I couldn't give two hoots about the amount of melanin a politician has - it doesn't factor into my thinking whatsoever. We have laws to deal with racism and they should be used and applied as quickly as possible.

And although I think there are racist people in the UK, I don't think the UK is racist. Not only did the Conservatives manage to elect a Hindu Prime Minister (who has been an abject failure) - they also managed to oust a useless white woman from the Home Counties within the amount of time it took for a lettuce to wilt. She was ably assisted by a Black Chancellor, who (as far as I can see) got sufficiently less grief overall than Gordon Brown got for his handling of the 2008 crisis or Normal Lamont got for the 1992 debacle.

Race isn't an issue. Competence is an issue. Competence and politics. Most British people intuitively understand this in 2024, the few that don't are quickly falling into political and social irrelevance. Great stuff. In the same way people shouldn't use race as a way to make a judgement, they also shouldn't use race to prevent judgement. Conflation of skin colour and criticism in either direction is fundamentally bad for democratic accountability.

Just another reason I'm a Penguin. ;o)