Distinguished friends
Maria Adebowale-Schwarte
Sukhpal Singh Ahluwalia
Rajesh Agrawal
Riz Ahmed
Sughra Ahmed
Keith Ajegbo
George Alagiah
Claire Alexander
Kitty Arie
Julian Baggini
Zelda Baveystock
Haidee Bell
Richard Beswick
Dinesh Bhugra
Karan Bilimoria
Geoffrey Bindman
Karen Blackett
Nicholas Blake
Ian Blatchford
David Blunkett
Hina Bokhari
Mihir Bose
Alain de Botton
John Bowers
Stephen Briganti
Des Browne
Mukti Jain Campion
Paul Canoville
Gus Casely-Hayford
Michael Cashman
Saimo Chahal
Reeta Chakrabarti
Shami Chakrabarti
Stephen Claypole
Robin Cohen
Linda Colley
David Crystal
Angélica Dass
Prakash Daswani
Sandie Dawe
Navnit Dholakia
Sherry Dobbin
Ibrahim Dogus
Lloyd Dorfman
Alf Dubs
John Dyson
Damien Egan
Graeme Farrow
Shreela Flather
Daniel Franklin
Edie Friedman
Manjit Singh Gill
Teresa Graham
Ann Grant
Susie Harries
Naomie Harris
James Hathaway
David Hencke
Sophie Herxheimer
Afua Hirsch
Michael Howard
Clive Jacobs
Kevin Jennings
Adrian Johns
Shobu Kapoor
Jackie Kay
Ayub Khan-Din
Francesca Klug
Tony Kushner
Kwasi Kwarteng
Kwame Kwei-Armah
David Kynaston
Brian Lambkin
Mark Lewisohn
Joanna Lumley
Michael Mansfield
Sue McAlpine
Neil Mendoza
Nick Merriman
David Miles
Abigail Morris
Hugh Muir
Tessa Murdoch
Sandy Nairne
Bushra Nasir
Susheila Nasta
Eithne Nightingale
John O’Farrell
Kenneth Olisa
Kunle Olulode
David Olusoga
Julia Onslow-Cole
John Orna-Ornstein
Herman Ouseley
Sameer Pabari
Ruth Padel
Panikos Panayi
Bhikhu Parekh
Nikesh Patel
David Pearl
Caryl Phillips
Mike Phillips
Trevor Phillips
Sunand Prasad
Kavita Puri
Trevor Robinson
Aubrey Rose
Michael Rosen
Cathy Ross
Salman Rushdie
Jill Rutter
Philippe Sands
Sathnam Sanghera
Konrad Schiemann
Richard Scott
Stephen Sedley
Maggie Semple
Saira Shah
Babita Sharma
Nikesh Shukla
Jon Snow
Sonia Solicari
Robert Soning
David Spence
Danny Sriskandarajah
Stelio Stefanou
Dick Taverne
Jane Thompson
Robert Tombs
Rumi Verjee
Patrick Vernon
Edmund de Waal
Iqbal Wahhab
Yasmin Waljee
David Warren
Iain Watson
Henning Wehn
Nat Wei
Janet Whitaker
Gary Younge
Benjamin Zephaniah
Shreela Flather
Baroness Flather is a life peer and cross-bench member of the House of Lords. She was the first minority woman to receive a life peerage in 1990 as Baroness Flather of Windsor and Maidenhead in the Royal County of Berkshire. She was the only Asian woman in the House when she arrived, and comment was made about her wearing a sari at the time. Previously she had been the first Asian woman mayor in the UK when she held this office in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead; and when elected councillor to the same borough in 1976, she became the first minority woman to be elected as a councillor in this country.
Baroness Flather has a law degree from University College London where she has been made a Fellow, and was called to the Bar from the Inner Temple. She also has three honorary doctorates from Open University, Leeds University and Northampton University. She is responsible for building the Memorial on Constitution Hill to the Indians, Africans and West Indians who fought with the British in two world wars. In 2010 she published a book about changing extreme poverty by bringing women into paid work in India and Africa: Woman – Acceptable Exploitation for Profit. During her long career she has served on numerous public bodies, mainly in the field of race relations. She is currently a board member of Marie Stopes International, a Patron of Population Matters and an honorary associate of the National Secular Society.