Who cares about Liz Truss’s ‘diverse’ cabinet?

‘Great offices of state set to contain no white men’ was the way one national newspaper reported the formation of the first Truss cabinet. In addition to Liz Truss, the positions of Chancellor, Foreign Secretary and Home Secretary would respectively be held by Kwasi Kwarteng, James Cleverly and Suella Braverman.

Of course, all this was presented as something incredibly new and exciting: real progress at work. In fact it isn’t remotely new. As Chancellor, Kwarteng follows those two famous white men Rishi Sunak and Nadhim Zahawi. As Home Secretary, Braverman succeeds Priti Patel and Sajid Javid. And now that Truss is Prime Minister she is the first woman to relieve us from male-dominated rule for a full three years. Also, after Theresa May, thank God a woman is back in charge, eh?

Nevertheless the diversity lobby remains ecstatic at the sheer diverseness of it all. Sunder Katwala, who runs a group called British Future, told the Times:

‘The most striking thing is how ordinary and extraordinary it is at the same time. This is an extraordinary pace of change even in two or three years, never mind a decade.’

And needless to say that is the only way to talk about this. The more the dastardly white man recedes into the background, the more positive change we will be undergoing. It reminds me of Ken Livingstone when he was mayor of London once telling me how thrilled he was that something like a third of Londoners were born outside of the UK. You got the distinct impression that he wouldn’t be happy until absolutely everybody in capital was not born in Britain.

All of this, naturally, is laced with false presumptions. For example, there is the notion that being a female leader is in some way better than being a male one. There are three reasons that somebody might think – or pretend to think – this. First, that since men have had the field for so long it is time to give women a turn; second, that the only post-war PM with any cojones was Margaret Thatcher and so the more female prime ministers you elect, the more likely you are to get another Thatcher; third – the view I call Christine Lagarde-ism – that women are the same as men and also magically better. (Lagarde, you may remember, often said that if Lehman Brothers had been Lehman Sisters, the crash of 2008 might never have happened. Because as every man reading this will know, women are preternaturally incapable of spending money unwisely.)

But the diversity cult has other presumptions too. It supposes that people who are not white bring some other types of perspective to their roles. ‘Diversity is our strength’ has long been one of the Pravda-style mantras of our era. Yet while diversity may bring some benefits, they are certainly not endless.

Nor is diversity necessarily transmitted through skin pigmentation. Kwarteng, for instance, was educated at Colet Court, Eton and Cambridge. Is it likely that he will bring a whole new set of insights to his new post by dint of his ‘diversity’? I would be surprised. Kwasi’s parents came to the UK from Ghana, and if the diversity lobby believe it would be advantageous were he to bring some Ghanaian economics to the mix, I have some history to tell them. Most likely Kwarteng’s ideas will reflect the education he received. His race will have nothing to do with it.

In any case, this is all such patronising rubbish. We have already had three years of Boris Johnson boasting about appointing the most diverse cabinet ever. And now it looks as if we are going to have another few years of Tories boasting about how wildly diverse they are. They will keep pointing out that Labour has never been led by anyone other than a white man. And yet despite all this, Labour MPs will still accuse the government of institutional racism. The entire Conservative party could to a man and woman be the product of Ghanaian parents and the whitey-white Labour would not change its line.

But there is another aspect of the diversity issue that needs to be mentioned – and that is the vast demoralising effect it has on the portion of the British population who are still the majority in this country. One of the problems with the more-diversity-the-better mantra is that it makes white people, and white men in particular, feel like they are not just a problem but the problem. As though their main task in life is to get out of the way.

Many prominent race hucksters across this country actually say as much: because white men did so many things in the past, white men today must step aside and allow other people to take positions of power. Of course, they will not be expected to step aside when it comes to tasks such as road-laying, pylon-fixing, refuse-collecting or any number of other low-income, low-esteem jobs. White men will still be permitted to do them. But in the rest of life it is time to back off.

There can be only two possible results from this. One is that in the name of diversity you demotivate most of the people in your country, and therefore most of the talent. The other is that you store up resentment among majority populations who over time come to notice that they are being passed over, talked down to and treated as less than. This would be a stupid thing to do to a minority community. To do it to a majority community is madness.

We shall see how our new cabinet performs. But if it gets on top of the numerous problems that our country faces, it will be because of the skill and ability of the people involved. After all, that has to be the case doesn’t it? Because if they fail, will it be down to the ‘diversity’? As they say, to ask the question is to answer it.

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