Society

Back in the 1960s, my brother Asim and I were smitten by the magical Manchester United trio of Law, Best and Charlton. We became London Reds and travelled on the MU Supporters’ Club coach to Old Trafford to watch our team — and we always went to see them play London clubs. But we stopped going in the 1970s; we feared for our physical safety. Marauding bands of skinheads outside the grounds were on the lookout for a spot of Paki-bashing. Instead, during the 1970s, we went on Anti-Nazi League marches and routinely confronted members of the National Front, a fascist party that was briefly the UK’s fourth-largest party in

The Sewell Report on race and ethnic disparities is courageous, thoughtful and measured. Its relative optimism has triggered a torrent of bile from those personally or professionally wedded to the idea that Britain is a systemically racist society. They accuse the report of disregarding what is fashionably called ‘lived experience’ — in other words, anecdotal evidence and subjective impression. Its use of carefully considered objective data, the critics allege, devalues the lived experience of ethnic minorities. Lived experience has validity, but — by definition — only for those who have lived it. It proves nothing beyond itself, and certainly nothing systemic. If we wish to be rational creatures, we check

I guess the authors of the Commission on Racial and Ethnic Disparities didn’t agree to the job for a quiet life. Even so, the sheer bitterness of the volley directed at them by the grievance industry must have taken them aback. The reaction from the left has been straight out of the Marxist playbook: don’t bother to engage with your opponents’ arguments, just try to delegitimise them by attacking those opponents’ credentials and questioning their right to speak at all. We’ve learned from Twitter and the pages of the Guardian that the panel of ten commissioners – who have all achieved success in their varied fields – are all stooges