The British Chinese politician set to be first elected to Parliament
Alan Mak was in no mood to talk about his ethnicity ahead of his victory in Thursday's UK general election. The Conservative candidate told Peter Simpson he prefers to focus on local issues
The prospect of joining the illustrious list of British electoral firsts had put the great Chinese political hope in an irascible mood.
Alan Mak has no desire to be inked alongside the first woman prime minister, Margaret Thatcher; the first black members of parliament, Bernie Grant, Paul Boateng and Diane Abbott; the first South Asian MP, Dadabhai Naoroji; the first openly gay MP, Chris Smith; or any other notable political quantum leapers.
The British-born Chinese-Malaysian was adamant: he cared little for his ethnic identity, nor for how victory in the British general election on Thursday would make him the first elected Chinese MP in the parliament's 800-year history.
And he dismissed as naive the belief held by Chinese community leaders that having one of their own on the political frontline would help raise the profile and address the interests of the 500,000 or so British Chinese and East Asians, the country's third-largest ethnic group.
No, the Conservative parliamentary candidate for the safe seat of Havant, on the English south coast, was having none of it.
He certainly did not have any desire to talk to the media about his march into the history books - especially to any journalists from mainland China, Hong Kong or anywhere else on his ancestral continent. He turned down interview requests from the South China Morning Post and China Central Television, among others. Even when a whip was cracked by officials at the Conservative Party headquarters for him to meet with Post Magazine, he acquiesced with reluctance.