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When will Britain get its first black PM?

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DentArthurDent
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25 Jan 2009, 7:57 pm

Tim_Tex wrote:
anna-banana wrote:
Scots are sort of a minority :p


What about the Northern irish?


Depends which ones, the Catholics want to unite with Eire but they don't want them and the Protestants want to stay under the English crown


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Macbeth
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25 Jan 2009, 8:15 pm

Ragtime wrote:
Greyhound wrote:
Ragtime wrote:
When will Britain get its first black PM?

When someone who happens to have black skin is seen as suitable to be Prime Minister and is elected.


You fell right into that one, didn't you?

That's quite an indictment of British blacks thus far, if it's true what you imply, that no blacks have yet been fit to be PM.
Or are you saying that Britons are racists for not having "seen" a black person as fit to be PM?

Of course racism exists everywhere, but maybe Britons can put their racism where the mouth is when criticizing the U.S.,
now that we have elected a minority member as president?
Just a thought. I just read so much hateful and even R-rated criticism of the U.S. on this website in particular as being backward and racist, and this comes largely from British members. Such criticism openly implies superiority of the criticizer over the criticizee, so I'm asking when Britain will figure out that black people can lead.


Think you missed the point there. When a black man stands for leader of one of our political parties, is duly elected by his party, and THEN places his party in power by winning the vote of the public, then we will have a black PM. As this has yet to happen, we have not had a black PM. There is nothing racist about it. Are we supposed to chose a candidate based on colour, not ability? Or are we supposed to force a black man to run? Positive discrimination is still discrimination, and is utterly foolish. We have enough problems with "equality" in skilled areas. We dont need the same issues in government.

We already have black and asian (and other minority) peers and MPs, and need I remind you we had a female PM, and have had female heads of state since Elizabeth (the first one, not the current one.)

Of course at this point I'm willing to give a lot of leeway to the next potential candidate for PM so long as I actually get to choose who it is, and he isnt s**t useless.


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26 Jan 2009, 12:23 pm

ruveyn wrote:
Or maybe the Republican candidates were so appalling that a majority of the voters rejected them. Do you see conspiracies everywhere, or just in some places?

ruveyn


I only see the one conspiracy, the one the Bible is about, I must admit though, it does seem to reach everywhere, only to be expected though.

Iam still waiting a part of this conspiracy I belive in to turn out untrue though, for instance, people at work where laughing at my stupid conspiracy theory that the world bankers where about to crash the worlds economy again, another step towards global finacial domination, this was two years ago, they laughed whilst I changed my savings into Gold.

Now they are not laughing.



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26 Jan 2009, 12:41 pm

Macbeth wrote:
We already have black and asian (and other minority) peers and MPs, and need I remind you we had a female PM, and have had female heads of state since Elizabeth (the first one, not the current one.)


Small correction: Elizabeth I wasn't the first female head of state. Technically it was Empress Matilda (1102-1167), but even she was the right heir of the throne (the only surviving child of Henry I and mother of Herny II, the first Plantagenet or Anjou on the English throne), she never ruled (instead King Stephen of England, her cousin, become king in bloody civil war). The next female ruler was the Queen for Nine Days, Lady Jane Grey. Than came Mary Tudor (Mary I or "Mary the Catholic" or "Bloody Mary"): Elizabeth Tudor's half sister and daughter of Herny VIII and Catherine of Aragon.

BTW: Some count also James I under the line of female rulers ... but this a different story.
---

Even more Off-Topic: Germany first female ruler Empress Theophanu (960 – 991), a Byzantine princess, which has been married with Otto II in a diplomatic deal and ruled the Holy Roman Empire after becoming a widow in 983 on the behave of her son, Emperor Otto III (at this time the crown still followed the heritage, this changed in the 13th century).



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26 Jan 2009, 1:33 pm

Greyhound wrote:
Ragtime wrote:
Greyhound wrote:
Ragtime wrote:
When will Britain get its first black PM?

When someone who happens to have black skin is seen as suitable to be Prime Minister and is elected.


You fell right into that one, didn't you?

That's quite an indictment of British blacks thus far, if it's true what you imply, that no blacks have yet been fit to be PM.
Or are you saying that Britons are racists for not having "seen" a black person as fit to be PM
.
I didn't fall into anything. We will have a black Prime Minister when it happens to happen that way.

According to Wikipedia, the United Kingdom had the following distribution of ethnic minorities in 2001:
92.1% white
4.0% South Asian
2.0% black
1.2% mixed
0.4% East Asian
0.4% other

It is therefore likely that we would see very few black candidates. I would be very surprised if half of parliament was black. Seeing as no one would vote for a candidate if they believed them to be unsuitable, the candidate must be seen as suitable, thus my statement stands:
We will have a black Prime Minister when someone who happens to have black skin is seen as suitable to be Prime Minister and is elected.
Although to make it clearer I could exchange 'someone' for 'a member of Parliament'.


I don't know much about the British election process. I keep forgetting your country still has official classes of people.


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26 Jan 2009, 1:34 pm

Macbeth wrote:
Ragtime wrote:
Greyhound wrote:
Ragtime wrote:
When will Britain get its first black PM?

When someone who happens to have black skin is seen as suitable to be Prime Minister and is elected.


You fell right into that one, didn't you?

That's quite an indictment of British blacks thus far, if it's true what you imply, that no blacks have yet been fit to be PM.
Or are you saying that Britons are racists for not having "seen" a black person as fit to be PM?

Of course racism exists everywhere, but maybe Britons can put their racism where the mouth is when criticizing the U.S.,
now that we have elected a minority member as president?
Just a thought. I just read so much hateful and even R-rated criticism of the U.S. on this website in particular as being backward and racist, and this comes largely from British members. Such criticism openly implies superiority of the criticizer over the criticizee, so I'm asking when Britain will figure out that black people can lead.


Think you missed the point there. When a black man stands for leader of one of our political parties, is duly elected by his party, and THEN places his party in power by winning the vote of the public, then we will have a black PM. As this has yet to happen, we have not had a black PM. There is nothing racist about it. Are we supposed to chose a candidate based on colour, not ability? Or are we supposed to force a black man to run? Positive discrimination is still discrimination, and is utterly foolish. We have enough problems with "equality" in skilled areas. We dont need the same issues in government.

We already have black and asian (and other minority) peers and MPs, and need I remind you we had a female PM, and have had female heads of state since Elizabeth (the first one, not the current one.)

Of course at this point I'm willing to give a lot of leeway to the next potential candidate for PM so long as I actually get to choose who it is, and he isnt sh** useless.


That makes sense. As I told Greyhound, I wasn't aware of how complicated Britain's election process is, i.e. that one can't even run for PM unless he or she is already high up in the government and in the upper class.
Nor was I aware of how white the UK still is by percentage.


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BrokenRobot
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26 Jan 2009, 6:38 pm

Ragtime wrote:
As much as I worried, and still do a little, about Barack's policies, I have to admit it's kinda cool having a black president.

Will Britain ever elect a minority prime minister?

Any Western country who thinks themselves more progressive than the U.S. should have a minority head of state before making the claim.


I wonder if it's only a matter of time.

But that said, voting in a black man as the leader of a country simply because he is black rather defeats the purpose of racial equality. The same way as having a female leader because she's a woman, or a gay leader because they are gay.

Although it's nice to see social progress like this, people must not get lost in the mire of political correctness.


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26 Jan 2009, 7:59 pm

Ragtime wrote:

That makes sense. As I told Greyhound, I wasn't aware of how complicated Britain's election process is, i.e. that one can't even run for PM unless he or she is already high up in the government and in the upper class.
Nor was I aware of how white the UK still is by percentage.


Well if you think about it, America is a largely immigrant nation, while Britain is a nation of natives. The only groups of people that ever historically settled in Britian in large numbers were always other Europeans. America on the other hand was an immigrant nation from the very start, since the settlers greatly overwhelmed the natives due to all the diseases we brought over the ocean (oops).


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27 Jan 2009, 5:59 am

Ragtime wrote:
Macbeth wrote:
Ragtime wrote:
Greyhound wrote:
Ragtime wrote:
When will Britain get its first black PM?

When someone who happens to have black skin is seen as suitable to be Prime Minister and is elected.


You fell right into that one, didn't you?

That's quite an indictment of British blacks thus far, if it's true what you imply, that no blacks have yet been fit to be PM.
Or are you saying that Britons are racists for not having "seen" a black person as fit to be PM?

Of course racism exists everywhere, but maybe Britons can put their racism where the mouth is when criticizing the U.S.,
now that we have elected a minority member as president?
Just a thought. I just read so much hateful and even R-rated criticism of the U.S. on this website in particular as being backward and racist, and this comes largely from British members. Such criticism openly implies superiority of the criticizer over the criticizee, so I'm asking when Britain will figure out that black people can lead.


Think you missed the point there. When a black man stands for leader of one of our political parties, is duly elected by his party, and THEN places his party in power by winning the vote of the public, then we will have a black PM. As this has yet to happen, we have not had a black PM. There is nothing racist about it. Are we supposed to chose a candidate based on colour, not ability? Or are we supposed to force a black man to run? Positive discrimination is still discrimination, and is utterly foolish. We have enough problems with "equality" in skilled areas. We dont need the same issues in government.

We already have black and asian (and other minority) peers and MPs, and need I remind you we had a female PM, and have had female heads of state since Elizabeth (the first one, not the current one.)

Of course at this point I'm willing to give a lot of leeway to the next potential candidate for PM so long as I actually get to choose who it is, and he isnt sh** useless.


That makes sense. As I told Greyhound, I wasn't aware of how complicated Britain's election process is, i.e. that one can't even run for PM unless he or she is already high up in the government and in the upper class.
Nor was I aware of how white the UK still is by percentage.


Class is not as clearly defined as it might appear. William Hague, one of the previous potentials for leadership, who led the Conservative party, lived in Wath (a yorkshire village near me, in the heart of Northern mining territory) and his dad ran a local pop factory. Not upper class in the proper sense, more working class done good. But yes, you do have to have jumped through some hoops before you become PM, probably because you are not actually head of state.


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DentArthurDent
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27 Jan 2009, 6:24 am

Its not so much about class (as in aristocracy) more about will you serve the purposes of the ruling class, which in contemporary terms means big buisiness. Obama or Clinton would have served this purpose; its just that Obama herded the sheep better.


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27 Jan 2009, 7:00 pm

Nambo wrote:
When the ruling white elite of Britain want a Black PM, then we will get one.

The ruling white elite of America spent a lot of money on promoting a Black President, you can be sure its for a reason other than thier love of Black Folk.

My guess is that they want a scapegoat for the total collapse of America or even the starting of Albert Pikes world war 3, that way, instead of taking the blame themselves, they can say, " nothing to do with us wh***y elites, no, see, it was that black fella, this is what happens when you give them a shot at power".


While I share your scepticism about the con that is Western democracy, I don’t really agree with you here. The US elites have been working towards the dispossession of America’s white majority for decades, so given this policy I don’t think they’re going to want to let Obama’s presidency engender in the general population any negative thoughts about black people. [Btw, a large proportion of the elites in the US are Jewish (especially in the media) and their anti-white strategies are quite understandable from the point of view of ethnic interests. Why the white elites have let this happen is harder to explain.]

As to my explanation of why the elites have been pushing so hard for Obama, I’m not sure. I think it is partly so that Obama the Messiah can keep the people hypnotised with ‘hope’ while the elites get on with their wrecking and plundering.

Anyway, Joe Biden said something interesting in October 2008. I don't quite know what to make of it. From counterpunch ( http://www.counterpunch.com/cockburn10242008.html )

“Mark my words,” Biden said solemnly at a Seattle fundraiser last Sunday. “It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We’re about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don’t remember anything else I said. Watch, we’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.”

“I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate,” Biden went on. He mentioned the Middle East and Russia. “And he’s gonna need help. And the kind of help he’s gonna need is, he’s gonna need you - not financially to help him - we’re gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it’s not gonna be apparent initially, it’s not gonna be apparent that we’re right.”

What exactly is Biden hinting at in that last sentence? From the context of that whole paragraph it’s clear enough to me he’s suggesting that despite hopes nourished by the sort of people at that Seattle fundraiser that post-Bush/Cheney America might backpeddle from hasty military confrontations, President Obama will stand tall and lose no time in going eyeball to eyeball with those who would test his resolve.



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27 Jan 2009, 7:20 pm

Wait, was the above just trying to make sense of a Biden quote? :lol:


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27 Jan 2009, 7:34 pm

Ragtime wrote:
As much as I worried, and still do a little, about Barack's policies, I have to admit it's kinda cool having a black president.

Will Britain ever elect a minority prime minister?

Any Western country who thinks themselves more progressive than the U.S. should have a minority head of state before making the claim.



When will Russia get its first Tatar or Kalmuk president? Thats what I wanna know. :wink:



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27 Jan 2009, 7:42 pm

Chibi_Neko wrote:
Canada really needs a black PM, Steve sucks so bad!! !


Obama is unique. I wouldn't count on our being able to find his Canadian equivalent.



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28 Jan 2009, 9:21 am

Who cares what colour, race or w/e they are? In all honesty all you people who are concerned about such things shouldn't be allowed to vote. A leader should be voted for by how efficient and effective you think their plans, ideas and promises will be and nothing more.



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28 Jan 2009, 10:39 am

Chibi_Neko wrote:
Canada really needs a black PM, Steve sucks so bad!! !

What a ridiculous statement. Just because the current Prime Minister is white and useless (in your opinion) it does not mean that only a black Prime Minister will be better or that you really need, quite specifically, a black Prime Minister.


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