It’s my last day in Bangladesh. The country of my parents’ birth (before it existed as a nation) has undergone radical change since last summer, when Sheikh Hasina, who had won power multiple times, often in questionable circumstances, was overthrown after student protests escalated. It’s been a fascinating trip. I’m a born Londoner and had only been to Bangladesh five times in 51 years. Then I went last May for a UN conference. Though on the surface Hasina, for whom the premiership had been in the family since her dad became Bangladesh’s first leader in 1971, reigned with little tolerance for dissent, I sensed disquiet—whispered by drivers and cousins. Returning in 2025 means I’ve seen both sides of the revolution.
This latest visit, as part of a trade delegation, has been less than a week long, but the “last supper” before I leave is still emotional. Our party includes a SOAS academic and fellow Londoner I last met in Doha. A cousin I’ve only met a couple of times shows up at the restaurant in Dhaka’s Gulshan district, which is full of international hotels. Fellow diners stop me for selfies, thanks to my meeting with acting head of state and Nobel prize-winning economist Professor Mohammad Yunus (the students’ choice) making the national news and all the front pages.
I swap details with a pal of my cousin. “Rosario? What kind of name is that?” I enquire. “I’m a Christian,” he replies. “You’re an oppressed minority?” I ask. “Don’t call me that. I’m a Bangladeshi citizen!” He says that attacks on minorities have been much exaggerated by those from the ancien régime who want Yunus to fail. Contrary to what you hear in the UK, violence towards religious minorities in Bangladesh began before August 2024.
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It’s Monday morning and I’m at a school to take assembly. The slot works well, as the Commons does not sit until after lunch. Parents hand over forgotten items to reception, though lunchbags are a rarity these days since Sadiq Khan has granted Londoners free school dinners with an almost 90 per cent take-up—a brilliant policy. This is a state primary, so the kids, from reception upwards, are still cute and full of wonderment unlike, say, nonchalant sixth formers who can sometimes be too clever-clever.
I run through a PowerPoint presentation with pictures of me at PMQs and shots of Big Ben. Then the Q&A comes. The most common question used to be whether I’d met the queen, but that’s dipped with our new monarch. “Do you get paid for this?” asks one inquisitive eight-year-old.
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Wednesday brings the weekly highlight of PMQs. One downside of there being double the number of Labour MPs after the election is that it’s difficult to get a seat. The Commons was always too small for 650 MPs, and when Churchill had the chamber rebuilt postwar he kept it to the 420 capacity to retain the cosy atmosphere. I’m there in time to get a prominent spot. Kemi fails to land any killer punches. “Resign,” one wag from the Labour side shouts. Starmer is in full command, but you wouldn’t know it from the present coverage about the opinion polls. The atmosphere is electrifying in the nation’s cockpit—sometimes more a bearpit—but my mind wanders. I know from a Bangla-language flyer that’s been circulating that there is a “Rupa resign” protest outside parliament at noon—a first for me. I show the graphic to my whip and a cabinet minister, who both express horror and ask if there’s anything I need.
A Bengali journalist friend from east London captured the protest. He arrives at my parliamentary office with footage. I put the kettle on. The 10 or so who gathered (including reporters) are angry that I had not met who they wanted me to meet on my Bangladesh trip, angry with my descriptive and subjective account of it in the specialist newspaper Eastern Eye, angry I met Professor Yunus, angry at everything that’s not on their terms.
When the day ends I am slightly trepidatious. Could my tormentors be lurking? I perform another first and hail a black cab, on the whips’ advice, when my normal route is on the Tube. I take advantage by hocking a printer from my desk back to Ealing for the constituency office.
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I duly trundle a trolley case carrying the printer to the office on Friday. Thanks to jetlag I’m still waking up way too early.
After a week in the Westminster bubble nothing brings you crashing back to earth like holding an advice surgery. The cases are varied, but one makes me grateful for voting against the assisted dying bill. An elderly Irish lady has come to talk about her sister. It’s a lengthy yarn. She describes an abusive ex-husband re-appearing in 2022—he was all sweet nothings, but he wouldn’t let the lady nor any of her sister’s friends come round. Weeks before our appointment her sister had been found dead, covered in bruises. The husband had made her change her will to sign everything over to him, including the house. I have seen coercion cases too often in the past decade.
The last appointment is someone called Queen. “Royalty!” I declare to my caseworker as we await their entrance. “I doubt it,” she replies. “It’s about universal credit.”
