To find it hilarious Labour claim to be the progressive party when they’ve only ever elected white men for leader

[BooToYouHalloween]

We now have the fourth elected (by the party) female Conservative leader. She is also the first black female leader and second person of colour.

Whereas the Labour Party have never voted in a woman or person of colour to be leader in their history. (Acting leader doesn’t count.) And yet people think they’re the more progressive party. I genuinely find it funny.

As it is in the case of Kemi ‘To the Right of Thatcher’ Badenoch.

It hasn't "gone without commentary".
You've commented in it yourself.

All those 4 leaders have been useless and extremely damaging to the UK.

Thatcher destroyed manufacturing and Truss cost the country 100s of billions, money which could have been used to lower our national debt and to improve public services.
May was weak and achieved nothing.

Labour do out strip, proportionately, the Cons on the number of female MPs or doesn't that matter to you?

Welsh Labour elected a black male leader. He’s now been replaced by a white woman.

Oh god forbid.

However, I'm not Kemi. Unlike Rachel, she has sincerely not mentioned it. Unlike Rachel, she hasnt had a mediocre white male actor wish publicly that she didn't exist.

Rachel has mentioned her position in the budget, in a programme outside of her normal duties and it was mentioned when she became chancellor.

Lets not pretend that Rachel hasn't banged on about it.

Yes really progressive to want to advance the rights of males with identities above women's sex based rights.

Labour has a problem with women.

It's not "weird". You may find it unnecessarily self congratulatory. Not "weird" though.
A bit like Sadiq Khan referring to himself often as the son of a bus driver.
No doubt you would find that "weird" or "cringe" as well.

The stupid thing about all this is I don't even like Kemi.

She thinks my disabled daughter (6 yo) somehow gets advantages her non disabled counterparts don't.

Nah, like Kamala says - its ''weird''

Well. How odd. I'm not "pretending" anything.
Just questioning some rather odd claims about weirdness and "cringe" (sic).
Whatever.
We shall see what Ms Badenoch does. I will judge her on her actions, not her sex or ethnicity.

Kamala thinks Rachel is weird?
Ok. 🙄I think this is where I leave this particular conversation.....

Same with Rachel then, her sex is irrelevant, right?

Of course. That is my entire point.

That is not what I said.

Anyway, so when is the female education secretary going to detail SEND reform?

My disabled daughter wants to know when Labour will actually stand up for children like her.

Except for you arguing that it isn't cringe for Rachel circle jerking herself about it.

There is a lot more to being progressive than electing a female leader. The ones the conservative party have elected haven't had any progressive policies at all. Rather the reverse!

I actually think Labour would elect a black female leader if there was a candidate up to the job. But I don't see anyone of that calibre, Diane Abbott and Dawn Butler are only two with any profile but I think both aren't leadership material.

I guess the other countries in the UK don't count then?

There have of course been female Labour leaders. Here in Scotland we've had, from memory, Kezia Dugdale and Wendy Alexander.

I am deeply left wing and would describe myself as progressive (more left and more progressive than current Labour).

I agree with OP @BooToYouHalloween that Labour have a significant issue with diversity in their "talent" pool. Why are they not developing and supporting candidates from minority ethnic backgrounds? Why has it taken so long for Labour to get women in to the top cabinet jobs, never mind the leader role? Looking at the way Diane Abbot was treated, I don't see how you can support progressive politics and not see that Labour has a really bad record on this. I'm really shocked so many posters are minimising the issue.

I have no idea what that sentence means.
Anyway.
I hope your disabled daughter gets better provision than mine did under the Cameron government..

Thank you. She has independent specialist provision granted to her by the previous Sunak administration.

Her school is about to lose the business rates relief, though, so likely this excellent school of hers won't be able to help more children.

Personally I would rather have someone with who I feel most closely aligns with my moral compass . So with the exception of the 'what is a woman' issue .. that would be Keir Starmer and the Labour Party by several hundred miles .

I care not one iota about the colour of their skin or what sex they are . I care about their policies ..

As much as it’s fair to say the sex or race of a candidate shouldn’t matter, I think it’s highly significant that any mainstream political party - let alone one that claims to stand for progressive politics and equality - has managed to get to 2024 without electing a woman or person of colour as their leader. And no chancellor doesn’t count because it’s not a position voted on by members is it?

Perhaps it’s unsurprising given that, as pp have said, not only do most Labour politicians not seem to know what a woman is (no David Lammy, men can’t “grow a cervix”) they’re also the only party to have been investigated by the ECHR for racism over their appalling record of antisemitism.

Perhaps for some people it doesn’t matter if their policies align (as was the case in Germany in the 1930s) but I personally think it’s a shocking fact/statistic (the word “hilarious” in the OP being used semi-ironically but actually yes on one level the utter 1984-ness of it is quite funny).

Well precisely! And tbf there's absolutely no reason why being black, Asian etc would have anything to do with being a person being politically progressive. Diverse doesn't mean left wing, it means everything across the spectrum. So OP is being particularly simplistic finding this so revelatory and, erm, hilarious.

The numbers factor that a PP pointed out is important context too. Easy to have more female and people of colour in leadership positions when you've got through leaders at the rate the Tories have. Literally anyone is in with a chance!

The great thing about the Tory Party is that they change leaders so frequently that everyone gets a chance to be leader. I myself am booked in to take the top spot from 8th-10th January 2025.