It's high time someone from an ethnic background held one of the key political positions. It's a real shame Chuka Umunna decided not to run for labour this time around, although 2020 is perhaps a better time for him personally and politically to make an impact.

Either way, he's someone I could definitely vote for.

More than half the London electorate don't care.

I disagree, the population as a whole arguably care more about immigration than anything else, and that is deeply entwined with questions of race and religion.

I sense much of the old white public will still have a hard time voting for a Muslim candidates and, crucially, old whites are the most likely demographic to turn out - you are right, well over half don't care, but how likely are they to turn out? Further, a Muslim candidate will be very off putting to both Hindu and Jewish voters, who make up, what, 7% of London?


@Elrazor. Chuka is a black and ethnic minority candidate only in the sense that he is literally a black and ethnic minority candidate (lol, I know how stupid this sounds). He was mostly privately educated and pretty much as establishment as it comes, descending from prominent lawyers on his Mum's side. (To illustrate the point, all of Khan's grandparents were born in Pakistan, one of Umana's is called Sir Helenus Milmo.)

It'll be an interesting race.

yes, I read about him when he was touted as a future labour leader. Just to be clear, I'd not hold someone's privileged upbringing against them when deciding who is the best option to run the country, any more than I would vote for someone purely based on the colour of their skin.

Turnout last time was 38%, down from 45%. Seems like they don't care.

How about they make it 50% or higher or no one gets the job.

Oh sure I don't disagree with anything you said.

I was just pointing out that Umana, the Christian/Atheist(?) son of an Anglo-Irish lawyer and wealthy Nigerian businessman is not really comparable with Khan, the Muslim () son of a Pakistani bus driver.

I wouldn't vote for Umunna. He's too polished and slick and I've never heard him say anything that he strongly believes in. He comes firmly from the Blairite school of power at any price and tailoring your views to those of focus groups that I think people have become quite sick of.

My hope is that with the rise of more authentically committed political groups in Greece and Spain, we will also see a shift away from the cynical tailoring of policies and manipulation of the media towards content and substance.

Just out of interest, would Labour voters feel more empathy with Sajid Javid, the son of a bus driver of Pakistani/Muslim heritage who went on to be a multi-millionaire banker, and then gave it up to be an MP?

Oh, sorry, I misunderstood, I thought you meant that the electorate doesn't care about the ethnicity of the mayor.

No, I imagine most Labour voters would have more time for Khan than Javid. (I'm not sure Javid is even a practising Muslim for what it's worth).

Why?

because it's indicative of a problem if they don't ever get to hold high political office. It matters that people from any group could get to the top and the only way we can be certain that they can is by it happening.

Or we could just let a few public schoolboys run everything

the policy that a politician pursues matters far more than physical representation. despite her protestations, many women felt better represented by Corbyn than by Cooper because, even though he is an old white male, it was felt he would 'do more' for women.

Yea, getting anybody not from the top 0.5% into the higher positions should be the first step. Wiki has white population at 87%, having an ethnic minority not holding a top position should not be seen as some sign of racism, especially given the evidence that its the wealthy elite public schoolboys that get groomed and churned out to hold such positions

Agreed but if it's never a women and never a member of the ethnic minorities then it's because there's a problem.

Having an elite that's overwhelmingly white men is itself part of the problem of institutional racism/sexism. it's not in itself people being racist.

Plus the class thing.

The way to solve the problem of inequality in high positions isn't by reducing the meritocratic nature of our approach, but rather tackling the underlying problems - which IMO is a much more radical, but appropriate social reform. A good start would be banning independent fee-paying schools and instead charging wealthy families a similar amount to put children through the state system (but keeping that mandatory).

But haven't the elite and their families been elite for generations, like the power/land/wealth gets passed down? Im not sure how you correct that until the descendants of immigrants themselves work themselves into a similar position which takes time

one factor that many forget is the lag of 20 years or so between a social change really cementing and it being visible in the race/creed/gender of our politicians.

off topic slightly, but when ever someone cites something like, say, the lack of female CEOs, they often neglect to remember the fact that the people in positions of power today came up through and are products of an entirely different culture - CEOs today reflect the business environment of the 80s and 90s, not of today.

of course, this isn't always the case in politics, where people rise through the ranks much faster, but it does go some way to explaining why the vast majority of prominent candidates touted for the top jobs are stale pale males.

I agree with the general sentiment of your post but think the policy you prescribe is a little ott and a great way to build up resentment towards the government. the optimal policy is basically to make state schools so good as to make choosing the fee-paying route unthinkable.

I could be talking out my arse here but isnt the main advantage of private elite schools building relationships and networks with wealthy elite people more so than the education?

Which is impossible unless you invest more money into the state school system, which in turn means higher taxes that people are generally against for various reasons.

I agree with what TDA wrote. If you charge those who can afford it more to educate their kids in state schools, you can dramatically raise the quality of education and the overall environment at those schools, for the benefit of all.

It's both. Compare average class sizes and teacher salaries of state schools vs private and you'll immediately see the big educational edge that a private sector education confers on children (which of course is why parents who can afford it spend so much money on it).

It's not necessarily racist, but it's certainly not representative. So one in 8 people in the UK are non-white. That means that on average, there should be one non-white person holding the position of PM, Chancellor, Foreign secretary or Home secretary; or their counterpart in the opposition.

How many non-white people have ever held one of those positions? I can't think of 1.

None

I just looked up ethnic minorities mps and wiki has Ian Duncan Smith as one, white British/Japanese British lol