said. Commander Shabir Hussain told a race discrimination tribunal that Blaire uses his ‘very significant influence’ to push his chosen candidates for promotion.

Insiders said Ghaffur, who will seek compensation at an employment tribunal, had been moved to a less prestigious by Blair two years ago, following a bitter row with his boss. The report said Ghaffur is known to have been opposed to the proposal to extend detention of terrorism suspects without charge to 42 days, an idea championed by the Met boss. He is understood to allege that he was silenced in the debate over his concerns.

According to the report, Hussain claimed at tribunal that Ghaffur had complained of racism in the Met, and had even called the head of the Metropolitan Police Authority, Len Duvall, “a racist”. Earlier in June, Sergeant Gurpal Virdi, a Sikh detective, was awarded £70,400 in damages after a tribunal ruled that he had been victime of racism.

Experts say the current high demand is driven by the presence in Britain of large communities with origins in the Indian sub-continent and frequent visits by British tourists to India where they develop a taste for exotic vegetables. A Tesco spokesperson said consumers are no longer satisfied with traditional fare such as potatoes, carrots and peas.

Jonathan Corbett, Tesco’s ethnic produce buyer, said, “There is no better example of how multicultural Britain has become than through the rich diversity of the foods we can now buy in our supermarkets. Demand for exotic produce is rocketing. “Until a few years ago, we stocked just a handful of the more popular exotic vegetables such as sweet potatoes, butternut squash, chillis and yams, and these were sold in areas where there were large ethnic communities. But now that multiculturalism has crossed over to our mainstream business, and we’re fi nding that shoppers are becoming more adventurous.”

UK scraps visa bond plan

Britain this month scrapped a plan to impose fi nancial bonds as guarantees to ensure that family visitors from India and elsewhere would leave the country on expiry of their visas. The government said it would introduce a new sponsored family visitor category in which licensed sponsors would vouch for family visits. “The current defi nition of ‘family member’ will remain unchanged, allowing spouses, parents, children, grandparents and grandchildren, siblings, aunts, uncles and fi rst cousins to come to the UK by this route,” the statement said.

According to the scrapped plan, families sponsoring a visit by a relative would have had to cough up a “bond” which would be forfeited if the visitor did not return on time. The new plan was to ensure that the UK remained an attractive tourism destination, while deterring those seeking to break the rules, a government statement said. The changes were announced following a three-month consultation with communities abroad as well as in the UK.