Distinguished friends
Khalid Abdalla
Maria Adebowale-Schwarte
Sukhpal Singh Ahluwalia
Rajesh Agrawal
Riz Ahmed
Sughra Ahmed
Keith Ajegbo
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
Daniel Franklin
Edie Friedman
Jitesh Gadhia
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
Malik Karim
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
Munira Mirza
Abigail Morris
Hugh Muir
Tessa Murdoch
Sandy Nairne
Bushra Nasir
Susheila Nasta
Eithne Nightingale
John O’Farrell
Kenneth Olisa
Kunle Olulode
Julia Onslow-Cole
John Orna-Ornstein
Sameer Pabari
Ruth Padel
Panikos Panayi
Bhikhu Parekh
Nikesh Patel
David Pearl
Caryl Phillips
Mike Phillips
Trevor Phillips
Sunand Prasad
Kavita Puri
Charles Rix
Trevor Robinson
Aubrey Rose
Michael Rosen
Cathy Ross
Salman Rushdie
Jill Rutter
Philippe Sands
Sathnam Sanghera
Konrad Schiemann
Richard Scott
Stephen Sedley
Maggie Semple
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
Debbie Weekes-Bernard
Henning Wehn
Nat Wei
Janet Whitaker
Gary Younge
From Romans to refugees, British society has been shaped by the aspirations, skills, and cultural values of those who have made a home here. A Migration Museum contributes to telling the story both of who we are and how we became what we are. To collect the experiences of those who have made the journey and reflect on them is fascinating and informative, and I welcome this project.
Nicholas Blake
Sir Nicholas Blake was called to the Bar of England and Wales in 1974 and developed a common law practice, with a particular interest in social assistance law, miscarriages of justice, immigration, asylum, and related questions of public law.
He was appointed a Queen’s Counsel in 1994 and in that capacity has argued a great many leading cases on refugee law, human rights and the like in both national and international courts. In 1998 he was appointed a Special Advocate and in 2000 he was a founder member and first chair of Matrix Chambers London. He was chair of the Immigration Lawyers Practitioners Association from 1994 to 1997 and is a member of Administrative Law Bar Association and Justice (the British affiliate of the International Commission of Jurists).
In 2004 he was asked by the Ministry of Defence to review the circumstances surrounding the deaths of four young soldiers at the Deepcut army barracks in Surrey, and the resulting Deepcut Review, published in 2006, was accepted and acted on.
He was appointed a Recorder in 2000, a Deputy High Court Judge in 2002 and became a Bencher of the Middle Temple in the same year. In November 2007 he was appointed to the High Court of Justice, Queen’s Bench Division. He is a nominated judge of the Administrative Court that deals with challenges to the decisions of public authorities.
He was appointed first president of the newly created Immigration and Asylum Chamber of the United Kingdom Upper Tribunal with effect from 15 February 2010, from which position he stood down in October 2013. He is a former co-author of the leading practitioners’ textbook, Butterworth’s Immigration Law and Practice, and of a number of other leading publications in the field of immigration, asylum and human rights.
Between 2005 and 2013 he served as a trustee of the National Portrait Gallery, London, and in that capacity contributed to the visual representation of the evolving national story.