Whats amused you (in the news) today ?

Rookie error... you've overlooked rule number one of the discrimination industry rulebook: people of white can never be victims. 

Others can be mortally offended, but we have to suck it up.  Always been that way.  

Yes, us white people are so oppressed, so deprived.

We SHOULD have every single position of power! It's our birthright, dammit! How very dare THEY try to deprive us of just a fraction of it?

 

So all the author is saying is that the 30 chairs taken as a whole are excessively white.  It's hard to disagree with that, and it is not remotely racist to say it.
 

I'd like to try to bring some sense back to this discussion.  How many of the people commenting here have actually read the linked article?

The words "hideously white" appear twice, both times in quotes. First in the headline of the article:

In a diverse Commons, why are the hands on our levers of power ‘hideously white’?

And secondly in the concluding paragraph, reproduced below:

"In parliament’s shop window, we have the most diverse house ever with Priti Patel, Rishi Sunak, Kwasi Kwarteng and Sajid Javid in powerful public roles, but in committee-land, where important stuff happens without the Punch and Judy style spectacle, it’s still “hideously white” (as Greg Dyke once described the BBC). As we head into 2022, is that acceptable?"

Plainly the sense used by Greg Dyke, and that intended to be understood by readers of the article, is that of very/excessively.  

The article's key message is summarised beneath the title, as follows:

"There are 30 chairs of the key select committees. Not one is a black or minority ethnic MP. It’s not a good look"

So all the author is saying is that the 30 chairs taken as a whole are excessively white.  It's hard to disagree with that, and it is not remotely racist to say it.

All that said, the choice of headline was unwise.  As the discussion here shows, the language used could easily be taken out of context and misinterpreted or wilfully misapplied.

Edit:  Crossed with the last post of agent69 .  I'd add that 16% vs 20% is not significantly different, but 0% vs 20% is very significant indeed!

Not gaining the benefit of positive discrimination is not the same as being discriminated against.

Your colleagues gained an interview they may not have had based on merit alone.
You did not have that opportunity, so your application was purely judged on merit - while you failed to be interviewed because your application was not deemed to merit it.

I presume that the result of the interviews, and the appointment arising from it, would have been on merit alone?