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This article is about South Asians in the United Kingdom.

For other UK ethnic groups from Asia, see East Asians in the United Kingdom, British Afghans, British Iranians, British Arabs, and British Turks.

British Asians
(South Asians in the United Kingdom)

x108px Konnie Huq, George Edalji, Dev Patel, M.I.A., Syed Ahmed, Freddie Mercury, Jay Sean, Kia Abdullah, Mark Ramprakash, Susheela Raman, Lakshmi Mittal, James Caan
Total population
England (2009)[1] 3,166,800 (6.0%) Scotland (2001)[2] 55,000 (1.1%) Wales (2009)[3] 53,000 (1.8%) Northern Ireland (2001)[4] 2,700 (0.1%)
Regions with significant populations
London, West Midlands, Greater Manchester, Leicester, Nottingham, Derby, West Yorkshire, Sheffield, Lancashire, Slough, Reading, Berkshire, Luton, Peterborough, Newcastle, Oxford, Milton Keynes, Cardiff, Greater Glasgow
Languages
Primary language: English Ancestral languages: Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Sylheti, Telugu, Punjabi, Gujarati, Marathi, Kutchi, Tamil, Potwari, Nepali and others
Religion
Predominantly Islam, Sikhism and Hinduism with Christianity, Buddhism minorities and others

British Asian is a term used to describe British citizens who descended from mainly South Asia, also known as South Asians in the United Kingdom. In British English, the term 'Asian' usually excludes East Asians (see East Asians in the United Kingdom).^[5]

Prior to the formation of the United Kingdom, immigration of South Asian people to England began with the arrival of the East India Company to the Indian subcontinent. This continued during the British Raj and increased in volume after the independence of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka from British rule, chiefly for education and economic pursuits. A major influx of South Asian immigrants, mostly of Indian and Pakistani origin, also took place following the expulsion of Indian communities (then holders of British passports) from Uganda and other East African nations (see African migration to the United Kingdom).

Usage[link]

In British English, the word "Asian" is often used to refer to those of South Asian origin, particularly Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis. Clarifying the Definition of Asian. 2005. 1 October 2006. The term generally excludes people of East Asian (such as Chinese, Korean or Japanese) or Southeast Asian origin; they are more likely to be defined by their country of origin, or may instead be grouped under the umbrella term "oriental". This is reflected in the "ethnic group" section of UK census forms and other government paperwork, which treat "Asian" and "Chinese" as separate. This usage contrasts with olga American English, Canadian English, New Zealand English and Australian English, in which "Asian" refers mainly to people with East Asian ancestry.

The terms "Asian" or "British Asian" are contested. Britain's Hindu community considers the term somewhat vague given the religious and national origin difference between Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis.^{[citation needed]} Some members of Britain's Hindu community are debating whether to adopt a specific label based on nationality (e.g. "British Indian") or religion (e.g. "British Hindu"). Others see a certain degree of unity in the South Asian diaspora; the term desi is also sometimes used to name a South Asian person, pointing to a common identity, but is more often a word used within the South Asian community. Although Pakistani and Bangladeshi Britons form most of the Muslim community in the UK there is no recorded debate as to how they wish to be identified.

Demographics[link]

According to the 2001 UK Census, there were approximately 2,331,423 South Asians, constituting 4.0% of the population of the UK. Those who of Indian origin numbered 1,053,411 (1.8% of the population), 747,285 people were of Pakistani origin (1.3%), 283,063 were of Bangladeshi origin (0.5%), and 247,664 were other Asian (0.4%). South Asians make up 50.3% of the UK's non-European population.^[6]

British Indians tend to be religiously diverse, with 56% Hindu, 30% Sikh, and 13% Muslim, while their counterparts of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin are much more religiously homogeneous, with Muslims accounting for 92% of each group. South Asians who marked "Other Asian" as an ethnic group and then wrote in their specific ethnic group were mostly (23%) of Sri Lankan origin. This was followed by fill-ins of Middle Eastern (9%) origin. Due to a growing sense of affiliation with Britain, many third generation South Asians chose to not mark "Asian or British Asian" and instead marked "British Asian" in the "Other Asian" write in section.^[7]

South Asian ethnic groups mostly originate from a few select places in South Asia, these are known as place of origins. British Indians tend to originate mainly from the two Indian States, Punjab and Gujarat.^{[citation needed]} Evidence from Bradford and Birmingham have shown, Pakistanis originate largely from the Mirpur District in Azad Kashmir. The second largest ethnic group of British Pakistanis are the Punjabi people, followed by the Pathan from the Attock District of Punjab and from the districts of Nowshera, Peshwar and Ghazi in province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. In the London Borough of Waltham Forest there are substantial numbers of people originating from Jhelum, Punjab.^[8] Studies have shown 95 per cent of Bangladeshis originate from the Sylhet region in the north east of Bangladesh.^[9][10] In Tower Hamlets, people have origins in different thanas in the Sylhet region, mainly from Jagannathpur, Beanibazar and Bishwanath.^[11] The language spoken by Indians are, Hindi, Punjabi, Gujarati and Kutchi. People from Pakistan speak Urdu, Punjabi, Mirpuri (a dialect of Punjabi), Sindhi, Kashmiri, Pashto, Hindko and Seraiki. Bangladeshis from Sylhet speak Sylheti, a dialect of Bengali. People from Sri Lanka mainly speak Sinhala. Those who speak dialects mainly refer their language to the main language, for example Sylheti speakers say they speak Bengali or Mirpuri speakers say they speak Punjabi. The reason for this is because they do not expect outsiders to be well informed about dialects.^[12]

The unemployment rate among Indian men was only slightly higher than that for White British or White Irish men, 7 per cent compared with 5 per cent for the other two groups. On the other hand Pakistanis have higher unemployment rates of 13-14% with Bangladeshis having one of the highest rates, around 23%.^[13] Some surveys also revealed the Indian unemployment rate to be 6-7% ^[14] Persons of Indian or mixed Indian origin are more likely than White British to have university degrees, whereas Pakistanis and Bangladeshis are less likely.^[15] With the exception of Bangladeshi women, every other group of South Asians, have higher attendance at university than the national average.^[16] GCSE pass rates have been rising for all South Asians.^[17]

According to the United Kingdom Census 2001, South Asian men from all South Asian ethnic groups intermarried with another ethnic group more than South Asian women. Among South Asians, British Indians intermarried with a different ethnic group the most both absolutely and proportionately, followed by British Pakistanis and British Bangladeshis.

History in Britain[link]

No one knows the earliest origins of settlement of South Asians in Great Britain for certain; if the Romani (Gypsies) are included, then the earliest arrivals could have been in the Middle Ages — although not normally included as South Asian, the Roma and Sinti (most in the UK have been Sinti) are both believed to have originated in parts of what is now North India and Pakistan and to have begun travelling westward around 1000, though they have mixed with Southwest Asians and Europeans over the centuries. Romani began arriving in sizeable numbers in parts of Western Europe in the 16th century.

People from South Asia have settled in Great Britain since the East India Company (EIC) recruited lascars to replace vacancies in their crews on East Indiamen whilst on voyages in India. Many were then refused passage back, and were marooned in London. There were also some ayahs, domestic servants and nannies of wealthy British families, who accompanied their employers back to "Blighty" when their stay in Asia came to an end.

The Navigation Act of 1660 restricted the employment of non-English sailors to a quarter of the crew on returning East India Company ships. Baptism records in East Greenwich suggest that young Indians from the Malabar Coast were being recruited as servants at the end of the seventeenth century, and records of the EIC also suggest that Indo-Portuguese cooks from Goa were retained by captains from voyage to voyage.^[18] In 1797, 13 were buried in the parish of St Nicholas at Deptford.

Since the 17th century, the East India Company brought over thousands of South Asian lascars, scholars and workers (who were mostly Bengali and/or Muslim) to Britain, most of whom settled down and took local white British wives, due to a lack of South Asian women in Britain at the time.^[19] Due to the majority of early South Asian immigrants being lascars, the earliest South Asian communities were found in port towns. Naval cooks also came, many of them from the Sylhet Division of what is now Bangladesh. One of the most famous early Bengali immigrants to Britain was Sake Dean Mahomet, a captain of the British East India Company. In 1810, he founded London's first Indian restaurant, the Hindoostane Coffee House. He is also reputed for introducing shampoo and therapeutic massage to the United Kingdom.^[20] By the mid-19th century, there were more than 40,000 Indian seamen, diplomats, scholars, soldiers, officials, tourists, businessmen and students in Britain.^[21] By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there were around 70,000 South Asians in Britain,^[22] 51,616 of whom were lascar seamen (when World War I began).^[23]

Following the Second World War and the breakup of the British Empire, South Asian migration to the UK increased through the 1950s and 1960s from Pakistan (including present-day Bangladesh) and Commonwealth countries such as India, at the same time as immigrants from former Caribbean colonies were also moving to Britain.

Although this immigration was continuous, several distinct phases can be identified:

• Manual workers, mainly from Pakistan, were recruited to fulfill the labour shortage that resulted from World War II. These included Anglo-Indians who were recruited to work on the railways as they had done in India.
• Workers mainly from the Punjab region of India and some from Pakistan arrived in the late 1950s and 1960s. Many worked in the foundries of the English Midlands and a large number worked at Heathrow Airport in west London. This created an environment to where the next generation of families do not lose their identity as easily. A good example would be the area Southall to which is populated by many Sikhs.
• During the same time, medical staff from the Indian subcontinent were recruited for the newly formed National Health Service. These people were targeted as the British had established medical schools in the Indian subcontinent which conformed to the British standards of medical training.

In 1972 all South Asians were expelled from Uganda by Idi Amin, then president of Uganda. Those holding British passports came to Britain. Many such displaced people had businesses in Uganda, and built up their lives again in Britain. Some became retailers while others found suitable employment.

The Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962 and Immigration Act 1971 largely restricted any further primary immigration, although family members of already-settled migrants were still allowed. In addition, much of the subsequent growth in the South Asian community has come from the births of second and third-generation South Asian Britons.

Influence[link]

South Asians are said to contribute 6% to the UK GDP, whilst making up only 4% of the population.^[24][25] Although there are roughly double the number of South Asians in the UK today compared to people of African descent, South Asians are less represented in global and British media than any other major group; in the UK there is less than half the amount of South Asians represented in the media than those of African and Caribbean descent.^{[citation needed]}

The biggest influence of South Asians on popular culture has probably been the development of Indian restaurant, though of the 9,000 in the UK, most are run by Bangladeshis; their ancestral home was part of British India's Bengal province until partition in 1947. South Asian have also played a pivotal role in rejuvenating a number of UK street markets. According to the New Economics Foundation, Queen's Market in Upton Park, East London is officially the most ethnically diverse.

Just like Canada, Bhangra music has in addition become popular among many in the general British public (although only really popular amongst certain South Asian British, mainly of Punjabi origins)^[26] not only from the works of British South Asian musicians such as Panjabi MC, Swami and Rishi Rich but also incorporated into the works of a number of non-South Asian musicians not only British but including North American artists such as Canadian Shania Twain, who created a whole alternate version of her multi-platinum album Up! with full Indian instrumentation, produced by legendary South Asian producers Simon & Diamond. Diamond, better known as DJ Swami has also collaborated with superstar rapper Pras, of The Fugees, and his band Swami have become one of the most renowned acts in South Asian music history, having had songs in major Hollywood movies and best-selling video games. One of the first artists of South Asian Indian origin to achieve mainstream success was Apache Indian who infused reggae and hip hop with Indian popular music to create a sound that transcended genre and found a multicultural audience. he is the only Indian artist to have achieved 7 top forty hits in the National UK charts. A subsequent wave of "Asian Underground" artists went on to blend elements of western underground dance music and the traditional music of their home countries, such Nitin Sawhney, Talvin Singh, Asian Dub Foundation, Panjabi MC, Raghav, and the Rishi Rich Project (featuring Rishi Rich, Jay Sean and Juggy D).

The influence of South Asian music has not only been from South Asians living in the UK, but also from some UK artists that were starting using South Asian instruments creating a new and dynamic sound that was a mixture of sitars and tablas with a more rock traditional rock-based Western instruments like the drums and guitars. This created an inauthentic use of such cultural resources as all of the instruments were used to create an overall sound that treated all the instruments and influences equally.^[27] Bhangra South Asian identity and the search for authenticity There is one important thing to notice is the relationship of Bhangra and other musical genres namely Reggae, Dub, and Soul Not only has South Asian culture popularity in the UK has boomed, it also has influenced many local artists that created their own mixture of genres.^[28]

The films East is East, Chicken Tikka Masala and Bend It Like Beckham and the TV shows Goodness Gracious Me and The Kumars at No. 42 have managed to attract large, multi-ethnic audiences. The success and popularity of British Pakistani boxer Amir Khan influenced the revival of boxing on ITV Sport.

Lakshmi Mittal is currently Britain's richest man and the fifth richest man in the world. The Mittal family owns 43% of Arcelor-Mittal, the world's largest steel manufacturer, which was known as Mittal Steel Company before the merger with Arcelor. He was listed in the Forbes List of Billionaires (2006) as the richest Indian and the fifth richest man in the world with an estimated fortune of $55.0 billion and, according to the Sunday Times Rich List 2006, is the richest in the UK, with a net worth of £29 billion. The Financial Times named Mittal its 2006 Person of the Year. In 2005, he was the third richest man in the world according to Forbes List of billionaires (2005).

UK Sikhs have the highest percentage of home ownership, at 82%, out of all UK religious communities.^[29] UK Sikhs are the wealthiest south Asian immigrant group in the UK and the second wealthiest (after the Jews) religious community in the UK, with a median total household wealth of £229,000.^[30]

In the disability arena, Ivan and Charika Corea founded the Autism Awareness Campaign UK.

Literature[link]

This refers to the growing body of literature that refers to and documents aspects of the South Asian experience.

Well-known South Asian writers include: H.S. Bhabra, Salman Rushdie, Gurinder Chadha, Nazrin Choudhury, Rekha Waheed, Hanif Kureshi, Monica Ali, Meera Syal, Gautam Malkani, and Raman Mundair.

Sports[link]

Jawed Khaliq the first world champion boxer of Pakistani origin was born in Nottingham England. Amir Khan, the silver medallist at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, has become a cultural icon in the UK with audiences of up to 8 million watching him live on national television whenever he fights. He represents Britain in boxing and he is the current WBA world light welterweight champion. Another notable boxer is Haider Ali who won the first ever gold medal for Pakistan in boxing at the commonwealth games in Manchester in 2002 in the featherweight division he now fights professionally out of Luton, England.^[31]

Nasser Hussain was the captain of the England cricket team. Michael Chopra played for the England national under-21 football team and became the first footballer of Indian descent to play and score in the Premier League. In 2006, he made news for scoring the fastest goal in Premier League history, as Chopra had only been on the pitch for ten seconds after coming on as a substitute.^[32]

List of other British South Asian Sport personalities:

Celebrities in popular culture[link]

Shazia Mirza is a popular British comedian.

Early South Asian stars to break into English and Hollywood films include Sabu, remembered for his lead roles in The Thief of Bagdad (1940), Jungle Book (1942), and Black Narcissus (1947).

Since the 1970s, South Asian performers and writers have achieved significant mainstream cultural success. The first South Asian musician to gain wide popularity in the UK and worldwide fame was Queen lead singer Freddie Mercury, born Farrokh Bulsara in Zanzibar, East Africa, to parents of Parsi descent from Bombay. In 2006, Time Asia magazine voted him as one of the most influential South Asians in the past 60 years.^[33] At around the same time, music producer, composer and song-writer Biddu gained worldwide fame for a number of hit songs, including "Kung Fu Fighting" by Carl Douglas and "I Love to Love (But My Baby Loves to Dance)" for Tina Charles. In the 1990s the South Asian artists who gained mainstream success included Apache Indian, whose 1993 single "Boom Shack-A-Lak" was used in many Hollywood movies, and Jas Mann, who headed Babylon Zoo and whose 1996 single "Spaceman" set a UK chart record when it sold 418,000 copies in its first week of release.

Prominent South Asian actors in the 1980s included Art Malik, for his roles in The Jewel in the Crown and The Living Daylights, and Sir Ben Kingsley (born Krishna Pandit Bhanji), one of Britain's most acclaimed and well-known performers. Kingsley is one of few actors to have won all four major motion picture acting awards, receiving Oscar, BAFTA, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards throughout his career, including the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in Gandhi (1982).^[34] The actress Parminder Nagra has a prominent role in the US TV series ER, and played the lead role in the successful British film Bend It Like Beckham (2002). The actor Naveen Andrews plays the role of Sayid Jarrah in the popular US TV series Lost, and also had a prominent role in the award-winning film The English Patient (1996). The actor Kunal Nayyar plays the character of Rajesh Koothrappali in the popular US sitcom, The Big Bang Theory. Long-running British soap operas such as Coronation Street, EastEnders, Emmerdale and Hollyoaks have all had a number of South Asian characters.

The comedians Sanjeev Bhaskar, Meera Syal, Papa CJ and Shazia Mirza are all well-recognised figures in British popular culture. The presenter and match maker of the BBC marriage arranging show Arrange Me a Marriage is a South Asian-Scot Aneela Rahman. Hardeep Singh Kohli is a presenter, reporter and comedian on British television. British Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Indian contestants have appeared on The Apprentice including Syed Ahmed, Tre Azam, Lohit Kalburgi, Ghazal Asif, Shazia Wahab, Sara Dhada, and most notably Saira Khan, who is now a British TV presenter. The broadcasters Daljit Dhaliwal, Krishnan Guru-Murthy and Samira Ahmed are known for working on Channel 4 News.

The award winning dance act Signature involved a British Pakistani and a British Indian.

The term South Asian then was given the popular tag "Br-Asian", this was carried forward by two South Asian well known media business owners by the names of Moiz Vas and Nav Sagoo who together helped to define the term in the late ninety's and through to the millennium. They were responsible for various huge achievements for the community such as the South Asian Music awards which aired on ITV1 in the UK and Nav Sagoo then went on to conceive the first ever Br-Asian stage at Glastonbury in 2004 and 2005, taking every household name from the South Asian music scene out to the fields in the west country. Urban went Rural for the first time but with headline acts such as Rishi Rich, Jay Sean, Swami, Raghav to name a few even flying in were Indian supergroup Pentagram.

In 2008, in the second season of Britain's Got Talent, one of the country's most successful reality television shows, the South Asian dance duo Signature, consisting of Suleman Mirza (a British Pakistani) and Madhu Singh (a British Indian) performing a fusion of Michael Jackson and Bhangra music and dance styles, ended up as the runner-up on the talent show, second only to George Sampson. The most successful South Asian musician in 2008 was the British Tamil artist M.I.A., who was nominated for two Grammy Awards for her single "Paper Planes", and has been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Score for "O... Saya", from the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack. The actor Dev Patel, who played the role of Anwar Kharral in the teen drama series Skins, also played the leading role in Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire, for which he received several awards and was nominated for the 2009 BAFTA Award for Best Leading Actor.^[35]

In 2009, Mumzy Stranger, an R&B and hip-hop music artist, became the first British Bangladeshi to be releasing a music single, called "One More Dance".^[36] In October 2009, Jay Sean's single "Down" reached the #1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100^[37] and sold two million copies in the United States,^[38] making him the first South Asian-origin solo artist and "the first UK Urban act ever to top Billboard's Hot 100,"^[39] "the most successful male UK urban artist in US chart history,"^[40] and the most successful British male artist in the US charts since Elton John in 1997. Such artists have heralded a new generation of British Asian musicians - Shizzio, 21 Perspective and Raxstar are just some of the names from the British Asian music industry.

Communities[link]

Although there are South Asian communities all over the UK, towns and cities with particularly significant South Asian populations include:

The council area with the most South Asians is the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, whose population is 35% South Asian, most of Bangladeshi origin.

The district with the largest Muslim population in England and Wales is High Wycombe, according to a report by the Buckinghamshire County Council.^[41] An exact figure is not given, however.

• Batley 30% S. Asian. 40.72% in Batley East^[42] and 21.43% in Batley West^[43]
• Bedford (especially Queens Park, Cauldwell) 8.1% S. Asian
• Birmingham (especially Sparkhill, Hall Green Alum Rock, Sparkbrook, Small Heath, Balsall Heath, Washwood Heath, Saltley, Handsworth, Handsworth Wood) 22% S. Asian
• Blackburn 20.6% S. Asian
• Bolton 9.1% S. Asian
• Bradford (Manningham, Great Horton, Heaton, Girlington, West Bowling, BD3 and Thornbury) 24.3% S. Asian
• Burton upon Trent (Anglesey) 4.3% s. Asian (east Staffordshire so also includes Uttoxeter where the is little if any S. Asian population)
• Cardiff (Butetown, Grangetown, Riverside) 3.96% S. Asian
• Coventry 11.3% S. Asian
• Derby 8.4% S. Asian
• Dewsbury (Ravensthorpe, Thornhill Lees, Savile Town) around 33% Asian.^[44] Savile Town is "97-100% Muslim".^[45][46]
• Dundee 4,000 (especially the Hilltown and Stobswell)
• Edinburgh 10,000
• Glasgow (especially Pollokshields, Pollokshaws, Govanhill and Woodlands) Scotland 0.9% S. Asian - some estimates are as high as 80,000. [2]
• Halifax 10% S.Asian
• High Wycombe 11% S. Asian
• Huddersfield (especially Lockwood and Fartown) 12.4% S. Asian
• Keighley (especially Lawkholme, Highfield, Knowle Park and Stockbridge) 15% S. Asian
• Leeds (Beeston, Harehills, Moortown, Hyde Park, Chapeltown) 4.5% S. Asian
• Leicester (especially Belgrave, Rushey Mead, Highfields, Spinney Hills, Evington) 29.9% S. Asian
• Loughborough 6% S. Asian
• Luton (especially Bury Park) 18.3% S. Asian
• Manchester (especially Rusholme, Whalley Range and Cheetham Hill) 9.1% S. Asian
• Milton Keynes (especially Kents Hill, Bletchley and Wolverton) 4.7% S. Asian
• Newcastle upon Tyne (especially Arthur's Hill, Elswick and Fenham and others) 7.0% S. Asian
• Newport (especially Maindee and Pillgwenlly) 2.6% S. Asian
• Oldham (especially Glodwick, Westwood and Werneth) 11.9% S. Asian
• Oxford (especially Cowley Road) 5.8% S. Asian
• Pendle (especially Nelson and Brierfield) 14.1% S. Asian
• Peterborough 7.0% South Asian
• Preston 11.6% S. Asian (especially Deepdale, Avenham, Fishwick, St. George's Preston.
• Reading borough 5.2% S. Asian
• Rochdale (Especially Wardleworth, Spotland, Deeplish, Hamer, Smallbridge, Belfield) 9.8% S. Asian
• Burnley (borough) 7.2% S. Asian
• Rugby (especially New Bilton, Benn and Brownsover) 5.3% S. Asian
• Sheffield (especially Burngreave, Sharrow, Darnall and Firth Park) 4.6% S. Asian
• Slough 27.9% S. Asian
• Sandwell (especially the Victoria Park area of Tipton) 14% South Asian
• Southampton 3.8% S. Asian
• Stoke-on-Trent 4.1% S. Asian^[47]
• Sunderland (especially Eden Vale, Hendon and Thornhill) 1.2% South Asian
• Wakefield 5% Asian. The Asian population is estimated at 27.6% in College Grove^[48] and 19.6% in Agbrigg.^[49]
• Walsall 10.4% S. Asian
• Wolverhampton 14.3% S. Asian

• Note: Some local authorities contain large areas of countryside surrounding the actual towns, e.g. Bedford, Bradford, Leeds, Newport, Sunderland and High Wycombe. This may lead to the local South Asian and ethnic minority populations being underestimated in these places.

Counties with a high population of South Asians include -

• Lancashire 5.3% S. Asian
• Greater Manchester 5.6% S. Asian
• West Yorkshire 8.7% S. Asian
• West Midlands (county) 13.4% S. Asian
• Greater London 12.09% S. Asian
• Berkshire 6.8% S. Asian
• Buckinghamshire 4.3% S. Asian
• Bedfordshire 8.3% S. Asian
• Leicestershire 11.9% S. Asian

London Boroughs with a high population of British Asians include -

• London Borough of Tower Hamlets 36.6% South Asian
• London Borough of Brent 27.7% South Asian
• London Borough of Ealing 24.5% South Asian
• London Borough of Harrow 29.7% South Asian
• London Borough of Hounslow 24.7% South Asian
• London Borough of Newham 32.5% South Asian
• London Borough of Redbridge 25.0% South Asian

See also[link]

• List of British Asian people
  • Asian-Scots
  • British Bangladeshi
  • British Indian
  • British Indo-Caribbean community
  • British Pakistanis
  • British Tamil
  • Mauritians in the United Kingdom
  • Nepalis in the United Kingdom
  • Sri Lankans in the United Kingdom
• African migration to the United Kingdom
• Anglo-Indian
• BBC Asian Network
• British Arabs
• British Asians in association football
• British Asians in politics of the United Kingdom
• British Iranians
• British Cypriots
• British Turks
• Afghans in Britain
• Desi
• East Asians in the United Kingdom
• Non-resident Indian and Person of Indian Origin
• Pakistani diaspora
• Romnichal

External links[link]

• BBC Radio Player discussion on the dissatisfaction over the term Asian
• hWeb - An outline of the immigration pattern of the Pakistani community in Britain
• Indian Mirror Magazine - Only British Asians lifestyle magazine
• Asian - Website for British Asians
• Asians in UK - A Web Portal dedicated to Young British Asians
• British Council Arts - Contemporary Writers information on British Asian writer Raman Mundair.
• BBC News Many Asians 'do not feel British' 30/07/07 based on ICM Research poll conducted 4–12 July 2007
• London Asian Guide - Online Guide for British Asians
• Reassessing what we collect website - The Asian Community in London History of Asian London with objects and images

References[link]

v t e Overseas Asians and Asian diasporas By origin East Asians By Country Chinese · Japanese · Koreans By Ethnicity Tibetans South Asians By Country Afghans · Bangladeshis · Indians · Nepalis · Pakistanis · Sri Lankans By Ethnicity Balochis · Oriya · Kashmiri · Pashtuns · Punjabis · Sikhs · Sindhis · Tamils (Sri Lankan) Southeast Asians By Country Burmese · Filipinos · Indonesians · Vietnamese By Ethnicity Acehnese · Malays · Minangkabau By residence The Americas Canada · Latin America (Argentina · Brazil · Peru) · United States (Hispanic and Latino) Elsewhere Australia · South Africa · United Kingdom (South Asians · East and Southeast Asians)

v t e Migration to the United Kingdom from Asia East Asia Chinese Hong Kong Mongolian Japanese Korean South Asia Afghan Bangladeshi Indian London Nepali Pakistani London Sri Lankan Tamil Southeast Asia Burmese Filipino Malaysian Singaporean Thai Vietnamese West Asia Armenian Assyrian Cypriot Emirati Iranian Iraqi Israeli Kurdish Lebanese Turkish London Yemeni

The Right Honourable David Cameron MP
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Incumbent
Assumed office 11 May 2010
Monarch	Elizabeth II
Deputy	Nick Clegg
Preceded by	Gordon Brown
Leader of the Opposition
In office 6 December 2005 – 11 May 2010
Monarch	Elizabeth II
Prime Minister	Tony Blair Gordon Brown
Preceded by	Michael Howard
Succeeded by	Harriet Harman
Leader of the Conservative Party
Incumbent
Assumed office 6 December 2005
Preceded by	Michael Howard
Shadow Secretary of State for Education and Skills
In office 6 May 2005 – 6 December 2005
Leader	Michael Howard
Preceded by	Tim Yeo
Succeeded by	David Willetts
Member of Parliament for Witney
Incumbent
Assumed office 7 June 2001
Preceded by	Shaun Woodward
Majority	22,740 (39.4%)
Personal details
Born	David William Donald Cameron (1966-10-09) 9 October 1966 (age 45) London, England
Political party	Conservative
Spouse(s)	Samantha Sheffield (1996–present)
Children	Ivan Reginald Ian (Deceased) Nancy Gwen Arthur Elwen Florence Rose Endellion
Residence	10 Downing Street
Alma mater	Brasenose College, Oxford
Religion	Church of England (Anglican)
Website	Party website

David William Donald Cameron (pronunciation: /ˈkæmərən/; born 9 October 1966) is the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service and Leader of the Conservative Party. He represents Witney as its Member of Parliament (MP).^[1]

Cameron studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) at Oxford, gaining a first class honours degree. He then joined the Conservative Research Department and became Special Adviser to Norman Lamont, and then to Michael Howard. He was Director of Corporate Affairs at Carlton Communications for seven years.

He was defeated in his first candidacy for Parliament at Stafford in 1997, but was elected in 2001 as the Member of Parliament for the Oxfordshire constituency of Witney. He was promoted to the Opposition front bench two years later, and rose rapidly to become head of policy co-ordination during the 2005 general election campaign. With a public image of a youthful, moderate candidate who would appeal to young voters, he won the Conservative leadership election in 2005.^[2]

In the 2010 general election held on 6 May, the Conservatives won 307 seats in a hung parliament. After five days of intense negotiations, Cameron formed a coalition with the Liberal Democrats. The 43-year-old Cameron became the youngest British Prime Minister since the Earl of Liverpool 198 years earlier.^[3] Cameron leads the first coalition government of the United Kingdom since the Second World War.

Family[link]

David Cameron is the younger son of stockbroker Ian Donald Cameron (12 October 1932 – 8 September 2010)^[4] and his wife Mary Fleur (née Mount, born 1934,^[5] a retired Justice of the Peace, daughter of Sir William Mount, 2nd Baronet).^[6] His father, Ian, was born with both legs deformed and underwent repeated operations to correct them. Cameron's parents were married on 20 October 1962.^[5] He was born in London, and brought up in Peasemore, Berkshire.^[7] Cameron has a brother, Allan Alexander (born 1963, a barrister and QC)^[8] and two sisters, Tania Rachel (born 1965) and Clare Louise (born 1971).^[5][9] His father was born at Blairmore House, a country house near Huntly, Aberdeenshire, and died near Toulon in France on 8 September 2010.^[10] Blairmore was built by his great-great-grandfather, Alexander Geddes,^[11] who had made a fortune in the grain trade in Chicago, and returned to Scotland in the 1880s.^[12]

King William IV, one of Cameron's ancestors

Through his paternal grandmother, Enid Agnes Maud Levita, Cameron is a direct descendant of King William IV by his mistress Dorothea Jordan. This illegitimate line consists of five generations of women starting with Elizabeth Hay, Countess of Erroll, née FitzClarence, William and Jordan's sixth child,^[13] through to Cameron's grandmother (thereby making Cameron a 5th cousin of Queen Elizabeth II).^[14] Cameron's paternal forebears also have a long history in finance. His father Ian was senior partner of the stockbrokers Panmure Gordon, in which firm partnerships had long been held by Cameron's ancestors, including David's grandfather and great-grandfather,^[9] and was a Director of estate agent John D. Wood. David Cameron's great-great grandfather Emile Levita, a German-Jewish financier (and descendant of Renaissance scholar Elia Levita) who obtained British citizenship in 1871, was the director of the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China which became Standard Chartered Bank in 1969.^[14] His wife, Cameron's great-great grandmother, was a descendant of the wealthy Danish Jewish Rée family on her father's side.^[15][16] One of Emile's sons, Arthur Francis Levita (died 1910, brother of Sir Cecil Levita),^[17] of Panmure Gordon stockbrokers, together with great-great-grandfather Sir Ewen Cameron,^[18] London head of the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank, played key roles in arranging loans supplied by the Rothschilds to the Japanese Central Banker (later Prime Minister) Takahashi Korekiyo for the financing of the Japanese Government in the Russo-Japanese war.^[19]

Cameron's maternal grandfather was Sir William Mount, 2nd Baronet, an Army officer and the High Sheriff of Berkshire, and Cameron's maternal great-grandfather was Sir William Mount, 1st Baronet, CBE, Conservative MP for Newbury 1918–1922. Cameron's great-great grandmother was Lady Ida Matilda Alice Feilding. His great-great-great grandfather was William Feilding, 7th Earl of Denbigh, GCH, PC, a courtier and Gentleman of the Bedchamber.^[20] His mother's cousin, Sir Ferdinand Mount, was head of 10 Downing Street's Policy Unit in the early 1980s. Cameron is the nephew of Sir William Dugdale, brother-in-law of Katherine, Lady Dugdale (died 2004) Lady-in-Waiting to HM The Queen since 1955,^[21][22] and former Chairman of Aston Villa Football Club. Birmingham born documentary film-maker Joshua Dugdale is his cousin.^[23]

Education[link]

Eton College chapel.

From the age of seven, Cameron was educated at two independent schools: at Heatherdown Preparatory School at Winkfield, in Berkshire, which counts Prince Andrew and Prince Edward among its alumni. Due to good academic grades, Cameron entered its top academic class almost two years early.^[24] At the age of thirteen, he went to Eton College in Berkshire, following his father and elder brother.^[25] Eton is often described as the most famous independent school in the world,^[26] and "the chief nurse of England's statesmen".^[27] His early interest was in art. Cameron was in trouble as a teenager, six weeks before taking his O-Levels, when he was named as having smoked cannabis.^[2] He admitted the offence and had not been involved in selling drugs, so he was not expelled, but was fined, prevented from leaving school grounds, and given a "Georgic" (a punishment which involved copying 500 lines of Latin text).^[28]

Cameron passed 12 O-levels, and then studied three A-Levels in History of Art, History and Economics with Politics. He obtained three 'A' grades and a '1' grade in the Scholarship Level exam in Economics and Politics.^[29] The following autumn he passed the entrance exam for Oxford University, where he was offered an exhibition.^[30]

After leaving Eton in 1984,^[31] Cameron started a nine month gap year. He worked as a researcher for Tim Rathbone, Conservative MP for Lewes and his godfather. In his three months he attended debates in the House of Commons.^[32] Through his father, he was then employed for a further three months in Hong Kong by Jardine Matheson as a 'ship jumper', an administrative post.^[33]

Returning from Hong Kong he visited the then Soviet Union, where he was approached by two Russian men speaking fluent English. Cameron was later told by one of his professors that it was 'definitely an attempt' by the KGB to recruit him.^[34]

Cameron then began his Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) at Brasenose College, Oxford.^[35] His tutor, Professor Vernon Bogdanor, described him as "one of the ablest"^[36] students he has taught, with "moderate and sensible Conservative" political views.^[9] Guy Spier, who shared tutorials with him, remembers him as an outstanding student; "We were doing our best to grasp basic economic concepts. David - there was nobody else who came even close. He would be integrating them with the way the British political system is put together. He could have lectured me on it, and I would have sat there and taken notes.."^[37] When commenting in 2006 on his former pupil's ideas about a "Bill of Rights" to replace the Human Rights Act, however, Professor Bogdanor, himself a Liberal Democrat, said, "I think he is very confused. I've read his speech and it's filled with contradictions. There are one or two good things in it but one glimpses them, as it were, through a mist of misunderstanding".^[38]

While at Oxford, Cameron was a member of the elite student dining society the Bullingdon Club, which has a reputation for an outlandish drinking culture associated with boisterous behaviour and damaging property.^[39] A photograph showing Cameron in a tailcoat with other members of the club, including Boris Johnson, surfaced in 2007, but was later withdrawn by the copyright holder.^[40] Cameron's period in the Bullingdon Club is examined in the Channel 4 docu-drama When Boris Met Dave broadcast on 7 October 2009.^[41] Cameron graduated in 1988 with a first class honours degree.^[42]

Early political career[link]

Conservative Research Department[link]

After graduation, Cameron worked for the Conservative Research Department between September 1988^[43] and 1993. A feature on Cameron in The Mail on Sunday on 18 March 2007 reported that on the day he was due to attend a job interview at Conservative Central Office, a phone call was received from Buckingham Palace. The male caller stated, "I understand you are to see David Cameron. I've tried everything I can to dissuade him from wasting his time on politics but I have failed. I am ringing to tell you that you are about to meet a truly remarkable young man."^[44]

In 1991, Cameron was seconded to Downing Street to work on briefing John Major for his then bi-weekly session of Prime Minister's Questions. One newspaper gave Cameron the credit for "sharper [...] despatch box performances" by Major,^[45] which included highlighting for Major "a dreadful piece of doublespeak" by Tony Blair (then the Labour Employment spokesman) over the effect of a national minimum wage.^[46] He became head of the political section of the Conservative Research Department, and in August 1991 was tipped to follow Judith Chaplin as Political Secretary to the Prime Minister.^[47]

However, Cameron lost to Jonathan Hill, who was appointed in March 1992. He was given the responsibility for briefing Major for his press conferences during the 1992 general election.^[48] During the campaign, Cameron was one of the young "brat pack" of party strategists who worked between 12 and 20 hours a day, sleeping in the house of Alan Duncan in Gayfere Street, Westminster, which had been Major's campaign headquarters during his bid for the Conservative leadership.^[49] Cameron headed the economic section; it was while working on this campaign that Cameron first worked closely with Steve Hilton, who was later to become Director of Strategy during his party leadership.^[50] The strain of getting up at 4:45 am every day was reported to have led Cameron to decide to leave politics in favour of journalism.^[51]

Special Adviser[link]

The Conservatives' unexpected success in the 1992 election led Cameron to hit back at older party members who had criticised him and his colleagues, saying "whatever people say about us, we got the campaign right," and that they had listened to their campaign workers on the ground rather than the newspapers. He revealed he had led other members of the team across Smith Square to jeer at Transport House, the former Labour headquarters.^[52] Cameron was rewarded with a promotion to Special Adviser to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Norman Lamont.^[53]

Cameron was working for Lamont at the time of Black Wednesday, when pressure from currency speculators forced the Pound sterling out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism. At the 1992 Conservative Party conference, Cameron had difficulty trying to arrange to brief the speakers in the economic debate, having to resort to putting messages on the internal television system imploring the mover of the motion, Patricia Morris, to contact him.^[54] Later that month Cameron joined a delegation of Special Advisers who visited Germany to build better relations with the Christian Democratic Union; he was reported to be "still smarting" over the Bundesbank's contribution to the economic crisis.^[55]

Lamont fell out with John Major after Black Wednesday and became highly unpopular with the public. Taxes needed to be raised in the 1993 Budget, and Cameron fed the options Lamont was considering through to Conservative Central Office for their political acceptability to be assessed.^[56] However, Lamont's unpopularity did not necessarily affect Cameron: he was considered as a potential "kamikaze" candidate for the Newbury By-election, which includes the area where he grew up.^[57] However, Cameron decided not to stand.

During the by-election, Lamont gave the response "Je ne regrette rien" to a question about whether he most regretted claiming to see "the green shoots of recovery" or admitted "singing in his bath" with happiness at leaving the ERM. Cameron was identified by one journalist as having inspired this gaffe; it was speculated that the heavy Conservative defeat in Newbury may have cost Cameron his chance of becoming Chancellor himself, even though as he was not a Member of Parliament he could not have been.^[58] Lamont was sacked at the end of May 1993, and decided not to write the usual letter of resignation; Cameron was given the responsibility to issue to the press a statement of self-justification.^[59]

Home Office[link]

The Home Office building Cameron worked at during the 1990s

After Lamont was sacked, Cameron remained at the Treasury for less than a month before being specifically recruited by Home Secretary Michael Howard; it was commented that he was still "very much in favour".^[60] It was later reported that many at the Treasury would have preferred Cameron to carry on.^[61] At the beginning of September 1993, Cameron applied to go on Conservative Central Office's list of Prospective Parliamentary Candidates.^[62]

According to Derek Lewis, then Director-General of Her Majesty's Prison Service, Cameron showed him a "his and hers list" of proposals made by Howard and his wife, Sandra. Lewis said that Sandra Howard's list included reducing the quality of prison food, although Sandra Howard denied this claim. Lewis reported that Cameron was "uncomfortable" about the list.^[63] In defending Sandra Howard and insisting that she made no such proposal, the journalist Bruce Anderson wrote that Cameron had proposed a much shorter definition on prison catering which revolved around the phrase "balanced diet", and that Lewis had written thanking Cameron for a valuable contribution.^[64]

During his work for Howard, Cameron often briefed the media. In March 1994, someone leaked to the Press that the Labour Party had called for a meeting with John Major to discuss a consensus on the Prevention of Terrorism Act. After an enquiry failed to find the source of the leak, Labour MP Peter Mandelson demanded assurance from Howard that Cameron had not been responsible, which Howard gave.^[65][66] A senior Home Office Civil Servant noted the influence of Howard's Special Advisers saying previous incumbents "would listen to the evidence before making a decision. Howard just talks to young public school gentlemen from the party headquarters."^[67]

Carlton[link]

In July 1994, Cameron left his role as Special Adviser to work as the Director of Corporate Affairs at Carlton Communications.^[68] Carlton, which had won the ITV franchise for London weekdays in 1991, was a growing media company which also had film distribution and video producing arms. In 1997 Cameron played up the Company's prospects for digital terrestrial television, for which it joined with Granada television and BSkyB to form British Digital Broadcasting.^[69] In a roundtable discussion on the future of broadcasting in 1998 he criticised the effect of overlapping different regulators on the industry.^[70]