London Diary: A racism-free Britain?

Britain claims to have achieved racial nirvana after a government-backed review found that it was the best country for immigrants. Discrimination on grounds of race, according to it, is at historic low with children from ethnic minorities--Indians, Bangladeshis, East Asians--"outperforming" their white peers in education and jobs. Surprise, surprise --forget wage disparity, black women in certain jobs earn more than their white colleagues, we are told.

The review by the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities says family structures and social class have a bigger impact than race on how people's lives turn out. Although it stops short of declaring Britain a post-racial society, the picture of modern Britain it paints is one of a land of equal opportunities, racial harmony and unprecedented tolerance.

Its success in removing race-based disparities "should be regarded as a model for other white-majority countries", the report says adding: "We no longer see a Britain where the system is deliberately rigged against ethnic minorities."

Its chair Tony Sewell, who's himself black, said there was no evidence of institutional racism and accused race-campaigners of over-egging the problem and thus diverting attention from "the other reasons for minority success and failure".

Critics dismissed the report as a "PR" exercise which flew in the face of facts. Sewell has been abused on social media and likened to Goebbels.

To be fair, British multiculturalism, for all its problems, has worked better in keeping inter-community tensions in check than Europe's more muscular approach to integration. But Britain a racial nirvana? Dream on...

Going French?

Perhaps it has something to do with their "islander mentality" or the bloody history of British-European relations--or maybe a combination of both--that Brits are instinctively averse to the European way of doing things--from cuisine and work ethic to red-tapism and left-hand driving. The sub-text, of course, is that "we do things better" claiming that they even produce better cheese and wine than the French (really?).

But there's one area --hardline towards Muslims--where Britain might have started to lean towards Europe. At least, that's what some Muslims think after the government took a tough stand over their protests against a school teacher who showed a cartoon of Prophet Muhammad in a class on religious studies. Many Muslim parents held a series of protests demanding the teacher's dismissal. He has been suspended pending an inquiry, and the school has apologised.

But Education Secretary Gavin Williamson called the protests “completely unacceptable”. Upon which local Muslim groups warned Prime Minister Boris Johnson that Britain risked “becoming like France” if the government did not insist on people showing “respect” for Islam. Adil Shahzad, imam of the Al-Hikam Institute in Bradford, said if the teacher's conduct was ignored it would set a bad precedent.

"Then, it’s very likely that we will follow the route that France has taken, for example, or other European countries where firstly it’s ‘let’s insult the prophet’, then we’ll start banning the burqa," he said.

But the government is sticking to its hardline insisting that schools are "free" to discuss "challenging or controversial" ideas. So very French.

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Paid to self-isolate

As Britain’s long lockdown begins to wind down amid fears of a possible third wave of Coronavirus sweeping in from Europe, people who test positive but struggle to self-isolate because they live in large families are to be offered hotel rooms free of charge.

The move is aimed mostly at Asians and other ethnic minorities who were worst-hit by the last two waves, and the reason was said to be their "life style" with large extended families living together in cramped houses. Many work in jobs that cannot be done from home. A lack of awareness and disregard for social-distancing rules were also cited as a reason.

The head of Test and Trace system, Baroness Diana Mary Harding

said that for many people in multigenerational households “self-isolation physically just is impossible”. "There are households where maybe there are eight or ten people who are all working, all of whom fearful that they might lose their job. Which means that no one comes forward," she said.

According to media reports, the policy was first discussed during the previous lockdown in Leicester--dubbed "Little India" because of its large Indian-origin population --which registered a huge spike last year. But it was not implemented.

So, what has changed?

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Four-day week

More than one million companies in Britain might switch to a four-day working week after the pandemic benefiting three million workers, according to an industry survey.

The survey found that a shorter working week could raise Britain's chronically low productivity rate. Although Brits work longer hours than their European peers--42.5 hours a week as against the European average of 41.2--their productivity has been historically low. By the way, some 300,000 small and medium-sized businesses are already thought to work four days.

And, lastly, I picked up two new words this week: "megalophobia", the fear of big things; and "cynophobia", the fear of dogs.