After Obama, could it happen here? Yes, in 1868

I don't imagine too many CentreRight readers are losing sleep over Trevor Phillips' complaints that Britain's political system isn't fit for allowing an ethnic minority politician like Obama to rise to be Prime Minister. But it's worth highlighting Dizzy and Croydonian's excellent posts yesterday, which point out that bizarrely Phillips' figures for ethnic minority MPs don't even include people of Jewish ethnicity. If they did, the picture wouldn't be nearly as stark as Phillips paints it.

Which leads of course to the correct answer to all those why-oh-why liberal columnists asking worriedly since Obama' victory if "it could ever happen here" - 'it' being an ethnic minority rising to the very top of British politics?

Yes - in 1868.