Mission accomplished: Freed teacher Gillian Gibbons, with Lord Ahmed (left) and Baroness Warsi (right)

British Muslims’ moment in the sun

Are Swraj Paul, Shreela Flather, Meghnad Desai, Narendra Patel, Raj Bagri, Bhikhu Parekh etc “British Hindu parliamentari-ans”?

The question is worth asking because Mirpur-born Lord Nazir Ahmed, who went to Sudan last week with Baroness Sayeeda Warsi on a rescue mission, announced: “As British Muslim parliamentarians, we, Baroness Warsi and myself, feel proud we have been able to secure Gillian Gibbons’s release.”

Mrs Gibbons, 54, was in trouble after allowing her seven-year-old pupils to name their teddy bear “Mohammed”.

Given the difficulty of extricating Mrs Gibbons from a fundamentalist Islamic regime in Khartoum, it is understandable why Ahmed felt the need to emphasise his Muslim credentials. However, this is probably the first time anyone has defined himself as a British Muslim parliamentarian.

The foreign office could only watch while Ahmed and Warsi flew to Sudan, soft soaped president Omar al-Bashir and returned to London covered in glory.

“In the name of Allah the compassionate and the most merciful, I would like to begin by thanking the President for granting this pardon,” Ahmed told reporters before leaving Khartoum.

Expressing his gratitude, Gordon Brown said: “I applaud the particular efforts of Lord Ahmed and Baroness Warsi.”

Ahmed, 50, a former Labour councillor from Rotherham, Yorkshire, and a “human rights activist on the Kashmir policy group”, has long been critical of India’s role in Kashmir.

Warsi, born in Dewsbury, Yorkshire, in 1971, to Pakistani parents, is a Tory who was appointed shadow minister for “Community Cohesion” by David Cameron, who also promoted her to the Lords. A former vice-chairman of the party, she stood in a parliamentary election in 2004 but lost to Labour’s Shahid Malik.

Warsi looks like becoming a more formidable spokesperson for British Muslims than Ahmed. In Sudan, she didn’t feel the need to wear a hijab before the TV cameras.

In an effort to bring Muslims in from the cold and deflect the young from the path of terrorism, a number of concessions are — quite rightly — being made by the British establishment to the 1.6m strong Islamic community in the UK. The consequence is that in many walks of life, especially politics and the media, Muslims are managing to outflank Hindus.

The latest edition of the British Who’s Who has found room, among 1,000 new entrants, for the supermodel Kate Moss, top designers Domenico Dolce, Stefano Gabbana and Stella McCartney — and Baroness Warsi.

valued truffles: Surina Narula (left) with Italian chef Giorgio LocatelliAsian Beauty: Konnie Huqexemplary? Geri Halliwell wearing the flag for Queen and country

Truffled feathers

The historian Patrick French was among guests invited last week by the UK charity fundraiser, Surina Narula, to an unusual auction of truffles, held simultaneously through television links in Macao, Florence and London.

“We made about $35,000 in London,” Surina said at the conclusion of the International Tuscan Truffle Auction, adding that the money raised in London will go to the Consortium for Street London, which has a network of 50 international NGOs, including branches in India.

“The biggest problem the children face is violence,” she explained, handing me a brochure which includes a photograph of a Mumbai policeman taking a long stick to a little boy sifting through a rubbish dump on Chowpatty beach.

The biggest truffle, weighing 1500gms, which was discovered in Palaia, an Italian town about 25 miles from Pisa, went to the Macau billionaire Stanley Ho, who demonstrated the power of Chinese money by bidding a record $330,000 for the privilege.

Those of us gathered in Refettorio near Blackfriars, an Italian restaurant just round the corner from Fleet Street, wished Surina’s construction magnate husband, H.S. Narula — he is building a four-lane highway in Delhi — had been present to fly the flag for India.

“Yes, ‘HS’ might just have done something,” sighed Surina, who talked truffles with the restaurant’s chef, Giorgio Locatelli.

He had prepared an elaborate four-course lunch using truffles, which are a sort of fungus or wild mushroom that drive foodies wild. They grow underground in dark, temperate woods and are dug up with the help of sniffer dogs.

According to a British food writer, “truffles have become highly prized in recent years, the fungal equivalent of caviar, but there are several grades. The most expensive is the white or Alba variety, from northern Italy (Tuber magnatum). Whole regions such as Perigord in France and Alba in Italy have become synonymous with varieties that bear their name.”

Some of us speculated whether India could offer Truffle Tarkari to world cuisine but we wisely decided that perhaps this was not the occasion to discuss such a recipe with Locatelli.

Konnie’s kind

Not too many Asian girls in Britain have managed it but Konnie Huq is now in the category of celebrities who are famous for turning up to red carpet events.

Now 32, Konnie will step down early next year after 10 years of presenting a BBC TV children’s programme called Blue Peter. During this period, she has evolved from being merely a “Bangladeshi babe” to a “beautiful Asian Muslim girl”.

Most recently, she was photographed arriving for a charity dinner at the Natural History Museum organised on behalf of Save The Children Festival of Trees.

The paps like her best while Konnie wears dresses which reveal her charms to them. Like her elder sister, Rupa, a Labour party activist, Konnie was educated at Cambridge — unlike most of the other talent who teeter across the red carpet on high heels.

Flag waving

The more immature a country, the greater is the exaggerated reverence shown to the national flag, or so it seems. In some countries, an insult to the flag is deemed a criminal offence.

In Britain, though, custodian of the Mother of Parliaments, people are relaxed about how the Union flag is used. It has been hijacked by the Far Right, notably the National Front whose members like to march through immigrant areas of the country wrapped in the Union flag.

The revival world tour by the Spice Girls, which kicked off with a gig last Sunday in Vancouver, brought back memories of Geri Halliwell’s iconic skimpy outfit made from the Union flag which she wore to the 1997 Brit Awards. She auctioned it in 1998 raising £41,000 for charity but is apparently keen to wear it again.

Perhaps it is a subtle way of plugging her own country. But how many other nations would allow her example to be copied?

Tittle tattle

Muttiah Muralitharan is simply not considered a celebrity in English terms in the way that Shane Warne will continue to be, although the Australian’s record haul of 708 wickets was surpassed by the Sri Lankan last week with a match haul of 9 for 140 against England in Kandy last week.

Commentators on BBC’s Test Match Special, normally the fairest of folk, appeared less than thrilled when the dark complexioned Murali overtook the blond Warne to become the game’s greatest wicket taker.

To be sure, Warne is a real star but some commentators clearly find it difficult to acknowledge that it is Murali who goes down in the history books as the most successful bowler of all time.

At Waterstone’s in Piccadilly, supposed to be the biggest bookshop in Britain, there are lots of biographies of Warne but Murali is conspicuous by his absence.