Well here we are in January 2014 and the tidal wave of Romanian and Bulgarian benefit tourists hasn’t materialised. Farcical New Year scenes at Luton Airport of MPs and journalists staking out arrivals from half empty planes arriving from Sofia and Bucharest (and discovering two new arrivals both of whom had already been offered jobs),…
David Cameron has launched another attack on multiculturalism as part of his attack on Islamist extremism. “Timid politicians with a ‘misplaced’ fear of offending Muslims have allowed Islamist extremism to take root in the institutions of Britain” he said going on to warn in the Daily Mail that“the policy of treating different cultures as ‘separate…
Nick Clegg and David Blunkett ought to know better. Both Sheffield MPs have attacked the Roma minority in the Page Hall area of Sheffield. Blunkett says "We have got to change the behaviour and the culture of the incoming community, the Roma community, because there's going to be an explosion otherwise. We all know that."…
“The most racist piece of legislation in the last 30 years”. So said John McDonnell MP about the new Immigration Bill that the Coalition Government is currently ramming through parliament. The Bill had its second reading on 22nd October and marks the culmination of months of disgraceful dog-whistle politics about immigration as the main parties…
Yesterday I went to a presentation by George Lakoff – the author of “Don’t think of an elephant! Know your values and frame the debate”. He is Professor of Linguistics at the University of California and specialises in understanding how we can use language to change the way in which debates and ideas are framed….
The Home Office's consultation on police powers of stop and search is a great example of really bad survey and questionnaire design. Many of the questions are unclear or leading and the logic baffling. For example Question 3 "to what extent do you agree that the arrest rate following stop and search is a useful…
Sometimes so-called liberals can do more damage to “social cohesion” then more overtly racist commentators – their positions are less likely to be immediately identified as contaminated with prejudice, assumption and false argument. They provide a complicit softerside to the dog-whistle politics now being employed by the Tories and UKIP. After all, we all know…
For some years it has suited the Government and the media to drive a wedge between, on the one hand the longer settled Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities – who settled here in the first of the post-War migrations (many from the “Windrush Generation” – largely from the “New Commonwealth” and their offspring), and…
The shocking murder of Trayvon Martin and the extraordinary and bizarre not guilty verdict for his killer Zimmerman show how the US is still mired in racism and white supremacy. I defy anyone to argue that the roles of Martin and Zimmerman could ever be reversed and have the same outcome in a US court…
In a bizarre development the French National Assembly has decided that the best way to improve race relations in France is to abolish the term “race” http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/rendezvous/2013/05/17/france-fights-racism-by-outlawing-race/. The French have always had a fascination with Philosophy – often it is a type of Philosophy that we Brits find almost impervious because it is so full…
