a fairer one with equality of opportunities to the many and not the few.