Britain's first black woman member of parliament joined the race to lead Britain's opposition Labour Party on Thursday after an election this month ended its 13-year grip on power, according to Reuters. Diane Abbott said it was time to broaden out a contest which critics say has so far focused on white men in their 40s. "I am going to run. So many people in the past 48 hours have asked me to put my hat in the ring and I have finally agreed to do so ... I think we can't go forward with a leadership where there are no women," Abbott told BBC radio. Former health minister Andy Burnham also said he would stand, bringing the number of contenders to six. The centre-left Labour party is searching for a new leader to succeed former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who resigned this month. A Conservative-Liberal Democrat alliance now governs Britain, the first coalition since World War Two. A Cambridge graduate and former TV reporter, Abbott is an outspoken member of parliament and a regular political television pundit. She is in her late fifties and became Britain's first female MP in 1987. The frontrunner in the race is the cerebral David Miliband, 44, foreign minister under Brown. Once an adviser to Blair, he is seen as the candidate of the party's centrist wing.
