Dotun Adebayo on why Councillor Lurline Champagnie OBE ‘is arguably the greatest black Tory MP we never had’

I LIKE to think that me and David Cameron are friends. Ever since he changed the law, on my advice, to ensure that racist teachers don’t teach our kids, I have considered the prime minister, if not a spar, a bredrin-in-spirit. 

But you could ask yourself, what has he done for us lately? 

Let’s leave that to one side for now, Dave. But bredrin-to-bredrin, isn’t it about time you sent that long-time Tory stalwart, Lurline Champagnie, to the House of Lords to fight for the cause on your behalf?

Councillor Lurline OBE, or Lady, former Mayor of Harrow as we should properly call her, is one of the bravest politicians I have ever known. 

Back in the eighties when being black and Tory was seen as tantamount to race betrayal, Mrs Champagnie, stood up at the Conservative Party Conference and declared to the country: “I am Conservative, black and British, and I’m proud of all three.” 

Even among the conference goers there was disquiet. The Tories themselves weren’t ALL ready for that. For many of them “black” was the antithesis of “British” and to be proud of that was laughable. Yet, when she was caught up in the IRA bomb attack on the Grand Hotel in Brighton, Lurline was one of the first on the scene to use her expertise as a nurse to help treat victims. 

If many Tories didn’t respect her, imagine the struggle that Lurline had within her own community? She nevertheless kept the Tory flame alive in black Britain for a generation, to lay the foundation for the current crop of black Tory MPs. 

Adam Afriyie, Kwasi Kwarteng, Sam Gyimah, and newly promoted junior minister Helen Grant – all you Tory MPs who were made in the shade need to give props to Lurline. I’m surprised that you haven’t already. But many others are not.

But back to you, Dave, for after all you and I are friends. You missed a trick by not fast-tracking Lurline Champagnie as an MP. She was the first black woman to stand as a parliamentary candidate for the Conservatives in 1992. She was never going to be elected in Islington North, a safe Labour seat. To be frank, Dave, some of us feel that she was set up to fail. Still, she came a credible second. 

In those days Tories had the image of being the nasty party that didn’t give black people second chances, apart from John Major, who unwisely sent ‘Lord Fraud’, John Taylor to the House of Lords after the Tories of Cheltenham racially abused him when he wanted to stand as their MP. 

Dave, it is within your power to right the injustice of the past and to send Lurline Champagnie to the House of Lords on merit alone. She would fight your cause more eloquently and passionately than anyone I see doing it in the upper chamber right now. And with all the talk of leadership challenges to you and Nick Clegg, you need all the ‘backative’ you can get.

And not just for yourself, but for the Party too. It’s not just me saying that but the much respected Conservative Home blog which put Lurline as no.1 black woman for a peerage in their ‘Search For 100 Peers’. 

Lurline Champagnie is arguably the greatest black Tory MP we never had.
In the quarter of a century or so that I have done a ‘Paxman’ on her in interviews, I have never gotten one over on her yet, even back in the day when black Tories were regarded brothers and sisters from another planet.

Do the ‘right’ thing, Dave, and lift Lurline up where she belongs.