Phillips strikes at racism in the Labour party

After a week of Obama mania,the story on the front of this mornings Times is sure to heap some embarrasment on the Labour party.

The paper reports that Trevor Philips in an interview with the paper says

Barack Obama would never have been elected prime minister in this country because of “institutional racism” in the Labour Party.

and it continues

If Barack Obama had lived here I would be very surprised if even somebody as brilliant as him would have been able to break through the institutional stranglehold that there is on power within the Labour Party,” said the head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. He said that there was an “institutional resistance” to selecting black and Asian candidates. “The parties and unions and think-tanks are all very happy to sign up to the general idea of advancing the cause of minorities but in practice they would like somebody else to do the business. It’s institutional racism.”

Expect much reactions today

Could there be a British Obama one day?

In less than 24 hours the largest country in the world will probably have a Black president.

Could it happen here? Stephen Glover writes a very good piece in the Mail this morning asking where are the black Britons who could one day be our Obama?

Stephen writes that

one has to concede that the possibility of there being a black Prime Minister in this country in the foreseeable future is almost nil.
There are no budding political Lewis Hamiltons in the House of Commons. Among 645 MPs, only 15 are non-white, and it is not intended as any rudeness to say that none of them seems very likely to become Prime Minister or a party leader, or even to occupy one of the great offices of State.

It is an interesting point and the question is asked why in a country with racial divide it can happen but in a country of racial integration it cannot?

Perhaps part of the reason has to do with immigration. God knows, blacks in America have had a hard enough time of it, but at least as a social group they have lived in their country for a long time.
The ethnic minorities in this country are almost all descended from immigrants, some of them very recent, and it inevitably takes such communities some time to adjust to new social conditions.

Trevor Philips in a U turn?

It must be all the Mail's Xmas' coming at once as Benedict Brogan reports this morning that

Trevor Phillips will break with years of political convention to call for the law to be changed to enshrine positive discrimination in favour of disadvantaged whites

In an interview with the Mail he

said ministers should allow councils and education authorities to introduce 'positive action' programmes aimed specifically at young whites unable to compete with highly skilled immigrants because the 'need is so great'.
And he warned that immigration has fuelled 'resentments that are real and should not be dismissed – resentments felt by white, black and Asian'.

So is this a U turn from the eqaulities chief or is he simply playing to the audience?