David Lammy on unemployment, Boris Johnson’s covid response and Black Lives Matter

Dominic Cummings? Malign. Labour’s position on Brexit? Disappointing. The government’s tone on Black Lives Matter? Depressing. London’s most forthright MP and LBC host David Lammy speaks to Susannah Butter
David Lammy
In Labour: David Lammy says leader Sir Keir Starmer is “bright, able, direct, with a feel for the country”
Daniel Hambury/Stella Pictures Ltd
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It is safe to say that David Lammy won’t miss Dominic Cummings. “He is one of the most malign forces in modern history,” the MP for Tottenham and shadow justice secretary said this weekend. “He should have been sacked months ago, it is unbelievable the hold he had over the Prime Minister, the arrogance of him. His damage is irreparable.”

When we spoke before Cummings’s resignation, Lammy, 48, was equally forthright. “I want the Government to succeed,” he begins, dressed in a smart-casual black T-shirt and blazer at his desk at home in Stroud Green. “But we are constantly fighting, the Government has been very slow to act at every stage of the pandemic and is just not on top of the picture.”  

He continues with his diatribe. “What has come out of this period is a sense that there is one rule for the Government and another for others, handing contracts to their friends, and with track and trace we have seen the incompetence and detachment of Boris. I have Conservative friends who have raised these issues with me. Until you have track and trace solved, I am afraid you will be in a position where you are going to have to lock down.”

Lammy’s constituency has been hit particularly hard by the pandemic. Tottenham is predicted to be the area of the country worst affected by Covid-related unemployment — it rose to 45 per cent between March and August. Its population is mixed, says Lammy, “there are immigrants who can no longer work as cleaners or security staff in central London because no one is going to offices, and lots of freelancers, hipsters that can’t afford Hackney so come to Tottenham”. We should have had a circuit breaker in September,  he says, “then we would be out earlier”, but now we are in this fix forward planning is vital. “We need a government that can look down the road and to some extent see around corners. But Boris’s instinct is to constantly be in a hopeful place rather than a wise sage-like place. None of us want to see the economy locked down but I think you’ve got to balance consistent rules, saving lives but also doing our very best to keep the economy going and keep people in employment.”  

Lammy speaks in eloquent, fully formed mini-speeches. “I have the gift of the gab,” he says with a conspiratorial, full-body laugh. In his 20 years as an MP, he has gained a reputation for being outspoken about what he believes in, regardless of what his party’s line is — he was “hugely disappointed with Labour’s position on Brexit” and recent areas he has highlighted include the Windrush scandal and Black Lives Matter.  

So have we made progress since the marches calling for racial justice in June? “Can I be hopeful?” says Lammy. “The next generation gets it. They understand climate change, austerity, issues of race, they want the country to progress. And the Government is behind the rest of the population. A lot of organisations and FTSE 100 companies call me because they want to do more. We have to set targets for diversity not just at entry level but for senior staff. That is how we got on top of the gender pay gap, we need to do the same here with the ethnicity pay gap.”

His bright, can-do outlook dims when we discuss the Government’s commission into race and ethnic disparities, set up in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests. “I am disappointed that the Government has set up yet another commission,” he says. Lammy led a 2017 report on racial disparities in the criminal justice system and has yet to see action on the 35 recommendations he made in it. “What more is there to say? The Government’s tone critiquing race theory and talking about victimhood is divisive and entirely unnecessary but that is where we are. It is depressing.”

Does he think we will have a black prime minister in the next 10 years — is Kamala Harris being vice-president the start of a global shift? Lammy’s first reaction is to laugh. “Er,” he finally says when he’s stopped chuckling. “Anything is possible in politics. I can’t see it knowing who is in Parliament, some MPs are still quite junior, they would have to bed down and advance in their parties.”  

Boris’s instinct is to constantly be in a hopeful place rather than a wise sage-like place

Part of the challenge is changing the images we see of black people — that is where Comic Relief comes in. Lammy called for the charity to stop sending white celebrities to Africa and reconsider the way they presented the continent. Last month, they followed his advice. “The majority of British schoolchildren get a lot of their understanding from those images of Africa put out by Comic Relief so it is important to update that and hear the call for balance from within,” he says. “We can’t have a patrician understanding of charity like Victorians.”

When he was overseeing the race commission he asked Keir Starmer, “a good friend”, to be on the advisory board. “It turns out that was a good call,” he laughs. “Now Labour is under new leadership and Keir is cutting through. He is bright, able, direct, with a feel for the country.”

The Jeremy Corbyn years were “lonely and sad” for Lammy, who took a stand against the anti-semitism he saw during Corbyn’s leadership. “I protested outside parliament with Jewish friends,” he says, sighing. “It was probably one of the saddest days for me when they published their report into anti-Semitism in the Labour party last month. I was disappointed with Jeremy’s response. I take the view that the Jewish community is 0.5 per cent of the population and the black community is just under four per cent. The measure of a civilised democracy is how you treat your minorities. We should never be in the business of diminishing anything that the Equality and Human Rights Commission have said because if you do that, you make life harder for minorities.”

When Lammy was overseeing the race commission he asked Keir Starmer, “a good friend”, to be on the advisory board.
REUTERS

Corbyn was “hugely kind” to Lammy when he first became an MP and Lammy doesn’t judge him personally but he “was not surprised by the results at the last general election”. Does he think that Labour can claw back their reputation and win in 2024? “We have to listen once again. There have been very low moments. We are now a considerable way from government but we are in the business of a fightback, so of course we can win the next election.”

Is the Mayor doing a good enough job to help Labour?  “Being a Labour mayor against a Tory government, where Boris doesn’t want to help him out, has not been easy. On Covid Sadiq is doing a great job, quick on masks and visible. It was a mistake to keep him out of initial Cobra meetings.”

Lammy would like more focus on county lines drug dealing, to reduce knife crime. “We tend to focus a lot on knives but we must understand this is driven by drugs, men in suits trafficking tonnes of cocaine across the world. It is an old story, you just have to read Oliver Twist to know there have always been men prepared to pimp children out for criminal ends. It has not been Boris’s priority, for understandable reasons — he has been concentrating on terrorism and historic sex crimes — but we have to get back to it because county lines and trafficking  drive violence.”

There were some lonely, sad days under Corbyn. How you treat minorities is a measure of a civilised democracy

Lammy knows he is lucky to live two Tube stops from his constituency, which means he is able to spend more time with his family. His wife Nicola is an artist and they have three children — Joshua, 14, Theo, 12 and Rose, six, who is adopted. “Adopting a child is by far the most rewarding and important thing I have done in my life,” he says. “I always ask people to think about adoption, not just couples who are unable to have children themselves.” Turning the personal into the political, he adds that we need more people to adopt: “There has been an increase in domestic violence during Covid, children have been growing up in neglectful environments and there is huge pressure in family courts.”  

Lockdown has been more enjoyable since the Lammys got a terrier, Silver, although he has missed “time alone on the Tube with my headphones in”. He’s finding it increasingly hard to stick to his low-carb keto diet, “I want wine, which isn’t allowed”. His current battle is poor wi-fi signal. “At around 4pm every day my kids start playing on the Xbox and we fight for wi-fi”. He and his wife have been watching David Hare’s recent BBC drama Roadkill, where Hugh Laurie plays the justice secretary. How realistic is it? “We consumed that in two days on the laptop in bed. It didn’t strike me as quite as profound as some of Hare’s past work. Not all politics is that cynical — the vast majority of politicians, and I include my Conservative opponents, are moved to make the world a better place.”  

Lammy sounds genuine, insisting that he has no ambitions to be prime minister. “I am looking forward to being the justice secretary in Keir’s first cabinet.” With one last laugh he is off, before his children monopolise the wi-fi.

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