Here are the names of the contenders to take over from disgraced caretaker UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson: Rishi Sunak, Sajid Javid, Ben Wallace, Suella Braverman, Jeremy Hunt, Liz Truss, Dominic Raab, Penny Mordaunt, Nadhim Zahawi, Tom Tugendhat, Kemi Badenoch, Rehman Chishti.
Here are some of the contenders for leadership of the major parties in Australia during the various spills of the past decade and a bit: Scott Morrison, Anthony Albanese, Bill Shorten, Peter Dutton, Julie Bishop, Malcolm Turnbull, Julia Gillard, Kevin Rudd, Tony Abbott, John Howard.
Put it this way: when it comes to contenders for leadership, the British Conservative Party has managed, in one sitting, to have three candidates of Indian heritage. The major parties of Australia have, collectively, had two women run for the top job in more than 10 years. Oh, and there’s Albanese’s Italian heritage.
Of course it doesn’t follow that a more diverse parliament necessarily results in progressive or good policy — Badenoch and Braverman have both been critical of the UK’s net-zero targets, and mostly everyone in the mix so far is pushing for tax cuts and keeping the Tories’ inhumane “Rwanda plan” towards refugees.
But it’s yet another sign of the ongoing (if slowly improving — the current Parliament is our most diverse) failure of Australian politics to match the breakdown of Australian society.
It’s more of a class divide rather then a colour divide there though.
One country has 67 million to chose from the other country has 25 million.One country is the size of a postage stamp the other is a Continent. So the population and social dynamics cannot be compared.
I don’t think this article is saying much. OK, the contending rivals in the UK may be more ‘diverse’ than ours, but it’s only on the basis of national and ethnic heritage; they’re all very right wing, horrible, and likely to have been to the most expensive British private boarding schools. It’s almost an oxymoron to speak of socio-economic or cultural diversity amongst the Tories. The other thing to remember is that there are 365 Conservative MPs in the House of Commons, so sheer numbers are going to produce more rivals for the leadership position than the couple of viables we get here for each party. And the selection system – by about 250,000 Conservative party members (‘mostly white men living in the south of England’ according to one article I read) – also gives rise to the emergence of more candidates than simple vote by parliamentary caucus. The present open race is also very much the product of (fluid) pro and anti-Boris stances and jostling within the party.
Am beginning to grow a little testy when it comes to implied denigration and use of the term ‘white men’?
The two pictures above tell the story, hence the short article I guess.
How come Julia GIllard’s not’ pictured?
It wouldn’t fit the facile, false parameters of this tawdry piece of tattered filler.
It would really help if those discussing political careers looked at class as well as ethnicity.
The reason why Anthony Albanese is so unusual as an Australian PM is his background. He is the first Australian PM since the 1940s to come from a working class background, and I think possibly the first ever to come from a background of welfare dependency and poverty. I only hope his government returns the opportunities he was given by past governments – too much was stripped away by Howard, Gillard, Abbott, & Morrison. A young Albanese would find it exceedingly hard to climb so high so soon today.
Not if he found, as did ‘young Albo’, another Wotevs to gofer.