Poll: Rishi vs Ben
Total Members Polled: 93
Discussion
Dr Jekyll said:
Should Rishi be regarded as the first UK PM from an ethnic minority? Or was it Disraeli? Or is it of no relevance other than as a possible pub quiz question?
In any event both are/were Conservatives. 'Inclusive' Labour are such dreadful hypocrites (as opposed to the Tories, who are currently also dreadful, but at least aren't misogynistic racists).
It depends if being Jewish is classed as an ethnic minority (although Disraeli's family had converted to Christianity when Disraeli was a child.)
Legally, Jews are an ethnic minority. Genetically, Judaism is just a belief system. You get black Jews from East Africa, and blond Jews from Scandinavia. They clearly aren't ethnically the same.
Sunak isn't classed as ethnic minority because he's Hindu. He could just as well be CoE. He's ethnic minority because he's Asian.
It's a great sign of diverse Britain, that a top public school educated billionaire can rise to such a position. It's about time!
Legally, Jews are an ethnic minority. Genetically, Judaism is just a belief system. You get black Jews from East Africa, and blond Jews from Scandinavia. They clearly aren't ethnically the same.
Sunak isn't classed as ethnic minority because he's Hindu. He could just as well be CoE. He's ethnic minority because he's Asian.
It's a great sign of diverse Britain, that a top public school educated billionaire can rise to such a position. It's about time!
Edited by TwigtheWonderkid on Monday 24th October 15:24
chemistry said:
Dr Jekyll said:
Should Rishi be regarded as the first UK PM from an ethnic minority? Or was it Disraeli? Or is it of no relevance other than as a possible pub quiz question?
In any event both are/were Conservatives. 'Inclusive' Labour are such dreadful hypocrites (as opposed to the Tories, who are currently also dreadful, but at least aren't misogynistic racists).
In the 2019 general election there were 22 ethnic minority Conservative MPs and 41 within the Labour party. This is for 365 seats and 202 seats respectively. That means 6% Tory MPs are from ethnic minorities but 20% Labour MPs are from ethnic minorities.
Furthermore, of the 365 Tory MPs, 87 (24%) were female and for the 202 Labour MPs, 104 were female (51%).
I guess you are going to reference the number of female leaders of each party, but that is just part of the story. I guess you might also reference the number of cabinet ministers but there are two problems with this. Firstly, Labour has not been in power for 12 years and there has been significant progress on this topic over the last 12 years and secondly, the recent cabinets have been made up of people willing to tick a box, not due to talent so again, the results are some what skewed.
It is also worth remembering that in 1987, the first four ethnic minority MPs were elected since 1929:
Diane Abbott, Paul Boateng, Bernie Grant and Keith Vaz
I think these are all Labour?
chemistry said:
Dr Jekyll said:
Should Rishi be regarded as the first UK PM from an ethnic minority? Or was it Disraeli? Or is it of no relevance other than as a possible pub quiz question?
In any event both are/were Conservatives. 'Inclusive' Labour are such dreadful hypocrites (as opposed to the Tories, who are currently also dreadful, but at least aren't misogynistic racists).
pghstochaj said:
Interesting you claim this but I don't think the figures back you up unless I have made an error.
In the 2019 general election there were 22 ethnic minority Conservative MPs and 41 within the Labour party. This is for 365 seats and 202 seats respectively. That means 6% Tory MPs are from ethnic minorities but 20% Labour MPs are from ethnic minorities.
Furthermore, of the 365 Tory MPs, 87 (24%) were female and for the 202 Labour MPs, 104 were female (51%).
I guess you are going to reference the number of female leaders of each party, but that is just part of the story. I guess you might also reference the number of cabinet ministers but there are two problems with this. Firstly, Labour has not been in power for 12 years and there has been significant progress on this topic over the last 12 years and secondly, the recent cabinets have been made up of people willing to tick a box, not due to talent so again, the results are some what skewed.
It is also worth remembering that in 1987, the first four ethnic minority MPs were elected since 1929:
Diane Abbott, Paul Boateng, Bernie Grant and Keith Vaz
I think these are all Labour?
All valid points, but I fear it's a case of 'damed with faint praise'. In the 2019 general election there were 22 ethnic minority Conservative MPs and 41 within the Labour party. This is for 365 seats and 202 seats respectively. That means 6% Tory MPs are from ethnic minorities but 20% Labour MPs are from ethnic minorities.
Furthermore, of the 365 Tory MPs, 87 (24%) were female and for the 202 Labour MPs, 104 were female (51%).
I guess you are going to reference the number of female leaders of each party, but that is just part of the story. I guess you might also reference the number of cabinet ministers but there are two problems with this. Firstly, Labour has not been in power for 12 years and there has been significant progress on this topic over the last 12 years and secondly, the recent cabinets have been made up of people willing to tick a box, not due to talent so again, the results are some what skewed.
It is also worth remembering that in 1987, the first four ethnic minority MPs were elected since 1929:
Diane Abbott, Paul Boateng, Bernie Grant and Keith Vaz
I think these are all Labour?
The Labour party hasn't had a female leader, nor an ethnic minority one. I accept that a party out of power for an extended period of time demonstrably can't have had a female/minority Prime Minister during that time, but they have had every opportunity to elect a non-white-male leader; every other UK party has managed it (SNP, DUP, Lib Dems, Greens...). Equally, Abbot, Boateng, Grant, Vaz etc. are 'just' MPs, not the leader and the box ticking comment is rather disingenuous.
Labour talk the talk but don't walk the walk. They are hypocrites.
(This is not to say the current Tories aren't shambolic - they are - just that in at least one important respect, Labour are far worse).
LimaDelta said:
Yes, but RS doesn't count, as his Tory views make him white. He's the wrong type of ethnic minority, just like Margaret Thatcher was the wrong type of woman. The left (even though it has yet to put it's money where it's mouth is) is still far more progressive when you consider everyone on the right as basically a white man.
Quora says there have been PMs of Irish descent . Are they ethnic or a minorty 
William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne born Dublin
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington born into an aristocratic Anglo-Irish family in Ireland.
James Callaghan's grandfather left Ireland during the famine, fled to England and joined the Royal Navy.
Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, Irish through his grandfather
Tony Blair's mother came from Ballyshannon.
William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne born Dublin
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington born into an aristocratic Anglo-Irish family in Ireland.
James Callaghan's grandfather left Ireland during the famine, fled to England and joined the Royal Navy.
Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, Irish through his grandfather
Tony Blair's mother came from Ballyshannon.
chemistry said:
pghstochaj said:
Interesting you claim this but I don't think the figures back you up unless I have made an error.
In the 2019 general election there were 22 ethnic minority Conservative MPs and 41 within the Labour party. This is for 365 seats and 202 seats respectively. That means 6% Tory MPs are from ethnic minorities but 20% Labour MPs are from ethnic minorities.
Furthermore, of the 365 Tory MPs, 87 (24%) were female and for the 202 Labour MPs, 104 were female (51%).
I guess you are going to reference the number of female leaders of each party, but that is just part of the story. I guess you might also reference the number of cabinet ministers but there are two problems with this. Firstly, Labour has not been in power for 12 years and there has been significant progress on this topic over the last 12 years and secondly, the recent cabinets have been made up of people willing to tick a box, not due to talent so again, the results are some what skewed.
It is also worth remembering that in 1987, the first four ethnic minority MPs were elected since 1929:
Diane Abbott, Paul Boateng, Bernie Grant and Keith Vaz
I think these are all Labour?
All valid points, but I fear it's a case of 'damed with faint praise'. In the 2019 general election there were 22 ethnic minority Conservative MPs and 41 within the Labour party. This is for 365 seats and 202 seats respectively. That means 6% Tory MPs are from ethnic minorities but 20% Labour MPs are from ethnic minorities.
Furthermore, of the 365 Tory MPs, 87 (24%) were female and for the 202 Labour MPs, 104 were female (51%).
I guess you are going to reference the number of female leaders of each party, but that is just part of the story. I guess you might also reference the number of cabinet ministers but there are two problems with this. Firstly, Labour has not been in power for 12 years and there has been significant progress on this topic over the last 12 years and secondly, the recent cabinets have been made up of people willing to tick a box, not due to talent so again, the results are some what skewed.
It is also worth remembering that in 1987, the first four ethnic minority MPs were elected since 1929:
Diane Abbott, Paul Boateng, Bernie Grant and Keith Vaz
I think these are all Labour?
The Labour party hasn't had a female leader, nor an ethnic minority one. I accept that a party out of power for an extended period of time demonstrably can't have had a female/minority Prime Minister during that time, but they have had every opportunity to elect a non-white-male leader; every other UK party has managed it (SNP, DUP, Lib Dems, Greens...). Equally, Abbot, Boateng, Grant, Vaz etc. are 'just' MPs, not the leader and the box ticking comment is rather disingenuous.
Labour talk the talk but don't walk the walk. They are hypocrites.
(This is not to say the current Tories aren't shambolic - they are - just that in at least one important respect, Labour are far worse).
It's also important to recognise that the Tory Party has had a significantly higher number of leaders in the recent history:
Tory Party: 10 leaders since 1994.
Labour Party: 5 leaders since 1994 (unless you count Harriet Harman as acting leader twice in which case it is six, but she's female so I guess you don't want her to be included).
Similarly, when you change your cabinet every few weeks and only pick loyal people, it is inevitable that you get more female/ethnic minority ministers.
Although if you look at the 2019 cabinet (the last time it remotely looked like a government) then you had:
7 female.
3 ethnic minority.
If you look at the Shadow Cabinet, you have:
10 female
1 ethnic minority.
I think fixating on whether the Labour Party has had a female or ethnic minority leader is skewing your judgement on this.
As a reminder as I think the statistics are important, for 2019:
6% Tory MPs were from ethnic minorities but 20% Labour MPs were from ethnic minorities.
24% Tory MPs were female and 51% of Labour MPs were female.
TwigtheWonderkid said:
It depends if being Jewish is classed as an ethnic minority (although Disraeli's family had converted to Christianity when Disraeli was a child.)
Legally, Jews are an ethnic minority. Genetically, Judaism is just a belief system. You get black Jews from East Africa, and blond Jews from Scandinavia. They clearly aren't ethnically the same.
Sunak isn't classed as ethnic minority because he's Hindu. He could just as well be CoE. He's ethnic minority because he's Asian.
It's a great sign of diverse Britain, that a top public school educated billionaire can rise to such a position. It's about time!
Judaism being slightly different due to matrilineality.Legally, Jews are an ethnic minority. Genetically, Judaism is just a belief system. You get black Jews from East Africa, and blond Jews from Scandinavia. They clearly aren't ethnically the same.
Sunak isn't classed as ethnic minority because he's Hindu. He could just as well be CoE. He's ethnic minority because he's Asian.
It's a great sign of diverse Britain, that a top public school educated billionaire can rise to such a position. It's about time!
Edited by TwigtheWonderkid on Monday 24th October 15:24
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrilineality_in_...
Bill said:
There's also the awkward question of whether the membership would have voted for Rishi had they been given the opportunity.
They may well not have. I'm not saying the Tories don't have racist elements, merely that the tired Labour trope that they are the nasty party is just that, a tired trope.However misogynistic or racist the Tories party might be (and it appears, not very), Labour are definitely worse. That's all. They talk a good game, but just won't have a female or minority leader, even though every other party has managed it (and the conservatives, on multiple occasions).
I'm not defending the Tories, just highlighting what hypocrites Labour are.
Bill said:
Why cherry pick your measures then?
Critical thinking melt down is presumably why. Edit: actually I think it’s worth expanding on that. It’s the simple message getting through “no female of ethnic minority leader” and the less punchy message not getting through as many people have lost the attention span to go beyond the simple message. Anybody rationally and objectively looking at those statistics would say:
Yes labour has not had a female or ethnic minority leader and that is not a good thing. However, clearly as a party as a whole, it is much more diverse. Why has the Tory party got so few ethnic minority MPs and female MPs?
Edited by pghstochaj on Monday 24th October 19:54
john2443 said:
Quora says there have been PMs of Irish descent . Are they ethnic or a minorty
William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne born Dublin
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington born into an aristocratic Anglo-Irish family in Ireland.
James Callaghan's grandfather left Ireland during the famine, fled to England and joined the Royal Navy.
Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, Irish through his grandfather
Tony Blair's mother came from Ballyshannon.
John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute In office 26th May 1762 – 8th April 1763 was the first from an ethnic minority. He was Scottish.William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne born Dublin
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington born into an aristocratic Anglo-Irish family in Ireland.
James Callaghan's grandfather left Ireland during the famine, fled to England and joined the Royal Navy.
Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, Irish through his grandfather
Tony Blair's mother came from Ballyshannon.
pghstochaj said:
chemistry said:
Dr Jekyll said:
Should Rishi be regarded as the first UK PM from an ethnic minority? Or was it Disraeli? Or is it of no relevance other than as a possible pub quiz question?
In any event both are/were Conservatives. 'Inclusive' Labour are such dreadful hypocrites (as opposed to the Tories, who are currently also dreadful, but at least aren't misogynistic racists).
In the 2019 general election there were 22 ethnic minority Conservative MPs and 41 within the Labour party. This is for 365 seats and 202 seats respectively. That means 6% Tory MPs are from ethnic minorities but 20% Labour MPs are from ethnic minorities.
Furthermore, of the 365 Tory MPs, 87 (24%) were female and for the 202 Labour MPs, 104 were female (51%).
I guess you are going to reference the number of female leaders of each party, but that is just part of the story. I guess you might also reference the number of cabinet ministers but there are two problems with this. Firstly, Labour has not been in power for 12 years and there has been significant progress on this topic over the last 12 years and secondly, the recent cabinets have been made up of people willing to tick a box, not due to talent so again, the results are some what skewed.
It is also worth remembering that in 1987, the first four ethnic minority MPs were elected since 1929:
Diane Abbott, Paul Boateng, Bernie Grant and Keith Vaz
I think these are all Labour?
john2443 said:
Quora says there have been PMs of Irish descent . Are they ethnic or a minorty
William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne born Dublin
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington born into an aristocratic Anglo-Irish family in Ireland.
James Callaghan's grandfather left Ireland during the famine, fled to England and joined the Royal Navy.
Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, Irish through his grandfather
Tony Blair's mother came from Ballyshannon.
Not really because they were British and came from a constituent state of the U.K. William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne born Dublin
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington born into an aristocratic Anglo-Irish family in Ireland.
James Callaghan's grandfather left Ireland during the famine, fled to England and joined the Royal Navy.
Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, Irish through his grandfather
Tony Blair's mother came from Ballyshannon.
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