Could Britain have a black Prime Minister?

Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, told the Times that somebody like Barack would find it difficult to "break through the institutional stranglehold that there is on power within the Labour Party."

He told The Times the system was biased against change.

Mr Phillips said it was no coincidence that there were only 15 ethnic minority MPs ( It has 13 MPs from these backgrounds while the Conservatives have two and the Lib Dems presently have none.)

Mr Phillips said he believed the Conservatives had performed better than Labour in increasing the number of black and Asian parliamentary candidates.

"[The Conservatives] are less democratic. They are happier to impose candidates on the local parties."

He suggested that parties were reluctant to pick ethnic minority candidates in constituencies but he didn't blame voters but rather the political system.

However , Last month Mr Phillips warned more help was needed for areas where there was a "white underclass" which had been "neglected" by existing equalities policies.

And in 2004 he argued multiculturalism belonged to a different era and that all citizens should "assert a core of Britishness".

A Labour spokesman added: "This is the party that produced, among others, the first black woman MP, the first black minister, the first black woman minister, the first black Cabinet minister, the first black woman Cabinet minister and the first black woman mayor."