Greek community in London

A special thanks to John Gray who did a report on his blog (there today) regarding the Greek community and the Bambos Charalambou event last night. As I reported on my site recently I have moved issues to do with organising the London Greek community on to a new blog (with Eleftheria Arv and Elena) as we all thought (based on comments we received) that mixing everything together would create some confusion and the title employment law wasn't very representative of Greeks in London!

Anyway congratulations and thanks to John for taking the time to remember us. Genuinely appreciate the effort.

The Greek community in London numbers around 300,000 the majority of the population (politically active with a lot of opinions) live in the north of London and according to research done by LGR (and I am extensively involved with LGR) there are 8 boroughs where there is a large presence. Enflield and Haringey followed by Camden Islington and Hackney (and some in Southwark) have a large Hellenic population. The community has not been very well organised in the past and the only political organisation (excluding lobby for Cyprus) is the Cypriot Federation which was created in the 50s. The Federation has done a lot of work towards highlighting the Cyprus problem but has not been very energetic or strategic with issues and problems that are faced by second and third generation Brits of Greek origin born and living here. That is what we are now trying to change and that task is looking very enormous. But there is support for this and the work has started, I have already had discussions with P Drousiotis and other Leaders explaining the task ahead. I would add that I estimate that the vast majority of Brits of Greek origin are traditional 'loyal' Labour party voters and would say 80% vote for Labour. But more needs to be done to promote the interests and aspirations of the second and third generation and that is the present challenge! Will post Eleftherias link when she is happy with the final product! Thanks to John Gray again!