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SHE’S A GONER: Theresa May

IT’S A historical moment. Not jsut for Britain but for the world and the universe. For this year only, as you heave heard, May will be ending in June.

When Theresa May stepped out of Number 10 to the lectern that was waiting for her in Downing Street last Friday morning, to announce that she’s a goner, it was the closest opportunity we have had to getting a black Prime Minister.

Alas, though, from the runners and riders who could not wait to throw their hats into the ring for the leadership of the party and, by default, the post of PM it seems like black Tories are simply on the backbenches to make up the numbers and not to be prima interpares among their colleagues. None of them have thrown their hat in the ring.

Former Tory candidate Loanna Morrison explained why: “Kwasi Kwarteng,” the old Etonian historian who seems to have settled comfortably in the backbenches since becoming the Member of Parliament for Spelthorne said, “doesn’t like controversy”. Politics is nothing if not controversy.

Morrison said multi-millionaire Adam Afriyie, the MP for Windsor who became the party’s first mixed heritage candidate back in 2005 and was apparently plotting a challenge to David Cameron’s leadership five years ago “made a bid for the leadership too early and since then he’s kept a very low profile. You cannot mount a bid for the leadership of the party if nobody sees you.”

Of Sam Gyimah, the former Universities Minister in the May government, Morrison was not convinced that he had what it takes to be leader.

INEXPERIENCED

That only leaves Kemi Badenoch, the rather youthful vice- chair of the party, of whom Morrison was much more optimistic. “Her time will come. I am sure she will rise to the top in the party eventually, but she’s still too young and inexperienced.”

It’s hard to argue with Morrison’s assessment of the current crop of black Tory MPs and why they don’t seem to have what it takes to become leader of their party and subsequently prime minister.

There are of course a couple of other black MPs on the Tory backbenches who stand even less of a snowball’s chance in hell of getting anywhere near the leadership of the Conservatives.

Which begs the question whether black Tories are made of the right stuff and whether or not their party has selected them just to have some black faces in its parliamentary ranks.

I am nevertheless hopeful that at least one of them has the right stuff, because it would be nice to see a black PM from each of the main parties in our lifetime. Why not? But that will be predicated on having the right people in place. It’s the same in any business.

It’s great to get back faces in the business, but it’s even better to get the right black faces in the business. That’s why I am completely chuffed and delighted that Jesus College, Cambridge University has made the absolutely right choice in appoint- ing its first woman Master in 500 years. What’s more, she’s a sista.

I have known Sonita Alleyne for 25 years now. I can tell you there are few business people as erudite as she is. Yonks back we presented a radio programme together – black Londoners on BBC GLR, and we both started our various companies around the same time.

In fact our offices were virtually next door to each other on Hoxton Square in the centre of London. In those days I saw her regularly, and when I got in touch the other day to congratulate her on this historic appointment, she confided in me that it had been a really rigorous and testing application process.

I am not, however, in the least bit surprised that she got through it smelling of roses, because she really is made of the right stuff. She turned her radio production company – Somethin’ Else – into one of the most success- ful in the country, within a few years.

It’s now worth many millions of pounds and I do not doubt for one moment that she will transform not only Jesus College but the whole of Cambridge University for the better. Trust me. Talking of having the right stuff, in case you didn’t know, some of the most prominent exponents of the theatre in Britain right now are all black.

With the great Kwame Kwei-Armah leading the charge as artistic drector of the Young Vic – he has been hotly followed by the incredible Hannah Pool who has become artistic director of the Bernie Grant Arts Centre, where she is gradually turning Tottenham (of all places) into one of the happening places to be for the arts – not least the dramatic ones.

SUCCESSFUL

And then you’ve got the indefatigable Femi Elufowoju Jnr who directed the best play of 2018, the hugely successful The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives, and has now been given a two-month residency at the Arcola Theatre in Hackney where he is staging his production of Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie.

I’m going to see it this week and will no doubt report back. But don’t wait on me. Go and see it yourself. If Baba Segi’s Wives is anything to go by, Elufowoju is hotter than July in theatre.

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