SO, we have a new Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, the first from a visible ethnic minority background.

No diversity quotas required, no woke interventions, selected on merit, the son of a pharmacist from Southampton, made good. And a Conservative too!

Despite preaching equality, the Labour Party have so far been unable to practise what they preach.

The first, and so far, only other PM from an ethnic minority background was the great Conservative Benjamin Disraeli, who served during the time of Queen Victoria, helping shape the beginnings of modern Britain, along with that other famous PM of the era, Liberal William Gladstone.

Disraeli was ethnically Jewish, but was a practicing Anglican Christian, the family having converted after Isaac D'Israeli, the father of Benjamin, had a falling out with his local Rabbi. The Disraeli family were also originally from Italy, and dropped the apostrophe from D'Israelii, to help the family assimilate better as immigrants.

So a family of immigrant Italian Jews, through the combination of assimilation and a bit of a row with the local Rabbi, bestowed upon us one of the great reforming PMs of the 19th century, who gave working class men the vote, reformed Britain, and as a consequence prevented our great nation falling to violent, often socialist revolution, as was the grisly fate of pretty much all our unlucky European neighbours in the late 19th and early 20th century.

It is amazing to consider the barriers to this achievement for Disraeli. Even though he converted as a child, his political opponents openly used his Jewish heritage to campaign against him, bringing a donkey to his rallies and telling him to 'ride it back to Jerusalem'.

Thankfully, even back then the British people were largely immune to such crude bigotry, and they returned Disraeli to Parliament as Conservative PM on multiple occasions.

Disraeli was also seen as a patriotic right winger, and staunch defender of the British Empire to the point that he became a popular folk hero for working class people in the Victorian age.

It yet remains to be seen if PM Rishi Sunak makes as much of a mark on our age as Disraeli did on the 19th century.

It is however, after almost a 150-year long gap, proof yet again that post-Brexit Britain is not a racist country, and anyone who believes in Britain can make it to the job of Prime Minister, regardless of background, race or religion.

I think there is a spirit of goodwill in the country towards the new PM, that people are going to give him time to set out his stall and tackle the challenges the country is facing.

The challenges ahead are significant, and there is much to do. We must now get on with it, for the sake of the nation.