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‘From Punjab to Pollok, people from across the world & here at home have been offering me their good wishes, grateful for all the kind messages I have received.’ These are some of the words Humza Yusuf tweeted on Monday when he became the leader of the SNP and the first Muslim to lead a devolved western government. This is an historic moment in our nation’s life.

Symbolism matters. A Hindu Prime minister and a Muslim first minister are just two of the high offices occupied by ethnic minority people right here in the UK. Despite increasing culture wars and a more febrile political atmosphere at times, such names at the top paint a more hopeful picture of modern Britain and says something about who we are as a people. Of course racial inequalities and other prejudices continue to blight our societies but maybe we share more values as a nation than we admit or even realise. Notwithstanding the significance of religious and cultural identities, the inclusive values of fairness and giving people a chance have become a much stronger unifying force across our communities over the years.

And yes there will be many who have a nostalgia for a different kind of Britain because the virtues of pluralism are not a given. The Qur’anic verses ` we have made you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another’ invoke a command and a blessing because how we reach out to others, live together, and support one another is a moral choice each of us makes every day. I don’t think there’s any alternative to coexistence but I’m also aware that diversity isn’t always easy, and for it be a creative and generous impulse in our lives, it has to belong to multiples voices, negotiated by people who for all their material and cultural differences, feel that they have a moral stake in the wellbeing of the place they call home.

I asked my youngest son what if anything he felt over Hamza Yusuf becoming first minister. He replied that while he recognised it was a major achievement, for someone coming from a minority group, he and his friends were less bothered by a politician’s ethnicity, and were more interested in what people actually do in power for the whole of society. So while symbolism matters, I think this is a healthy approach because in the end its actions that matter the most in any leadership, in the words of John Quincy Adams, `if your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you’re a leader.’

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