Sunday 6 May 2012

Perspectives ; Racing to the UK (Part One)

Often a variety of different perspectives are needed to cast light on the social issues of the day, and race relations in the UK is no exception.

The Runnymede Trust publishes the views of representatives of the Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat and Scottish Nationalist Parties and is actively involved in the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Race and Community. For more on the Trust`s work, see my articles `Racing to Runnymede`, Friday 9 March 2012 at http://angpav.blogspot.com and   `Ann Dummett 1931 - 2012` , Thurs 8 March 2012 on this blog.

The Runnymede Trust certainly brings it`s own contribution to the debate, but clearly it cannot be the only one. What other voices are out there ?

There have been two distinctive contributions from the Conservative Party ;

Max Wind-Cowie (ed) - Are We There Yet ? is a product of the Progressive Conservative Group and features contributions on issues around race and equality by Conservative thinkers such as Andrew Boff, Max Wind-Cowie, Mohammed Amin, Paul Goodman and others. It can be found on the website for Demos (www.demos.co.uk) , and can be downloaded free of charge. I must admit that reading this is on my `things to do` list but with one thing and another I`ve not got round to it yet. I am particularly interested in Mohammed Amin`s `Hard-Edged but Inclusive` and Paul Goodman`s  `Time to End the Tory War on Multiculturalism` , as on the face of it they sound like something I could relate to.

Probably the most thorough work on race and Conservatism is that by Lord Ashcroft KCMG, particularly his report `Degrees of Separation`. For further detail on that, you could do worse than check out his article Ethnic Minority Voters and the Conservative Party at http://lordashcroftpolls.com . This offers a summary of `Degrees of Separation` and a link to the full report.

So there we have links to publications featuring the views of what I would think are the four main political parties in Great Britain (GB comprises England, Scotland and Wales. The United Kingdom also includes Northern Ireland). There is no particular reason why the Conservatives are more heavily featured than the other three.

Of course, political parties don`t have a monopoly on wisdom (far from it!). At some point in the future I`ll be returning to this theme and looking at various non-party organisations.




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