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UK PM Liz Truss Becomes First To Form A Cabinet Without White Men On Top

For the longest time, the UK government had white men ruling the top layers of the cabinet until 2002 when Britain appointed its first ethnic minority cabinet minister, Paul Boateng as the chief secretary to the Treasury.

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New Prime Minister of UK Liz Truss
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In a first, United Kingdom's newly-appointed Prime Minister Liz Truss has selected a cabinet that will not have a white man occupying the four top most important ministerial posts.  

Truss has appointed  Kwasi Kwarteng – whose parents came from Ghana in the 1960s – as Britain's first Black finance minister while James Cleverly is the first Black foreign minister. 

Kwarteng will be succeeding Indian-origin Rishi Sunak in the finance job.

Indian-origin barrister Suella Braverman succeeded Priti Patel to become the second ethnic minority home secretary, or interior minister, where she will be responsible for police and immigration.

 James Cleverly will become the first Black foreign minister of UK. 

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The growing diversity is in part thanks to a push by the Conservative Party in recent years to put forward a more varied set of candidates for parliament.

For the longest time, the UK government had white men ruling the top layers of the cabinet until 2002 when Britain appointed its first ethnic minority cabinet minister, Paul Boateng as the chief secretary to the Treasury.

Speaking to Reuters, an expert from think-tank British Future, focused on migration and identity said, "Politics has set the pace. We now treat it as normal, this diversity. The pace of change is extraordinary".

However, this can be seen as a small step towards diversity as the upper ranks spread across business, the judiciary, the civil service and the army are all still predominately white.

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