Lisa Nandy: An ‘incredible privilege’ to lead the Ministry of Culture

British Indian MP named secretary of state for culture, media and sport among 11 women shortlisted for top jobs by Starmer

By: Pramod Thomas

LISA NANDY, the British Indian MP re-elected for Wigan in north-west England, will take up her position at Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s cabinet table on Saturday (6) as his new Culture Secretary, alongside a record number of fellow ministers.

The 44-year-old MP was named secretary of state for culture, media and sport among 11 women handpicked for top jobs by Starmer as she went straight to work after Labour’s landslide general election win from Friday (5).

Rachel Reeves became the first woman to hold the position of Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Angela Rayner only the second female Deputy Prime Minister in the history of Great Britain.

Nandy, 44, took to social media to say it was an “incredible privilege” to lead the department for culture, media and sport.

“From rugby league to the Royal Opera, our cultural and sporting heritage runs through our towns, villages and cities and is one of our country’s greatest assets… The hard work starts today,” she said.

Nandy, who was among the final three contestants in the Labor Party leadership contest against her boss in January 2020, has since served in his shadow cabinet. She will now take over the culture ministry from Lucy Fraser, who was among the Tory ministers who lost their seats in the devastating election for Rishi Sunak’s Tories.

“I want to say to those people who have brought their ugly, nasty, racist politics to our town, the history of Wigan is that of working class people who for 100 years drove you and your hatred out of our town always . again,” raged Nandy in her acceptance speech after the defeat of a far-right UK Reform candidate in her Greater Manchester constituency on Friday.

“So take this result tonight as your marching orders. We are a better city than you. You are not welcome here. You can take your nasty divisive rhetoric somewhere else because we have a job to do,” she said.

The Manchester-born daughter of academic Dipak Nandy and English mother Luise Byers has spoken about her Indian heritage during past Labor party conferences. Her father was well known for his work on race relations in Britain.

“Friends, we meet today in a city overlooking the ocean, on an island shaped by waves of immigration. They include many children of Empire, like my father, who came here from India in the 50s and, through the struggle to create the Race Relations Act, helped build our national story,” she told the party conference in Brighton a few years ago.

“This is the country where we can be. One that lifts our eyes beyond the horizon, to see that together – only together – we will change the lives of people here and around the world.”

Reflecting on the Indian independence movement led by Mahatma Gandhi, she recalled how a century ago “the seams of my family came together when the campaign for Indian independence, supported by my grandparents, had devastating consequences for the workers from Lancashire. When the cotton stopped coming, the mills stopped working and the workers went hungry.”

“But members of my family, who worked in those mills, were among those who welcomed Gandhi to Lancashire. Because they knew, as I do, as the first mixed-race woman ever to hold that office, that solidarity has power and that our struggle is one and the same,” she said, referring to Gandhi’s famous visit to Lancashire in 1931 when he met. mill workers facing hardships.

(PTI)