THE OBAMA IMPACT – ITS RELEVANCE FOR LONDON Win or lose the presidency – win or lose the Democrat nomination – Senator Obama has proved that a black candidate has got much further in the American national process from outside the conventional African American “scene” than any insider. The repercussions could be considerable – especially on this side of the Atlantic where conventional black publications and pressure groups have rallied, and lent their name, too readily to Ken Livingstone in his campaign to retain the Mayoralty of London. It must be fully two decades since I first heard a visiting African American entrepreneur explain that the commercial success of the black hair and beauty enterprise lay in its refusal to become politically partial. If Senator Obama can prove that the highest success can be attained without treading the traditional path, others will be tempted to do the same. It has been argued that the UK Caribbean press lost much of its readership, and its credibility, when it started to accept large-scale advertising / financial support from the radical London borough administrations and interest groups tuned primarily to one point of view. It left the whole of the remainder of the market open to another challenge. That such a challenge has not materialised to date does not mean that it is not there. The Livingstone mystique has begun to unravel – a process that has not been helped by the controversy regarding his former senior race adviser Lee Jasper. The media and the pressure groups lined up as had been expected, and a little too readily – they do protest too much. That is not to suggest that any of them are corrupt, or that they would tolerate corruption in others.  The problem is that too many are so tied to the fortunes of Mayor Livingstone that should his ship founder they would sink with him. A number of worthy causes would be left high on the beach.  It is a difficult dilemma because without funding directed by, or originating from, local government many of the causes, and the organisations and media which support them, would cease to exist, but it is a dilemma of their own making. The “black scene” does not enjoy the extent of support from the “black communities” which might be thought. Whereas the Caribbean heritage sector, closer to the American experience, and settled longer in the United Kingdom, has settled into the pattern portrayed and its attendant comfortable weariness, their newer direct African counterparts retain generally a freshness and vigour. Can that initiative be retained, or will they, too, be drawn into the lure of funding and a place at the committee tables? Whatever he has done for, and will continue to be for, the American political system, Senator Obama has shown that the inevitable in race and politics need not necessarily be the inevitable.