Firstly, a confession about my struggle with WordPress. I am used to working with Typepad and I find it more user friendly – hence the gap between some of my words and the lack of my name on one occasion!
I hear your comments about Firefox and will pass those on. I have difficulty with the spell checker not because it’s unusable but because initially it was not readily available on the tool bar and it is in my view less clear than alternative systems. But these are minor issues when set against the success of lordsoftheblog generally. Personally I am very impressed by the quality of the posts and comments.
Ladytizzy raised a point about Mary Seacole and black people. Mary was voted the most popular black Briton a few years ago in a national poll. As I said she is buried in my old constituency. She is a role model from a much earlier age but there are many others. How many of you know that the first ethnic minority MP was elected in the 1880’s? Anyone know who?
When I was a child in the 1940’s my doctor in east London was a Jamaican. He was mixed race and tried to hide his ethnicity. He tried to straighten his hair and lighten his complexion. We have come a long way since then – thank heavans!
Finally the Chief warns me as does Ladytizzy against giving yet more examples of my incredible ignorance about football. Your right Chief! Theo didn’t score – he set the goal up. My son has put his head in his hands – I wonder why!!
No, though I’ve looked it up for anyone interested:
“The first ethnic minority MP to be elected was Dadabhai Naoroji, who was the Liberal MP for Finsbury Central from 1892 to 1895.”
http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/research/notes/snsg-01156.pdf
But you could go back much earlier, say to the C16, to find other ‘first ethnic minority’ MPs, such as the Welsh. As the link above comments:
“Analysis of ethnic minority representation is notoriously problematical. Ethnicity is a highly sensitive issue and work such as this generally relies on self-definition.”
Spot on Ladytizzy – no prices unfortunately! Dadabhai Naoroji was the first ethnic minority MP that we are aware of and his picture use to hang in the Members tea room.
Britain has far more ethnic mix amongst our past leaders than we are often aware of. I am told that Queen Caroline was mixed race for example.
Nonsense. The first ethnic minority MP was Lionel de Rothschild in 1847. He couldn’t take his seat until 1858 as he was Jewish and therefore unable to swear the then Oath.
Jewish people ARE an ethnic minority, according to the UN, the EU and English case law.