On the surface this seems a well written article, but really it is just the usual conspiracy theory nonsense you sadly get on Indymedia, of course there are issues with mass migration, certainly outside the left/activist bubble. Indeed, one hears some of the most concern from second generation immigrants, etc. Something needed to be done and said about the sense of powerlessness many people feel and yes, some of that will be over mass migration. Of course, the working class is a universal one and should be defended, but it is the WWC which has most been left to fend for itself.

In terms of the ‘white season’ If the BBC had called it 'democracy season' for instance, all the usual bourgeois civil liberty issues: ID cards, etc would have filled the airwaves. Now, at least, basic issues like housing , poverty, the NHS, discrimination, (yes, it hits the WWC too), will be discussed, though not perhaps in the way one would have liked. The WWC is obviously diverse and far from universally racist but genuine concerns about mass migration have been festering for many years. One can also ask why haven’t the left marched when people on the estates, etc are called chavs, pikeys, lazy, dole scroungers’, people who have felt the full offensive of Thatcherism and Blairism: they would be on the streets like a shot when it is BEM’s who are prejudiced against. The working class of all races has increasingly felt shafted by this govt and the system, but the far left has focused primarily on BEM’ s and Muslims yet patronisingly seeing them not as agents of change but another client group to be led from the top.

There has been no real response to globalisation and the massive changes it is bringing for the poorest in the U.K. Here, it is the W/C and the ‘underclass’ who most feel the effects of mass migration. The left has lost interest in working class issues and abandoned it, instead dwelling on cultural wars, the veil, etc, an example, is that there has been absolutely no support for challenging the new welfare reforms, which will devastate the lives of vulnerable people , white black, or any other colour. Instead, it’s all ‘activism about ‘The War’ on the left and radicals with social centres and No Borders, etc. I wonder how much support N/B thinks it has? what about housing, the NHS, crime? I also think the bundling of migrant workers with asylum seekers who often have had horrendous experiences has not been helpful, making the public less supportive of the latter.


There is a complex but incendiary situation developing in the U.K, where many disparate groups feel aggrieved, not getting their entitlements, etc and blaming others for it. Of course, it is amplified by the web, etc, but it is real. If we have a major recession, this can only get worse,.
As others have said surely it is the case that with multi-culturalism, it was inevitable that at some point , the W/W/C would see themselves as yet another aggrieved minority. Though one can argue the W/C is still the majority in the U.K. However, if large portions of the WWC feel aggrieved, then that's a problem. I don’t think I have known a time when so many people feel aggrieved, white, black, middle class, poor, but worrying no one from the left is providing any answers, it is probably the weakest it has been since the 1880’s .

Unlike, IJ, I do think this debate could also be a genuine opportunity for a New Left (IJ has been very selective in his HYS comments , many have been very productive) which accepted at least temporary problems with mass migration, while defending staunchly the rights of all working class people of whatever colour. They could also use the debate to target the nature of the political system which going by comments on other boards no one at all is happy with. They could leave the abstractions and the button issues and focus on poverty and welfare issues: people on benefits are under assault from all sides, sadly often even contrasted with 'hard working migrants, etc' I can't see it happening though, the Convention of the Left in Sept tbh during the L/P conference has already been captured by No Borders, etc and the usual issues, Peace, Racism, etc, which in isolation will just alienate any possible W/C support.

WeneedanewOrwell could you elaborate what you mean when you refer to "genuine concerns about mass migration"?

If you go to BBC’s Have Your Say on white working-class people’s voice, you see bile, bogus arguments, racism and claptrap. It may be that a high proportion of this claptrap comes from BNP sympathisers. Even so, there is still a lot of ‘white hate’ claptrap.

Below is an example of claptrap:
‘Added: Monday, 10 March, 2008, 03:43 GMT 03:43 UK
"Why don't you people stop complaining and actually do something about it?
[Stunmai], Shrewsbury, MA, United States "
Such as? Any time we attempt to do that, the PC brigade smear us as racist, which is offensive and lazy.
Us white working class are made to feel like 2nd class citizens in our own country, under New Labour it seems almost as though the country is run for the benefit of immigrants, muslims particularly. I for one never asked for the changes that we've had forced upon us....
fair to middl eng, Middle England, United Kingdom
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Who on Earth would argue that New Labour is running the country for the benefit of immigrants and Muslims? This is the Government who have asked university lecturers to spy on Muslims students??!!

WeneedanewOrwell, why don’t you answer the following question?
Once again, would working-class white people support a law that tells employers not to take on a white candidate for a job unless that white person has made the average number of applications a black person has to make to get any job? Do you think for a moment that anyone writing on BBC Have Your Say would support such a law? Yet they whinge about black people getting preferential treatment.

WeneedanewOrwell says:
“One can also ask why haven’t the left marched when people on the estates, etc are called chavs, pikeys, lazy, dole scroungers’, people who have felt the full offensive of Thatcherism and Blairism: they would be on the streets like a shot when it is BEM’s who are prejudiced against.”

I’m sorry, is it only white people who have ‘felt the full offensive’ of Thatcherism and Blairism? Is it only white people who have been described as ‘lazy’ and ‘dole scroungers’? Weren’t asylum seekers called spoungers? In the 1970s and 1980s, if black people did not have job, they’d be called ‘dole spoungers’ and if they did they’d be told that they were taking ‘white people’s jobs’. And when was the last Left march for BEMs who were prejudiced against?

The racist nature of the bogus immigration debate is demonstrated by the complete silence about migration to this country from Australia and New Zealand. There are thousands of Antipodeans in London, working in the leisure industry and elsewhere. They have been here for years. They are one of the biggest overstayers. They take jobs that working-class white could do. Do we hear complaints about them from working-class whites. NO. WHY, BECAUSE THEY’RE WHITE. White working-class complain about East Europeans because somewhere in their wharped minds (at least on race issues) they imagine them to be black:

‘Added: Monday, 10 March, 2008, 06:47 GMT 06:47 UK
There was racism but the pendulum swung past middle into reverse racism. Majority needs are ignored in favour of minority needs. With the flood of immigrants that minority becomes larger, more diverse and more demanding of goverment that pampers to them. Frequently played race cards silence English voices and we must accept new cultures whilst our culture is erroded beyond recognition. We have been sold down the river. Maybe this is why as the immigrants flood in the English are flooding out.
Alan, Swindon’

What’s Alan talking about? East Europeans or black people? Search me. In his mind they are the same.

The Have Your Say site has people saying what a disgrace it is for the BBC to have an Asian Network. Radio 1 plays music appreciated by people as demonstrated in record sales. Yet, it is their policy not to play Asian records even if sales are higher than those they do play. Is this equality? No, if Have Your Say is anything to go by, white working-class people have no interest in equality because they want positive discrimination. Their complaints is based on a feeling of not getting enough positive discrimination. Quite clearly, in the case of the Asian Network, they want Asian people to pay their licence fee money to white people who control the BBC so that they can spend it on music white people want to listen to.

Bogus war on terror
Dr. Zibniew Brzezinski is the main adviser to Barack Obama and was Carter’s National Security Adviser.

In February 2007, speaking to the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he said:

“Indeed, a MYTHICAL HISTORICAL NARRATIVE to justify the case for such a protracted and potential expanding war is already being articulated. Initially justified by false claims about WMDs in Iraq, the war is now being redefined as the decisive ideological struggle of our time, reminiscent of the earlier collisions with Nazism and Stalinism. In that context, Islamist extremism and al Qaeda are presented as the equivalents of the threat posed by Nazi Germany and then Soviet Russia, and 9/11 as the equivalent of the Pearl Harbor attack which precipitated America's involvement in World War II.

“THIS SIMPLISTIC AND DEMAGOGIC NARRATIVE overlooks the fact that Nazism was based on the military power of the industrially most advanced European state, and that Stalinism was able to mobilize not only the resources of the victorious and militarily powerful Soviet Union but also had worldwide appeal through its Marxist doctrine.

“In contrast, most Muslims are not embracing Islamic fundamentalism. Al Qaeda is an isolated fundamentalist, Islamist aberration, most Iraqis are engaged in strife because of the American occupation, which destroyed the Iraqi state, while Iran, though gaining in regional influence, is itself politically divided, economically and militarily weak. To argue that America is already at war in a region with a wider Islamic threat of which Iran is the epicenter is TO PROMOTE A SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY.”
( http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20070225&articleId=4921)

I have found the whole series about the white working class to be very revealing.

Socialism has always been a progressive political philosophy - this is why I am a socialist. Marx, in his 30 years spent living here at the world centre of the industrial revolution probably never visited a factory. Most of the founders of socialism were middle class. In the early 20th century the socialist Sidney Webb, chair of the Labour Party, famously said that he wanted to put an end to “the hewers of wood and drawers of water”.

Insidejob is correct to say that nobody listens to what the white working class say because “they talk a lot of crap”. He is also correct to say that Workingmen’s clubs are renowned for their racism - however he could also have added sexism and homophobia - and that’s just for starters.

I grew up in a village, which seems in many ways quite similar to Wisbey. The main employer was the local colliery. My grandfather worked below ground for his entire working life, my father worked below ground as a young man. Both bore blue coal scars on their backs, both thought that it was a dirty, stinking job and wanted better for their children. The identity of the white working class in this community could be said to be strongly rooted in place and culture - this was usually expressed by beating up “outsiders”. The culture was strongly racist and xenophobic, strongly nationalist, and virulently anti-anything “foreign” or “weird”- I would have found life hell if I had been from a BME culture. A woman who had slept with more than one man during her lifetime was derided as a “slag” or a “whore”, gay people were labelled as “puffs” or “bummers”. This is the ugly reality of traditional white working class communities, and, the reason why I am glad to live in a multicultural society. To work hard in school where I grew up was to be labelled a “snob”.

Compare this to the working class BME communities living in Britain. They came to this country often with a great deal less than most people who were born here, and encouraged their children to study and to better themselves - often in the face of racism from their white working class classmates. This is why there are so many doctors and health workers of BME origin, this is why our television screens show such a high proportion of presenters of BME origin.

The only surprise I have is that it has taken progressively minded people so long to wake up to ugly, reactionary face of the white working class. For too long socialists and anarchists have turned a blind eye to the regressive attitudes that the white working class have worn as badges of pride - though I suppose that this has been necessary when viewed in a long term context, in order to move forward with the building of real socialism. As Marx would have said, had he been living now, the white working class have been left behind by the tide of historical progress. I for one am glad that the BBC have at last brought the subject out into the open for all to see.

On the subject of the No Borders campaign, my only problem with it is that it won’t tackle the issue of nationalistic governments in other parts of the world, such as India, China, Cuba and Japan; they way that they restrict immigration, and often place ethnicity high on the agenda for citizenship is clearly unhelpful for the international and global agenda.

A load of rubbish from insidejob I have to say. I read Tim Lott's article, and as loathsome as he may be for saying he'll continue to vote Left despite acknowledging them as the source of the problems supposedly "explored" by this series of programmes, nevertheless the story of his mother's suicide is heart-rending. To criticise someone on the basis of their suicide note is unbelievably crass and pathetic. Are you accusing the woman of lying when about to kill herself?? Exactly what does it take to break through the defensive shield of the PC mind? Is it even possible?

As for the BBC series, I have puposefully boycotted it. Having accidentally caught a glimpse of 10 seconds of one of the episodes, my reasons for doing so were fully vindicated. A young white girl, sitting in some kind of Asian restaurant full of obviously delightful Asian people, becomes upset when her horrible white father comes in and acts like a thug.
Pass the sick bag.
Not content with this, I then see a trailer for one of the other episodes, which looks like it's about a classroom full of Asian and black children (who I've no doubt have been painstakingly hand-picked by the BBC as shining beacons of hope, while their older compatriots are busy stabbing each other in the neighbouring classroom). And this is supposed to be a "white" season? It's even worse than I could have anticipated.

More bull**** propaganda from the BBC. It's a miracle they even allowed the comments quoted by insidejob to remain on their message boards; usually they get removed.

But of course, everyone holding such views are obviously vile Nazis, aren't they?

'Are you accusing the woman of lying when about to kill herself?? Exactly what does it take to break through the defensive shield of the PC mind? Is it even possible?' - says James from Bath.

Perhaps Tim Lott has discovered a new cause for depressive state that leads to suicide:- 'living near black people'. Clearly, a case that ought to be written up by psychiatrists. But it's more likely that they would say that Tim Lott's mum was mad.

I'm supposed to feel sorry for Lott and his mum because he digs up her body and uses it to hit black people with. And how many black people have died or committed suicide because 'they live next door to white people'? How many black people in black countries have committed suicide because white colonialists have moved in?

And what about Brits in Spain? In general, Spanish people do not like English immigration into their country. They complain about the English keeping themselves to themselves. But do Spanish people commit suicide because English people have 'taken over' their villages? James is gullible enough to believe Tim Lott's crap. My feeling is that Lott's comment about his mum makes me want to puke.

If James is saying that the BBC is trying to make out that it is balanced by having the play, then he makes a point. But, of course, James probably thinks it's PC because it didn't show Muslims chopping white people's heads off and flinging bombs all over the place while shouting 'Allah is great'.

But I'd say to James that he should live in the real world - unlike the documentaries, the play claims that it's fiction.

insidejob - it all becomes clear. You ACTUALLY think that Tim Lott's article was right-wing!!?

Good god - you must be in the top thousandth percentile of the worldwide loony left population to draw that conclusion. What's the problem? His voting habits admission not enough for you? Maybe he should just kill himself too for being hideously white - would that satisfy you?

Your demented rantings in your last post make a lot of things clear. First you suggest that maybe Tim Lott's mother was mad. Only someone with deep-seated psychological issues could follow up your disgraceful initial comment with such a sick, fatuous quip. Then again - she was white so she was obviously a Nazi. You've answered my question regarding the impenetrability of PC non-reason quite adequately.

You then go on to suggest - completely without foundation - that perhaps black people have committed suicide after whites have moved in next door (having earlier accused anyone of experiencing the same thing as "mad"). Maybe they have. Maybe werewolves are real. It's a completely stupid, pointless conjecture. Where's your evidence of this happening or being likely? And if you CAN dredge anything up to support this assertion - in that case why is it so unlikely to be true in Mrs. Lott's case? A victim if you're black, insane if you're white. So the wheels turn in the mind of the liberal bigot.

And you have the audacity to accuse me of living in a fantasy world. I don't know about you, but I live on planet Earth, just as do all those people whose comments you've tried so inadequately to refute.

One point I'd forgotten before - you infer that maybe all white working class people "talk a lot of crap". You make no attempt to quantify this statement. So this can only lead me to two possible conclusions.
1) You are of non-white ethnic origin, and are a racist.
2) You are white, and suffering from typical liberal post-colonial guilt and self-hatred syndrome.

Finally, you raised another silly conundrum by asking whether white people would be in favour of a law giving them equal chances of getting a job etc. as non-whites. This - again - exposes the flawed nature of your entire outlook. You assume that any achievement in society is obtained not through ability, but through what the nanny state permits. All the white majority ask for is that people are treated on merit, rather than being subject to endless quotas and positive discrimination (the evidence that this is happening is overwhelming so please don't be so childish as to pretend it doesn't exist). Is that really so petrifying a thought for you? Or does your brain interpret any white authority figure as evidence of a great conspiracy?

James, for the record, I am a British-born, African-Caribbean.

FANTASY
BBC HAVE YOUR SAY
Added: Monday, 10 March, 2008, 01:39 GMT 01:39 UK
My Dad worked very hard, for low wages, and we scraped a living as did most people post-war. He worried about immigration; thought newcomers would take jobs from working people; agreed with Enoch Powell - who was discredited.
If my Dad was alive now he'd say, "I told you so," but he couldn't have imagined the scale and the rapidity of the change we're now experiencing here in the UK.
We can't turn back the clock, but it's time to stop and give our country back to the native population.
[cheesed-off], United Kingdom

Added: Monday, 10 March, 2008, 04:58 GMT 04:58 UK
Enoch powell , who was a TORY had spoke for the majority of the working class . A speech 40 years ago shows that he was a man of vision.Now MY HOMETOWN DAGENHAM is in the process of a great change,through african asylum seekers .Almost every community building is now an African Church.The voters had voted en masse for BNP. We need to bring the image of Enoch back to life, WHO was a voice for the working class of his day. As a gay man i shall vote with DAGENHAM PEOPLE for BNP.
Bring back Enoch.
john, dagenham

Added: Monday, 10 March, 2008, 11:26 GMT 11:26 UK
If you accept pay for your work ... you're working class, so I am one of them.
It seems for some time politicians have bent over backwards to accommodate "ethnic minorities" and "multiculturalism". I thought the idea of democracy was that the majority view would prevail, but the politicians promote their own agenda to the detriment of the white, indiginous, majority.
Nobody ever asked us if we wanted this, and they continue to ignore us.
Sea Wolf, Dundee
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Added: Monday, 10 March, 2008, 11:30 GMT 11:30 UK
To all the left-wing martyrs out there who think that immigrants are such hard working people; are you aware that only 17% of Somalian 'asylum seekers' are in employment.
And before one of you say:
'It's because they are discriminated against'
I would like to respond with:
'No, it's because they do not want to learn OUR language, recognise OUR way of life or in many cases obey OUR laws.
Richard 28 - Realist, London

REALITY
 http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/story.jsp?story=61
1799
Black and Asian women face exclusion in all areas of life
By Marie Woolf, Chief Political Correspondent
17 February 2005

Black and ethnic-minority women in Britain are "powerless, poor and passed-over" according to a report which found that they were excluded at every level of society.

In a damning analysis, the research found women from ethnic minorities were "almost entirely absent from the rank of decision-makers in the UK" and face "massive inequalities in education, health, employment and pay, levels of political engagement and treatment by the criminal justice system".

The report by the Fawcett Society, which promotes and supports women in public life, found ethnic-minority women were "struggling against multiple discrimination on grounds of their sex, race and/or religion". The report found that women of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin earned only 56 per cent of the average hourly wage of white men.

RATES OF SUICIDE AMONG YOUNG WOMEN FROM SOUTH ASIA WERE DOUBLE THAT OF THE GENERAL POPULATION and black women who were being beaten up by their partners have to wait longer for help from the authorities than white women. They also had a higher chance of being a single parent, of earning less and of going to prison than white counterparts.

"Our report reveals the terrible impact that multiple discrimination on grounds of sex, race, religion or age can have on BME [black and ethnic minority] women, who continue to be excluded from positions of power," said Dr Katherine Rake, director of the Fawcett Society. "The experiences of BME women have been too easily overlooked, with the focus too often being on gender or race, but not both."

Around 2.3 million black and ethic-minority women live in the UK - around 4 per cent of the population - but only two black women are MPs. A female Asian MP has never served at Westminster, and the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly do not have any black or ethnic-minority representatives. In 2001, 1.9 per cent of local councillors were BME women. However, seven sit in the unelected House of Lords - 1 per cent of the total.

The report found that many ethnic-minority women were active members of local community and voluntary groups. They had the same level of trade union membership as white women, but only 2 per cent of appointments to quangos were by women from an ethnic group.

The report also found that ethic minorities had adverse experiences of the criminal justice system, from the courts to the prison system.

"Discriminatory attitudes" were preventing agencies from tackling violence against black and ethnic-minority women.

The report found that a woman experiencing domestic violence contacted agencies 11 times before getting the help she needed. But black and ethnic minorities had to contact agencies 17 times.

The report also found they were more likely to go to prison than white counterparts and that "race relations in the criminal justice system remained a serious problem for BME women offenders." In 2002, BME women made up less than 8 per cent of the total female population but 29 per cent of the female prison population.

The report found that there were very few ethnic minority women at senior levels in the police and the judiciary.In 2004, Linda Dobbs became the first black woman to be appointed to the High Court. Mrs Justice Dobbs said she had faced obstacles because of the "perceptions of clients". She said: "You had to show you were better than the others to gain their confidence."


 http://society.guardian.co.uk/socialcare/news/0,8372,1660712,00.
html
Survey highlights racial discrepancies in mental health services
New research shows that Black people are three times more likely than the rest of the population to be admitted to mental hospitals. It also found that Black people are twice as likely to be sent to mental hospital by the police or courts.

 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4695153.stm
Study urges jo b help for Muslims
New research has found that there is an 11 per cent gap between Muslims
and other graduates in finding work and that discrimination is one problem.

TUC PRESS RELEASE
date: 23 November 2004
embargo: For immediate release
'Black pay gap' bad for business, says TUC

Commenting on the publication of the report of the Ethnic Minorities Employment Task Force, published today (Tuesday) by Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Alan Johnson MP, TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said:

'Despite many positive changes in the world of work, the harsh reality is that even now black and asian people, regardless of their age or background, qualifications or experience are more likely to be unemployed, lower paid and more junior than white people.

10/10/04
Race & equality

CRE's Trevor Phillips says low no.s of black & Asians living in rural areas cls be described as passive apartheid in BBC interview, Today 0630. He. criticises rural communities for their attitude towards ethnic minorities, say Radio 4 bulletins.

Country Land & Business Assoc. say they would love to see move diversity, Today Programme, Trevor Phillips in an interview with Today programme: physical countryside not alien to black people but difference is people..My experience in a village would not be same as yours. The reaction to you might be who's he? The reaction to me would be what are you doing here?

13/09/04
According to a YouGov Poll over 50% of UK's ethnic minority residents believe people settling in UK shoulld learn English & over 90% think minorities shouldn't receive special treatment.

I could go on. Where's your evidence?

You cite the TUC and the Independent newspaper i e the left/liberal establishment as your sources. What do you expect a TUC study to show- that working class whites are discriminated against and all positive discrimination for ethnic minorities should end? the trade unions are in the forefront of New Labour's drive to promote multi-culturalism and deny white working class grievances.The labour party along with the rest of the left has long ago abandoned the white working class in favour of much more trendy causes.

Meanwhile it's very possible that some white people would feel suicidal because of black people in their area. One thing you didn't point to was the number of whites who are targetted by afro-carribean youths in muggings and robberies. In London for example 80% of robbery victims are white and 85% of culprits as described to the police are afro-Carribean. How many whites are living in a state of constant fear, every time they pass a group of black kids -they wonder if they're going to be subjected to the heart stopping call of "yo man, come here".

'Is it evidence?
14.03.2008 04:53
You cite the TUC and the Independent newspaper i e the left/liberal establishment as your sources. What do you expect a TUC study to show- that working class whites are discriminated against and all positive discrimination for ethnic minorities should end? ' - changethecannon

This is getting personal.

There is no evidence of systematic positive discrimination that benefits black people in any field.

There is no evidence that the mere presence of black people in neighbourhoods leads to suicide among white people in those neighbourhoods.

There is a lot of evidence that whites move out of neighbourhoods when the black presence increases.

Evidence indicates that black people are more likely to suffer from street crime than whites.


The dominant working-class white discourse on immigration and race is bile and claptrap because they are not interested in the facts. They feel they should benefit from positive discrimination on the basis that they are white. They are happy to denigrate black people to support their selfish aims.

But there are people like James and Alan Lee Smith and Tim Lott who seem perfectly happy to DISTORT, MISLEAD AND LIE to promote their racist claptrap and bile.

Many Muslims fear that they may face a Germany-1930s style situation.

 http://www.blink.org.uk/pdescription.asp?key=1021&grp=55
Street Robbery: Fact sheet
25/7/2002

Definitions, victims, offenders, the police and statistics.

What is street robbery?
'Street robbery', 'street crime' and 'mugging' are not legal terms. Police figures tend to include robbery (actual or attempted theft using force or the threat of force) and snatch thefts (thefts that have no element of threat and only minimal force).

How much robbery is there?
Robbery comprises around 2-3% of all recorded crime. An average person is three times more likely to be the victim of a household burglary and six times more likely to be assaulted than to be the victim of robbery.

Is robbery increasing or decreasing?
Crime generally peaked in 1995 and, according to the British Crime Survey, has since dropped by a third. Theft and violent crime recorded by the BCS are down by around 20%. In 1999-2000 robbery recorded in the BCS fell by 20% as compared with 26% increase in police statistics. In 2000_2001, Robbery rose by 14% according to the BCS, compared with 13% in police statistics.

What is the nature of robbery?
Robbery is a serious offence with a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
Seven out of ten robberies do not involve any injury to the victim. In just over one third of robberies, the offender was a stranger, but was well known to the victim in 44% of incidents and by sight or casually in 20%.

Reporting to the Police
The police record about one in five robberies. About one in three is reported by the victim, and about six out of ten of those that are reported find their way into police reports. When people were asked why they did not report to the police, 40% said that the incident was too trivial, or they suffered no loss and 30% said that the police could do nothing about it.
Police figures are unreliable indicators to the fluctuations in the crime rate. Their accuracy depends on public reporting and police recording practices. When victims are encouraged to report crimes, and police are encouraged to record them fully, recorded crime rises faster than the "real" crime rate.

Public perceptions are pessimistic. Most people believe crime rates are increasing, when they are in fact decreasing. People also tend to over-estimate their risks of being victimised.

Ethnicity and Victimisation
THE BRITISH CRIME SURVEY SHOWS THAT THE RISK OF VICTIMISATION IS NEARLY THREE TIMES AS GREAT FOR THE BLACK AND ASIAN POPULATION (ABOUT 16 PEOPLE IN 1000 WERE VICTIMISED IN 2000), IN COMPARISON WITH THE WHITE POPULATION (6 PER 1000) 1. It is also the case that black people are much less likely to report being robbed, with only one in four black victims going to the police compared to with four out of ten whites. 2

BLACK AND ASIAN COMMUNITIES ARE ALSO TWICE AS LIKELY TO WORRY ABOUT BEING VICTIMS OF ROBBERY, AND ARE INDEED AT A GREATER RISK OF BEING VICTIMS OF BURGLARY, CAR THEFT AND A RANGE OF OTHER CRIMES.

BLACK PEOPLE ARE MORE AT RISK OF BEING ROBBED AND LEAST OFTEN TO TURN TO THE POLICE FOR HELP; WHEN THEY DO SEEK HELP FROM THE POLICE THEY ARE LESS LIKELY TO BE SATISFIED WITH THE OUTCOME

Who are the offenders?
THERE IS NO WAY OF KNOWING FROM POLICE STATISTICS ANYTHING ABOUT WHO WAS INVOLVED IN THE EIGHT OUT OF TEN ROBBERIES THAT NEVER COME TO THE ATTENTION OF THE POLICE.

There are two ways that have been used to make an assessment of which the offenders are: (a) those arrested by the police and (b) victim's reports. In England and Wales 28 percent of people arrested by the police for robbery are black. In 1999 the British Crime Survey found that 31 percent of victims identified a black person as the offender based on a small number of 203 "mugging" incidents. (Clancey et al. 2001).

In London, the Metropolitan Police report that 62 percent of people arrested for robbery are black, compared with 27 percent who are White, 6 percent Asian, 3 percent "dark European" and less than one percent "Chinese/Japanese" and "Arabian/Egyptian".

In some instances the victim does not actually know who the offender was, in some cases the victim gets the offender's description wrong and sometimes black people are blamed for the crime even when the victim does not know who is responsible. THERE IS SOME EVIDENCE THAT ROBBERY IS MORE OFTEN REPORTED WHEN THE SUSPECT IS BLACK (SHAH AND PEASE).Sometimes police stereotyping leads an officer to record a suspect's ethnicity as black, even when this is not consistent with the evidence.

The problems of under-reporting, mistaken identity and stereotyping mean that all crime statistics should be treated with caution.

I am not going to say any more on this than I already have, other than the below. I honestly have better things to do than get bogged down further in this debate, as for some people there is just no convincing. Their ideology and fantasies take precedence over any sensory input their brains receive - similar to the futility of debating the veracity of religion with a committed Christian or Muslim.

In response to your last post, insidejob, once again you arrogantly dismiss any testimony from a white source as being based on fantasy. This is ludicrous. I really fail to see where your allegations of "fantasy" can possibly be levelled. You have simply cited people voicing an honest opinion and have convinced yourself that they're insane. This is completely irrational. It's no more convincing than me sitting here and denouncing Charles Darwin or Copernicus as people who live in a fantasy world, while I sit nodding my head to the great ju-ju on the mountain (I paraphrase Dawkins here).

You even quote one respondent who has simply conveyed a simple statistical fact - namely the employment rate among Somali immigrants - and denounce this as "fantasy". Which bit is the fantasy?? The statistic itself, or the subsequent points made by the poster??

In contrast, you go on to quote numerous meaningless statistics, which demonstrate only the mass media's obsession with minority rights, rather than anything of significance.

Reports of so-called "inequalities" abound in the liberal media in any area of life from employment to crime. Virtually all such reports are utterly meaningless, and NEVER make any attempt to address the underlying reasons. Instead, the unwritten assumption is always that any divergence of a statistically perfect division of ethnic origins among everyone from police chiefs to muggers has to be evidence of "institutional racism". This is obviously rubbish. Rather than simply write such "inequalities" off as racism, try flipping the question around. Instead, ask your self this. What evidence is there that people of different ethnic origins ARE in fact "equal" in any sense? From propensity to crime, to academic achievement, to work ethic - there is precisely NO evidence or rational theory that could suggest all peoples from all backgrounds SHOULD be equal - let alone are. On this basis, what relevance or interest is there in an article which simply states "more black people go to mental homes" or "no Aborigine has ever been an astronaut". So what?? What science is there saying this should NOT usually be the case? You make the classic lefty mistake of confusing equality of opportunity with all-encompassing equality.

You mention the fact that a female Asian MP has never served at Westminster. Has it occurred to you that perhaps the (quite often horrendous) subjugation of women among certain Asian cultures could contribute hugely to their under-representation in parliament? Or am I living in a "fantasy world" when I see a Muslim woman walking five paces behind her husband? (Incidentally, trade union or quango membership should hardly be regarded as iconic goals.)

As for the criminal justice system, I have to ask the question again - why on earth should this NOT be the case?? Especially given the horribly skewed figures on the ethnic identity of violent criminals in areas such as London?? The fact that black people might be disproportionately likely to be victims of these crimes is - I'm afraid - a natural side effect given the origin of the perpetrators.

We move on to your citation of female domestic violence victims requiring greater perseverance than their white counterparts to get a response. Maybe this is because the police are frightened that they will - predictably - simply be accused of yet more racism if they focus proportionately on the sources of the problem? Damned if they do, damned if they don't.

More meaningless stats - "In 2002, BME women made up less than 8 per cent of the total female population but 29 per cent of the female prison population." So what?? Maybe they're more likely to be criminals!! Wow - what a revelation!! Have you got any statistics on Oriental or Icelandic female prison inmates?? Methinks not. You'd probably be confronted with a raft of "0%" values, lower than the white population. That scuppers the theory, doesn't it!

As for your last stat - "over 50% of UK's ethnic minority residents believe people settling in UK shoulld learn English " - is that the best they could manage!? That's pathetic - what was it - 51%?? Wow. It reminds me of the Mirror's pompous announcement after 7/7 that "88% of Muslims think it wasn't justified". So 12% x 2,000,000 Muslims = 240,000 would-be suicide bombers. Great. Viva la multiculturalism. I think "charge the cannon" deserves an answer to his post too. Or maybe all such people recounting occurrences of the thuggery he mentions are also "living in a fantasy world".

There is a biblical verse along the lines of, "Remove the plank from thine own eye before attempting to remove the speck from thy brother's eye," which I believe is apt here.

Over and out.