Author Archives: Parmjit Singh Gill

Parmjit Singh Gill

Opinion: Charles Kennedy: Loss of a great leader

By Parmjit Singh Gill | Fri 5th June 2015 - 2:30 pm

Formidable, talented, passionate and hugely inspirational, Charles had deep conviction and was able to engage the public in a way no other politician could. That gave him a level of public popularity rarely enjoyed by a political party leader. Above all else he was highly principled and when Tony Blair took us into the Iraq war supported by the Conservatives, he stood firm to those principles against the political establishment. Despite being heckled and shouted down in Parliament and criticised widely he remained resolutely against a war which he knew was fundamentally wrong.

That principled stand was significant in the historic 2004 Leicester South By-election, where media arrived from all over the world. I recall speaking to a number of international film crews from as far away as India and Japan. They were unclear on whether the British public supported the war or not and seemed to have a collective view that this particular By-election would be seen abroad as a Referendum on the Iraq war. Would the British public support Tony Blair’s decision to go to war through the ballot box?

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 6 Comments
Parmjit Singh Gill

Opinion: Nelson Mandela: A personal tribute

By Parmjit Singh Gill | Fri 6th December 2013 - 5:15 pm

Nelson Mandela commanded an enormous degree of respect from leaders across the world and will be a great loss to us all. He truly was one of the great souls of the last century along with Mahatma Gandhi who he credited with being a major source of inspiration in his life, especially with his philosophy of non-violence. Both Gandhi and Mandela were leaders who were imprisoned for years by oppressive regimes and now their statues share a place on Constitution Hill in Johannesburg, South Africa.

While Gandhi influenced Mandela, a young Gandhi himself was mentored by Dadabhai Naoroji who was the …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 9 Comments
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