Shabana Mahmood. Avoid.

As only the third female Lord Chancellor since Eleanor of Provence in 1253, upon being elevated to the role 771 years later present Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, eulogised during her acceptance speech. “I must say what an honour it is to take my own oath as Lord Chancellor today,” Mahmood said. “There once was a little girl in Small Heath, one of the poorest areas of Birmingham, who worked behind the till in her parents’ corner shop.”

“I’ve carried the weight of many identities in this career. It is a privilege, but also a burden. So, at the very least, I hope my appointment shows the next little girl in Small Heath, or wherever she may be, that, in this country, even the oldest offices in the land are within reach of us all.” A background more modest than that of the daughter of the Count of Provence and Beatrice of Savoy. Or is it? Hmmm.

One of the Warwickshire Mahmoods, Shabana was born in Small Heath, on 17th September 1980. Along with a twin brother, she is the eldest of four siblings. Father Mahmood Ahmed (who came to Birmingham as a teen in the 1960s) and Mother Zubaida hailed from Mirpur in Azad Kashmir, northern Pakistan. As a child, Shabana lived in Saudi Arabia while her father worked at a salination plant. Upon returning to Birmingham, the family bought a corner shop to be kept by Zubaida.

Despite boasting of failing the 11 plus on her Wikipedia page, Ms Mahmood enjoyed a selective education at the King Edward VI Camp Hill (grammar) School for Girls. Oxford followed, where she graduated with a 2:1 in Law at Lincoln College. She was also President of the Junior Common Room, the JCR. Shabana completed a Bar Vocational Course and as a practising barrister, specialised in professional indemnity, at 12 King’s Bench Walk from 2003 to 2004, and at Berrymans Lace Mawer from 2004 to 2007.

Three years later, she was in Parliament, having been adopted in Puffin’s favourite Clare Short’s old seat of Birmingham Ladywood. So far, so good. But why, you might ask, would Labour Party members choose a 24-year-old with no previous political experience – in a union or on a local council – to be their candidate?

Why indeed, especially since Mahmood’s rival for the nomination was a 45-year-old with 14 years experience on Birmingham Council? Perhaps because Ms Mahmood is better connected than the shop girl of her acceptance speech, and because of the poisonous sectarian and racist politics in segregated and bankrupt Birminghamistan.

It was not always the case. Previous Birmingham Ladywood MPs have included Liberal Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who, in the 1924 General Election, scored a narrow 77 vote victory over Labour Party candidate Sir Oswald Mosley. Subsequently destroyed by mass, uncontrolled, unlimited immigration, the land lies different a century later.

Rather than being a corner shop wallah, father Mahmood Ahmed is not only an engineer but, upon returning to England from Saudi Arabia, became the chairman of the Birmingham Labour Party. Mother Zubaida and other family members are also described as being long-standing Labour Party members.

In a Q&A article in New Statesman magazine, Mahmood states, ‘my family are incredibly supportive, and have always wanted me to achieve the best of my ability’. ‘I came to the decision that I wanted to run for election, and my family rode in behind me and were out there campaigning for me.’

In the same piece, she lies about her background, replacing her time in Saudi Arabia with ‘lived here [Birmingham] my whole life.’ Likewise, a question mark must hang over whether it was her decision to stand or whether she was pressured by her extended clan due to the softer optics of her sex.

For controversy surrounded the Mahmood daughter’s selection as the Labour parliamentary candidate, stemming from a highly contested and divisive internal party process. When long-serving MP Clare Short announced she would stand down, Mahmood competed for the nomination against a senior local councillor, an African named Yvonne Mosquito.

On the council since 1996, Mosquito was to serve as West Midlands Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner between 2012 and 2016, and to be Lord Mayor of the city in 2019. However, Mahmood won the Constituency Labour Party vote by 118 to 99, but Mosquito’s supporters claimed that the process had been skewed against their candidate. According to these complaints, a last-minute rule change prevented around 30 Mosquito supporters from voting, which would have been enough to change the result.

There were also broader accusations that Mahmood’s family connections influenced the outcome — with her father, Mahmood Ahmed, being a senior local figure and chair within Birmingham Labour. Some accounts even described allegations of postal-vote manipulation and foul play serious enough that Labour’s National Executive Committee became involved in reviewing the dispute.

The episode left the local party divided along ethnic lines, with Asian Muslim and Afro-Caribbean members backing different candidates. This racial and religious tension contributed to the sense that the contest was not just a straightforward political selection, but a struggle over community representation and influence inside Birmingham Labour.

Not to worry, the local Labour chairman’s daughter went on to take seat at the 2010 election (despite a countrywide swing to the Tories) with a 3% increase in the Labour vote. After being elected, her unpleasant sectarian behaviour included causing a local store to close. Dozens of protestors, led by Shabana, missing the chance to raise their objections to the likes of Sudan, Saudi Arabia or Nigeria, occupied a Sainsbury’s as part of an anti-‘Israel’ campaign.

The Careful Now Klaxon sounded over the kosher aisle in a central Birmingham Sainsbury’s, as tolerant Shabana led a 100-strong occupation protesting against the stocking of ‘Israeli’ products produced in Palestinian territory she considers occupied.

Although now iffy on the topic in public, in 2015 she visited illegal immigrant camps in Greece and wrote about her experiences helping give aid and assistance to arriving illegals in another New Statesman article. Not only did she gush over an 11-year-old boy called Osama, but she ended the piece imploring the readers that ‘we must do our part to help them.’

In May 2022, Ms Mahmood said she sickened by what she referred to as the parliamentary ‘Tory Misogyny Scandal’. ‘More needs to be done to change the culture so misogyny is no longer allowed to take place’, she thundered while omitting to mention the burka, veil, forced marriage, female genital mutilation, ‘honour’ murders or first-cousin marriage.

Back in her constituency, the Advice Surgeries page of Sabhana’s website began with ‘If your case is about housing or immigration…’ Know your voter. And it worked; by 2017, and aided by mass, uncontrolled, unlimited immigration, her share of the vote had increased to a ludicrous 82.7%.

While not touring illegal immigrant camps, threatening Jews or riding on her extended clan’s coattails, Shabana is taking donations.

Curry King Lord Noon is a donor, as are the Friends of Bangladesh and Nexus Schools. Tipu Sultan donates, as do Icarus Pharmaceuticals and various commercial entities connected to the All-Party Parliamentary China Group. Also giving bigly are the trade union dinosaurs at USDAW, the shop workers’ union.

Speaking of Sainsbury’s, despite being blockaded, another of her donors is Fran Perrin, who gave Ms Mahmood £25,000 in July 2023. Not her real name, Ms Perrin is better addressed as The Honourable Francesca Elizabeth Sainsbury Perrin. A ‘philanthropist’, Fran is the daughter of retail billionaire David Sainsbury, Baron Sainsbury of Turville, of supermarket fame.

The Honourable Francesca’s husband is the interesting William Perrin, whose current roles include membership of, in his own words, ‘The lay advisory board for what is probably the world’s largest civilian-run surveillance system.’ If you ever find Ms Mahood speaking in favour of digital ID, reflect upon what donating mass surveillance industry billionaires might want from a Home Secretary.

Shabana also accepted £20,000 from Martin Taylor, an ‘investor’ and one-time co-owner of the Cayman Islands-based Nevsky hedge fund, which focused on companies in the former Soviet Bloc.

The interesting Mr Mudassar Ahmed also contributes, albeit while lurking in different guises. Through his Mayfair-based Silk Road Consultancy Ltd – according to Companies House, a firm with no employees – Mr Ahmed avoided his name being connected to a £10,000 donation in February of last year.

In October 2023, Ahmed pulled the same trick when giving £2,380. This appears in the Register of Parliamentary Interests as being made by Unitas Communications, but further investigation shows Mr Mudassar to be a (the only?) Managing Partner of Unitas.

Who is Mudassar Ahmed? According to himself, Mr Ahmed specialises in PR, research and digital cross-cultural communications, and has over 14 years of experience in ‘leading and delivering impactful projects for governmental, intergovernmental, corporate and charitable agencies.’ Oh.

Furthermore, Mudassar is:

‘Passionate about fostering interfaith and intercultural dialogue and cooperation, and I have established and led several initiatives and networks to advance this mission. I serve on the Advisory Council of the Atlantic Council’s millennium leadership programme, and I am a Board Member of Global Ties U.S., America’s largest and oldest citizen diplomacy network. I am also the Founder and President of the John Adams Society, the official UK Association for the U.S. Department of State’s IVLP alumni, and a Fellow at the Royal Society of Arts and with the German Marshall Fund of the United States.’

As Puffins will have guessed by now, this makes the Great Man one of the 500 most influential Muslims globally and one of the 1,000 most influential Londoners.

Shabana also declared £510 worth of tickets and hospitality from Aston Villa FC – their stadium being within her constituency. All for what the guff describes as a padded seat in the Doug Ellis stand, high casual brunch-style food, and a visit from an Aston Villa legend (subject to availability). One wonders if she may also have enjoyed hearing her constituents standing outside and hurling abuse at Jews, as per home to Maccabi Tel Aviv?

No matter how well-connected and funded, all is not plain sailing in bankrupt, segregated Birmingham, even when senior family members are pulling strings. During the July 2024 general election campaign, rather than being called ‘effing Pakis’ and told to go home to Pakistan by the mainstream media’s archetypal far right, the Mahmood clan were being abused by their co-religionists.

On Shabana’s re-election campaign trail, her father and other family members were among a group of canvassers mentioned in a Labour Party report on election intimidation leaked to The Guardian. Members of her family were barracked while out canvassing, with police officers called but declining to intervene on three occasions.

It is also claimed a supporter of rival pro-Palestine candidate Akhmed Yakoob told a black female Labour canvasser she should not be in an Asian area as the residents were “not her people”. According to The Guardian, the document, written by Labour officials in Mahmood’s constituency, ‘painted a picture of several tense confrontations with political opponents in the central Birmingham constituency … particularly in areas dominated by communities of Pakistani and Kashmiri descent.’

‘On Tuesday 25 June, it is alleged in the document that Shabana’s father, Mahmood Ahmed, was one of a group of canvassers who called the police after being abused by a supporter of Yakoob.’

Two days later, Mahmood abandoned canvassing after a young man confronted the MP and her companions, demanding that the men “shave their beards”.The implication being that they were not proper Muslims because they were Labour supporters. “A close protection officer escorted Shabana into a car and she was driven away,” the document said.

Labour canvassers were also followed by Yakoob supporters in a truck carrying Yakoob’s image on a digital screen while the PA blasted out “blood on your hands”, “genocide-enablers” and “Allah will judge you”. Another time, canvassers faced abuse and threats from two men with a large dog saying, ‘See what happens now, I’m calling people down.’ Canvassers abandoned their door-to-door session, with police officers reminding them that Alum Rock is a ‘high crime area’.

Likewise at the count, the returning officer had to call emergency services to request a police presence due to safety concerns for Mahmood. Sure enough, her majority is now cut from 28,000 to 3,000 and her share of the vote from 80+% to 40+%.

In conclusion, Mahmood is controlled by her wider clan, compromised by her donors and has a tenuous hold within a Birmingham segregated by race and religion. She is further compromised by sectarian hatreds within Islam. Her recent high-profile commitment to reduce illegal immigration is wafer-thin and one hundred per cent based upon the national party’s blind, naked fear of Farage.

Shabana Mahmood? Avoid.
 

© Always Worth Saying 2025