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16/09/2008A Muslim politician was given her job because of her religion, a minister has suggested.
Baroness Warsi, a shadow communities minister, was given the role as part of a "opportunistic courtship of the Muslim vote" by a "cynical Tory Party," according to Sadiq Khan, a Labour Government whip.
David Cameron, the Conservative leader, has used the "Tory spin machine" to make out that his party is on the side of Muslims because it needs their votes to win key seats, he said.
"Despite the fact that there are no Tory Muslim MPs, by appointing the unelected Baroness Sayeeda Warsi to his shadow cabinet, David Cameron can now claim to have a most senior Muslim politician in his ranks," Mr Khan said, in a pamphlet for the left-wing Fabian Society.
Mr Khan, who is one of four Labour Muslim MPs, added that the Tories' "courtship" of ethnic minority voters had "extended only to symbolic appointments", giving the example of Ray Lewis, who was briefly Boris Johnson's Deputy Mayor of London and is black.
He also accused Mr Cameron of making ethnic minority parliamentary candidates fight for "hopelessly unwinnable seats", pointing to the case of Tony Lit, an Asian who stood in a byelection in Ealing-Southall last year.
Despite a high-profile party campaign, and Mr Lit being listed on the ballot as standing for "David Cameron's Conservatives", the Tories finished third.
"The fact that most of these candidates have been chosen in hopelessly unwinnable seats doesn't stop the Tory spin machine claiming that they are now the true inheritors of the Muslim vote," said Mr Khan.
"This opportunistic courtship of the Muslim vote is made more remarkable by the fact that the Tories have offered very little in terms of policies which address issues affecting Muslims home or abroad," he said.
"Recently, we have seen a cynical Tory Party courting Muslim voters - who constitute a major part of the ethnic minority vote that the Tories need to win over in order to form the next Government."
A Conservative spokesman said: "This is simply not true. Mr Khan obviously hasn't looked at this properly. It's a false generalisation to say that ethnic minority candidates have been given difficult seats.
"Rehman Chishti has been selected to stand in Gillingham and Rainham, which is notionally a Conservative seat. Zahid Iqbal will stand in Bradford West, which has a Labour majority of just 3,000.
"And Helen Grant was selected to contest Maidstone and the Weald, which is currently Ann Widdecombe's seat and is one of our safest."
"Mr Khan admits himself that Labour has 'given the impression that it is vacillating' about whether Muslims are 'friends or foes'. It has not done terribly well on the issue."
Baroness Warsi refused to comment on Mr Khan's allegation. She said she was "delighted" to see that his pamphlet endorsed Conservative proposals that immigrants should learn to speak English, the teaching of English history in schools should be compulsory, and that all Muslims must condemn "honour" killings and forced marriage, which Mr Khan described respectively as "murder and kidnap".
"All these issues and many others are issues on which the Conservative party has been taking the lead," Baroness Warsi said.
