Can we have a British Obama? Yes we can

James J

It should also be remembered that the USA is a country of immigrants and Britain, despite the nonsense now taught, is a country with immigrants.
The media live in their own country: London.This could certainly have a black mayor.
When will France have an Arab PM? Or Israel a Palestinian or Christian?

Verity

What a weird thing to be obsessing about! Obama is the sly beneficiary of 300 years of black history (suffered by others; not his own family) in the United States. But the black presence in the United States has been there almost from the beginning of the United States. The black people were captured, bought like livestock by Arab slavers and transported across the Atlantic in holds of slave ships in chains. They were then auctioned off like animals once they reach America. It doesn't bear thinking of.

The terrain of Britain has belonged to us for thousands of years and our entire history and culture is Anglo-Saxon.

To try to posit a parallel is not possible. It's not black and white, its history and culture.

The black people - and I use black in the proper sense, which is Negro, not other races like Oriental - who are prominent in Britain have been stuck onto our society like decals. Does anyone imagine, in their most generous dreams, that Trevor McDonald would have risen to national prominence without being black? The dire Trevor Phillips? Local councillor at best. Maybe a headmaster in a state school. Diane Abbott I'll give you. I don't like her politics, but she has the oomph and the quick wit to have risen without "positive discrimination". But no one in Britain was brought to Britain in chains and sold in public auction. They came of their own free will, to better themselves.

The comparison is silly. (I could easily, though, imagine an Indian (Hindu or Sikh) PM because of our 350 year involvement with India and we feel familial towards Indians. But again, that would be for a totally different set of reasons.

Ray

If the next prime minister was as courageous and tenacious a champion of free market Toryism as Margaret Thatcher was then, frankly, I wouldn't care whether he or she was black, white, yellow or pink with blue spots!

Frank P

'Can we have a British Obama? Yes we can'

James, you really should pay more attention to the commentariat, or don't you bother to read the comments of your customers. We already had our 'Barack Obama' - Anthony Blair.

To address your very racialist point, he may not have had a black skin but he certainly had the same deceitful, narcissistic black heart and it was a black day for Britain when he was elected.

He handed his country over to counter-culture vultures; we have already seen the deleterious result of that. America will also experience the same level of pain. You may wish to sow further seeds in the minds of readers that it is right to cede to racial demands of crypto commies; but some of us are impervious.

Today a little more subliminal garbage was injected into the airwaves of Britain on Radio Five Live. I was listening to sports news and some breezy culture warrior jock emphasised that Barack Obama’s half-sister's cousin was a West Ham fan and that The One himself once attended a match there. Barack Obama! Himself! All ye sick and lame, the new Shrine of Healing is situated at the Boleyn Ground! Mind you, you may have to watch some crappy football while you're queuing to be touched by the duty surrogate for Barry, his fifteenth Scottish cousin twice removed (yes - the idiot on Radio five attributed Scottish ancestry to The One also. I can well believe that but until he appears in a feckin' kilt ...), but I'm sure it will be worth the wait - but best leave it – unless you are virtually terminal, until Arsenal are playing away there, if you want to see some decent football at the same time.

Ye Gods! Forsyth. You've marched with the acolytes and installed a mulatto of dubious heritage, ancestry and leftist associates into the White House, you obviously won't be satisfied until Radford Howe aka Darcus Owusu aka Darcus Howe is installed in No.10. Isn't it bad enough that the other egregious Jock is already incumbent?

Btw when did the New Statesman take over this magazine?

Verity

Why do people always say things like "I wouldn't care whether he or she was black, white, yellow or pink with blue spots!" (Always with an exclamation point - as though the thought was original and daring.)

The statement is self-defeating because there are no people who are pink with blue spots. This means that notional people who are pink with blue spots have no history in the minds of others. Other people have no opinion of them because they don't exist. This thought always irritates me.

I think it would be fun to have a robust Aussie.

David

I see the celts, romans, danes et al done figure in verity's history of the uk.
Not to mention white slavers.
I'm certainly not anglo-saxon.

The Dandiprat

Must we?

Chris Gilmour

Could they no have had a Hispanic President?

Verity

David - Who accused you of being Anglo-Saxon? We don't even know you.

Of course the Celts, the Romans, the Danes (et n'oubliez pas les Normands!) figure in our history. What has that got to do with anything?

BTW, just as a point of glancing interest, did y'all know there was an Indian restaurant in London during William Makepeace Thackeray's time? He used to go there for dinner sometimes. Isn't that great?

Summer

Racist, racist, racist, piece. The person who is the UK Prime Minister should be the best person to create a united, stable, thriving, prosperous country. MP's should be the best there is for the job. END OF STORY.

Picking people because they are this or that or the other demographic type is idiotic - as America will soon find out. No reason why the Prime Minister should not be of oriental racial origin, if they are the best for the job. But they must be fully prepared to stand up for everything that is British, and know what that means in every bone of their body!!!

And, by the by, when do you think we will see our next white South African Premier??? Or what about a Muslim heading up India? Or a Jew/Christian being head of state of Saudi?

Trevor Phillips is jumping on the bandwagon peddling his racial wares again. His organization should be disbanded and replaced with one promoting national unity and integration.

idle

Is there a black middle class in Britain anywhere near the size of America's? That's where a national leader will come from. The working class will throw up the very odd exception like Bill Morris, but he is hardly the minimum calibre we need for a PM.

David

What has that got to do with anything?

Well it makes this patent rubbish:
The terrain of Britain has belonged to us for thousands of years and our entire history and culture is Anglo-Saxon.

mac

James, steady on, please. This is afternoon TV, Grauniad earnest self-flagellation or Harriet Harman 'conscience of the nation' material.

@ Verity:
"I think it would be fun to have a robust Aussie." Hell, who can you mean? Not Kevin Rudd, nor the immigrant Clive James and Germaine Greer. So is it Rolf Harris? Kylie? Ah, I see where you're going, a de jure premier rather than the de facto one, ie Dirty Digger the Sun King?
And:
"Does anyone imagine, in their most generous dreams, that Trevor McDonald would have risen to national prominence without being black?"
Well the utterly wooden Huw Edwards is numero uno at the BBC, so why not? And then there's Kirsty Wark. Is there a pattern here, perhaps?

Water

Bravo Summer the first paragraph sums it up.

Also Verity may we should not forget (this isn't to say that you have) the tribal African leaders role in selling their own people as well, people are people many of them fallen. Conjures thoughts of the rev.

Anyway just something lighthearted for the weekend.

JimBob

As an aside, the moment I picked up the Times today and read the lead 'Labour racism would block British Obama',I wondered how the NuLab Propaganda Unit would be spinning the story.

Sure enough, the BBC have 'Bias would hamper British Obama' and the article reads as if it were written by a NuLab MP in defence of the party.

James J

Verity
DNA evidence does not support the Celt/Anglo-Saxon/Norman etc mix. In fact the linguist Stephen Oppenheimer using both DNA and the way language mutates (The Origin of the British-a genetic detective story) believes Germanic speaking tribes lived in England prior to the Roman invasion. There are doubts about whether there was an Anglo-Saxon ‘invasion’.DNA evidence seems to support a pretty stable population in these islands for millennium.
As it does not suit the current orthodoxy we have to hear about Huguenots and Vikings as if there were millions of them.

Verity

Water - Absolutely! Who captured the people and sold them to the Arab slavers? It was their own leaders. Sold their own people into slavery. Had it not been for their assistance, does anyone think the Arab slavers would have known how to track people down in the jungle and capture them? They were betrayed by their own leaders. Chills the blood.

Idle this was a stupid question and you shouldn't be taking it seriously. I addressed the reasons why above.

Summer - Agreed. Trevor Phillips is a sleaze. And a third/fourth-rater. He got where he is because of lap dog reverse discrimination.

Mac - It hadn't even occurred to me that it would be an Aussie who was in Britain and has been ironed out. I'd rather have one from Oz. John Howard would be my choice. A real conservative, unlike smarmy David Cameron.

Tiberius

If anyone wants to see a portrayal of the absurdity of seeing events through the prism of racial difference, watch episode 70 of Star Trek The Original Series, entitled "Let Thats Be Your Last Battlefield".

Libby

Just drop the PC method of job selection and give us a country run on competence.

mac

@Water: "Anyway just something lighthearted for the weekend."
Not a Guardian reader then, H2O? Gary Younge or Yasmin A-B would have you tarred and feathered.

Chief-Running-For-Office

West-Indians' make up about .08% of the population, and Africans' about 1% - and they didn't come here as slaves, they came here as immigrants.

We don't have an 'original sin' as Simon Schama put it, to cleanse our souls of. And anyway, as I always understood it, Americas 'original sin' was stealing the land from the 'Injuns'. Why not give a native American a shot at running for the white house in 2012. I'm game.

Chief Running-For-Office & Whiteman-who-likes-to-jump-on-the-bandwaggon '12!

Hayward Maberley

Verity,
I have decided against the best advice of family and fellow bloggers “To Feed The Troll” .
But when you spout such nonsense as ;
“The terrain of Britain has belonged to us for thousands of years and our entire history and culture is Anglo-Saxon.”
&
“Of course the Celts, the Romans, the Danes (et n'oubliez pas les Normands!) figure in our history. What has that got to do with anything?
What about some historical facts.
The Scots, Welsh, Irish and Cornish Celts occupied large parts of the British Isles before and after the Scandinavians/Anglo-Saxons arrived. Scotland was an independent country until the Act of Union in 1707. Wales was independent from around the 5th C. following the Roman departure until the 13th C. when it was finally conquered by the Normans. Ireland suffered the same fate about the same time. Cornwall was the only Celtic land to have been absorbed into Anglo Saxon England by the time the Normans arrived.
So the” thousands of years” is actually less than one thousand for most of the British Isles
These Celts through their descendants might have something to remark upon in your dismissal of their continuing culture and occupation of significant areas of the UK. The various Celtic language groups are still around. The Celtic peoples have made and continue to make great contributions in all areas of UK society including Science,Technology and the Arts.
The Romans as conquerers then colonisers laid the foundations for a more organised state. They were great civil/military engineers. They also introduced what are now called “Western Values” with their own assimilation of the philosophy and culture of Greece and other Mediterranean countries. Early Roman Christianity was also introduced by them.
The Danes can probably be classed, as can the Anglo-Saxons with the other Scandinavian invaders, whom the Danes often co-opted to help in their invasion/pillaging around Europe. This led to the Danegeld, probably the first widely based tax in the British Isles. It was so successful in extracting large amounts of silver and gold that the Normans kept it on to fund their military adventures and the excesses of Royalty
The Normans as the last people to invade England and then other parts of the British Isles had probably the most effect on the then culture and way of life. They brought feudalism, Norman law and the Norman French language. They dispossessed the inhabitants, whether of Celtic or Scandinavian origin, of the land placing it under the feudal system. They imposed their legal system and language thus laying the basis for Common Law. It could be said that they were also the first to introduce an official accounting and stock taking system with the Domesday Book.
What has that got to do with anything?
Well these ancestors of the inhabitants of the British Isles had a lot to do with many things.

Elect The House Of Lords!

The British ruling class has no intrinsic bias against any race or creed just a terror of the working and lower middle classes, particularly someone from populous southern England, ever holding power.

I could quite easily imagine a black person, either from an impoverished working class Scottish/regional background or from a very aristocratic/privileged background (or married into one), becoming prime minister.
He or she must have an instinctive resentment towards the aspirations of the common people of southern England, for the Southern English, London based, British establishment to accept them in power.

Coming from a minority might actually be an advantage. The British establishment can trust someone from a minority more than a white protestant British male because if their black prime minister were to ever step out of line they could quite easily appeal to the racist instincts of the majority British population to justify a coup.

Dual Citizen

There are also other ways around the traditional party structures now. For instance, the London Mayoralty now presents an alternative route to national prominence.

Quite right James. This is the first time in 48 years that a sitting congressman has been elected president.

Neither Obama nor McCain won their nominations the British way, which would have required cowtowing to each party's elite for many years.

Making more local executive positions directly elected and accountable to their local people will provide more opportunities for more people of all races to get national prominence. And it might just improve local services along the way.

Hayward Maberley

Chief-Running-For-Office
“We don't have an 'original sin' as Simon Schama put it, to cleanse our souls of.”

Well Chief you obviously are unaware of the Triangular Trade.
From England the Outward Passage was bound for Africa with a cargo of cloth, guns and ammunition, metals, slave bead and trinkets . These would be traded for slaves either sold by Arab traders, captured in intertribal wars or sometime sold/tricked by their own tribal chiefs. The Middle Passage was that shipping of the slaves to either the West Indies or various ports in the then Colonies of North America.
The Home Passage from the West Indies carried indigo, molasses, rum and sugar products of those slave plantations. That from the Colonies in North America carried indigo, rice, tobacco and cotton from those slave plantations.

Yes I agree someone from the First Nations running for President in 2012 would be a great idea. What First Nation are from Chief?

biggestaspidistra

is it just me or does anyone else think Coffee House gone completely down the drain?

roger nett

As a black man who has spent some time monitoring Trevor Phillips constant search for relevancy with his prima donna posturing, I have to say that he is undoubtedly a first class idiot and hypocrite. It was widely publicised , in February 2008, that Phillips heavily criticized the Obama candidacy by suggesting that the election of Obama would prolong the racial divide. Furthermore, he stated that Obama was taking advantage of his mixed heritage by playing on the guilt of white people. I believe that there are many individuals from an ethnic background who aspire to be Prime Minister and I encourage political participation. However, I for one, would be grateful for any political party that would sift out a self serving nonentity like Phillips if he aspired to be elected to the highest Public Office. Can you imagine Prime Minister Trevor Phillips in charge of the UK- Now that would be a serious set back for race relations.

Gordon Musgo-soon

Could we elect an Obama? Would anyone with two years of national-level politics ever be in line for PM here? With no experience in cabinet or shadow? No, no ,no.

Would we ever have a PM who came from an ethnic group comprising less than 10% of the population itself containing a significant percentage who want nothing to do with the UK?

Well, that's the situation now, isn't it?

Tory Lion

Verity, I think you have a slightly warped view of Britain's involvement in slavery. To say that “no one came to Britain in chains and were all here of their own free will”is slightly misleading... tell that to the small black child-slaves who were the height of fashion for upper class ladies in the 18th century.

And let's not forget that some of the main profiteers from the slave trade were in fact the Brits who sent slave ships regularly back and forth over the Atlantic amassing huge fortunes. The fact that we were one of the first to abolish the slave trade does not excuse us from our involvement and there are still a lot of great British families with terrible slaving pasts.

On the main point of the article - it is as much the responsibility of our society and our system to accept the increase in black candidates as it is also the responsibility of the candidates to be prepared for the roles and put themselves forward. I don't like positive discrimination, and I hate to think in our modern society that someone who is black would get a position over someone who is white based on racial grounds just as much as the other way round... as Summer and Libby have both said - select on competence and ability to run the country. Period.

andrew

I am sure britain is ready for a non white prime minister. The world is becoming a global village and the more interaction there is between people of different ethnicity and ideals the more we realise everyone is good at heart. In britain ir would take a very inspirational figure like obama and the right circumstances. Just look at a country like India - a country you would least expect an 'outsider' to be chosen as prime minister but after the 2004 elections a white, italian, roman catholic, woman was asked to take the mantle of prime minister. It was only because Mrs. Sonia Gandhi did not want to take the executive role despite pressure from all sides for her to do so that india, this highly politically charged and in some ways ethnically and religiously divided country did not have an italian born prime minister.

Fergus Pickering

IF a black politician appeared who didn'tthink his or her first responsibility was to black people, then such a person could indeed become PM. But no such person exists at the present. Mrs Thatcher was a woman, but she did not think her first responsibility was to women. She was elected onlysixty years after the first woman got the vote. On te other hand it took well over a hundred years after black men getting the vote in the USA for Obama to get the presidency. So we are ahead in the game, if you see what I mean.

Water

Verity - I am glad we agree in the lead up to Christmas, but alas as you say “They were betrayed by their own leaders” like crabs in a bucket, the trappings of worshipping false idols or equally as badly letting them come to bear authoritative and influential fruit with positions of communal power.

Mac - they would try but they would fail mwahaha! Hence why I comment on this one as opposed to the Guardian, though I do occasional peer into that paper, but I have always preferred the Telegraph. Something splendid for the weekend indeed!

James J

Interesting to think that a “Black” West Indian is much more likely to be descended from a slave owner or white overseer than an average Briton.
Multi-Racial societies are experimental. We look to the USA to see if there is any chance they can work as there are hardly large numbers of successful ones we can study.
As Hispanics overtake white Europeans as the largest group in the USA—about 2040—we will probably get a run of Hispanic presidents and US policy shifting towards South America and away from Europe and the Middle East.

DM

You have only to look at the phenomenonly successful and highly popular TV show, The X Factor, to show that Britain on a Saturday night votes in its millions for talent, not skin colour.
I don't believe when it comes to politics the British electorate would behave any differently.

What counts is whether people in minorities want to get involved in the first place and that the party machinery recognises and promotes talent.

Frank P

DM

Talent? The X Factor? .....!
Bring back Carol Levis.

HJ

I think the taxpayer would be better off if it didn't have to pay large amounts of money to keep Trevor Phillips in an unproductive job.

However, I think he has a point that the party machines in the UK are way behind the electorate. This is why so many politicians - often spectacularly incompetent people (and obviously so) - get successfully selected to be candidates and why much more normal and intelligent people don't. You have to pander to the ridiculous beliefs, prejudices and groupthink of political party memberships to stand any chance of being selected - and normal people who think for themselves don't want to do this. This is generally true - race is just one example and not a very significant one at that.

Incidentally, I don't think that John Taylor was rejected in 1992 because he was black. He was rejected because a local party didn't like having him foisted on them from the centre. That John Taylor came across as incredibly pompous, self-important and with an overwhelming aura of entitlement can't have helped either. He seemed to think that he was so perfect that the only reason they rejected him was his colour. I remember at the time thinking that although I couldn't care less about his colour, I hated his smug self-importance and wouldn't have wanted him had I been in their shoes