Clare Short MP for Ladywood, in Birmingham, joins sisters Samina, Safia and Sabah from the MPACUK Birmingham Branch, to talk about issues affecting British Muslims today, from her experiences as a Birmingham born Catholic to her opinion on Palestine, Islamophobia, the importance of voting and her take on Bishop Ali-Nazir’s comments on ‘no go areas’ Clare Short, a colourful figure throughout her career, who always spoke out against the injustices happening in Palestine, served as Secretary of State for International Development from 1997 until her resignation from the Cabinet over the war in Iraq in 2003. In 2006, she resigned the Labour whip. She now sits as an Independent. Clare Short is also the author of the award winning book “An Honourable Deception? New Labour, Iraq, and the Misuse of Power”, published in an attempt to explain why Tony Blair did what he did on Iraq, to uphold the hope that lessons could be learned and things put right. Tune in to the second and final part of Clare Short’s interview with MPACUK. For the first part of the interview with Clare Short please click here , and please leave your comments here. For more information on Clare short please visit her website: www.epolitix.com/Clare+Short If you would like to get involved with contacting your MP or would like to find out more about MPACUK Birmingham, contact us at info@mpacuk.org or call 0870 760 5594 Less

As a Liberal Democrat MP John Hemming represents the constituency Yardley in Birmingham. Mr Hemming joins MPACUK to discuss issues such as Islamophobia, the media’s attitude toward Muslims, lobbying, the occupation of Palestine, the invasion of Afghanistan amongst other controversial topics. From MPACUK, sisters Tasneem and Abida invite John Hemming to talk about the issues affecting Muslims in Britain today, and what Muslims could and can be doing today to tackle these issues that surround us. Among other things John Hemming has been known to have voted on key issues such as, voting strongly against introducing ID cards, voting strongly against Labour’s anti-terrorism laws, and voting strongly for investigating the Iraq war. For more information on John Hemming please visit his website at: http://johnhemming.blogspot.com/ Please listen to the podcast and leave your comments. Thank you. To join MPACUK Birmingham and get involved please email us at info@mpacuk.org or call 08707605594 Less

With Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali’s remarks about no-go areas in the newspapers recently we decided to interview members of the public to see if they had heard of the issue and whether they agreed with the Bishop. Less

In the last MPACUK PodCast, a thread was opened up on our forum, comments were posted and while reading some of these, we realised that 7 years after the creation of MPACUK, we still had a long way of getting the principle of Accountability back into the Muslim community. It’s funny that such a small word can bring humans into such a state of denial, anger and even violence. In the past men have been put to death for using it. Yet this small word could be the cure to the Muslims downfall. Less