Are There Any Black People In Britain Who Count?

originally published in 2017

Are there any black people in Britain? 

Or rather are there any black people in Brittan who are qualified to run ministries, shape national policy or act as advisors to senior Tory decision makers?

You wouldn't think so if you took a look at the make up of Theresa May's cabinet. 

Every time I look at this photo I want to puke.

This is a UK cabinet of national government formed in 2017; it could easily be an off the pier UKIP gathering in a cramped Brighton hotel, or the first meeting of a new steering committee formed to fend off reparation claims from the former colonies. 

This photograph is either a national disgrace or it merely reveals the national disgrace of racism and crony elitism at the heart of true power politics the UK.  Look at this offensive garbage. Even the back room staff and the camera crew are all white (and the same goes for their shadows).

I must be missing something.

What do these Ministers(who are overwhelming from the most socially segregated educational institutions in the country) know about Africa, Asia, China, Russia, Pakistan or the Middle East? What nugget of All Empowering Universal Insight have they accrued from their myopic, rural dustbin church of England backgrounds, their elitist bank and city work experiences, their European locked holidays and heroically mono-ethnic Anglo-Saxon family circles, that indicates they possess a glimmer of the empathy and knowledge required to influence the political and national affairs of foreigners in far afield places, let alone within their own inner cities.

Again, “Are there any black people who are qualified to run ministries, shape national policy or act as advisors to senior Tory decision makers?

Before answering that question please consider the staggering political ineptitude displayed by Theresa May and her highly paid advisors over the past few weeks, then factor in the sheer stupidity of the Cameron/Osborne sanctioned referendum, and then throw in the colossal acts of misjudgement at home and abroad by the likes of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. And then ask yourself how it is that a bar that can stand so pitifully low can still be too high for a raft of alternative actors to take their place at a table of government that has hosted, and continues to host, such a stunning bunch of ignorant incompetents.