Priti Patel
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A profile
The Times of India; May 12 2015
Cabinet minister in new UK govt
Kounteya Sinha
Indian-origin Tory MP Priti Patel has been appointed minister of state for employment in British Prime Minister David Cameron's new cabinet. Patel, who called her new posting at the department for work and pensions “a real privilege“, won the recent elections by securing 58% of the votes from Witham. She was the exchequer secretary to the treasury from July 2014 to May 2015. The 43-year-old was first elected the MP for Witham in May 2010.
During his trip to India in November 2013, Cameron had said: “I've made a personal commitment to strengthening UK-India relations because I believe we can be one of the great partnerships of the 21st century. And I firmly believe that British Indians -who already bring so much to our country -can play a vital role forging this strong relationship. To date, I don't think we've made the most of all they have to offer so I've appointed Priti Patel as our diaspora champion.“
The cabinet has got another minister of South Asian origin: Sajid Javid, the son of a bus driver and former banker, has been made the new business secretary, replacing Vince Cable. He recently oversaw the installation of Mahatma Gandhi's statue at Parliament Square.
London mayor Boris Johnson has not been made a minister but will attend “po litical cabinet“ meetings. He will be the first to simultaneously serve in the cabinet and as the mayor of London since the local government position was created in 2000.
“Boris Johnson will be attending my Political Cabinet,“ Cameron tweeted. “As promised, he will devote his attention to his final year as Mayor of London.“
David Miliband blames brother Ed for Labour's loss
David Miliband, former foreign secretary of Britain and known best in India for spending a night at the home of a Dalit family in Semra village of Uttar Pradesh along with Rahul Gandhi, has criticized his brother Ed's leadership of the Labour Party. Putting to rest speculation that he would return from New York to take up the vacant post of leader of the Labour Party, Miliband said his brother Ed lost the elections because voters “did not want what was being offered“. -Kounteya Sinha
Career highlights
Secret meetings with Israeli officials
PIO minister in UK faces sack over secret talks with Israelis, Nov 9, 2017: The Times of India
Britain's seniormost Indian-origin minister, Priti Patel, is facing a very serious prospect of losing her cabinet post after it emerged that she had two further meetings with Israeli officials that were not disclosed through the proper procedure.
The international development minister, who was in Africa on an official visit to Uganda and Ethiopia, has had to abandon her tour and fly back to London on Wednesday “at the request of the PM“.
Downing Street, which has declined to comment further on the matter, had earlier said that PM Theresa May had accepted Patel's apology over a series of meetings while she was on a holiday in Israel in August, without reporting them to the foreign office.
But new revelations about her further meetings with Israeli officials following that visit have made her position within the Cabinet very precarious. It is understood Patel, 45, met Israel's public security minister, Gilad Erdan, in the UK Parliament complex in early September and an Israeli foreign ministry official, Yuval Rotem, in New York later that month. Ministers are required to tell the UK foreign office when they are conducting official business overseas, but it had emerged that British diplomats in Israel were not informed about any of Patel's meetings -which included a meeting with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and other political figures as well as charity organisations.
Opposition parties have been calling for Patel's resignation as the minister in charge of the department for international development (DfID) and the country's aid budget if it emerges that she breached the ministerial code of conduct.
Patel, the Conservative party MP for Witham in Essex, had issued an apology on Monday and attributed the unreported meetings to “enthusiasm“. “In hindsight, I can see how my enthusiasm to engage in this way could be mis-read, and how meetings were set up and reported in a way which did not accord with the usual procedures. I am sorry for this and I apologise for it,“ she said in a statement. Her conduct had already led Theresa May to direct her cabinet office to look into tightening the ministerial code of conduct to avoid any such incidents in the future.
Downing Street was also forced to deny that Patel's meetings in Israel had led to any change of political stance on the region after it emerged that in the wake of her visit in August, Patel had discussed potentially providing some of Britain's aid money to Israel's armed forces which run field hospitals in the Golan Heights area. Britain does not officially recognise Israeli occupation of the area and DfID was reportedly advised against any such move.
