The new Shadow Cabinet: overwhelmingly white, privileged and heterosexual [View All]

[Hopeless Romantic]

I’ve done a quick audit of the Shadow Cabinet following last night’s election and Labour’s new front bench team emerges as a group of privileged, heterosexual white people.

Take their educational background. Of the 19 people elected, eight went to fee-paying schools and two went to grammars. Of the other three people in the Shadow Cabinet, two were educated privately and one at a grammar. In other words, a majority did not go to comprehensives. If you include Ed Miliband, six members of Labour’s front bench team did PPE at Oxford and nine went to either Oxford or Cambridge.

So much for social diversity. What about ethnic diversity? Not a single Briton of African-Caribbean origin was elected and the UK’s black and minority ethnic population is represented by just one man, Sadiq Khan. No Welshmen in the Shadow Cabinet either.

Sexual diversity? Admittedly, Labour scores a single point here – Angela Eagle is a lesbian – but no homosexual men were elected. Indeed, two of the Party’s most prominent homosexuals – Chris Bryant and Ben Bradshaw – were both surprise losers.

So much for the party of inclusion. If you’re a gay man or a man or woman of African-Caribbean origin there’s no room for you at the top of the modern Labour Party. On the contrary, your best bet of getting ahead is if you’re a white heterosexual who was privately educated and went on to study PPE at Oxford.


http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tobyyoung/100058028/just-how-diverse-is-the-shadow-cabinet/