London Diary: Tough life for ethnic minorities in Britain and more...

Racist Britain?

Imagine you and a white friend go to a restaurant and while he walks in, you’re refused entry without an explanation. Or that you’re enjoying a drink in a bar when you’re asked to leave for no obvious reason. Or that on your way to catch a train you’re stopped by the police and searched.

These are no imaginary scenarios but very real everyday experiences of non-white ethnic minorities across Britain.

So, what’s new you might ask? Didn’t we already know there’s racism in Britain?

Well, what’s new is the sheer scale of overt and covert racial bias that has been revealed in what’s claimed to be the most comprehensive study of racism in 21st century Britain.

“The results show that ethnic minorities are three times as likely to have been thrown out of or denied entrance to a restaurant, bar or club in the last five years, and that more than two-thirds believe Britain The withdrawal symptoms America’s off-shore power-projection is increasingly seeing diminishing returns in achieving its strategic goals, and Donald Trump seems to have realised it more than anyone else in Washington, says Saurabh Kumar Shahi has a problem with racism,” said The Guardian which commissioned the study.

Leading racial equality think tank, Runnymede Trust, described the findings as “stark” with profound implications for social cohesion. Racism and discrimination isn’t restricted to one area of life,” said Zubaida Haque, its deputy director.

The study revealed a big “gulf” in how people of different ethnicities are treated in their daily lives with people from minority ethnic backgrounds “consistently more likely to have faced negative everyday experiences – all frequently associated with racism – than white people”.

Some 38 per cent of people from ethnic minorities said they had been wrongly suspected of shoplifting in the last five years, compared with 14 per cent of white people. As many 53 per cent believed they had been treated differently because of their hair, clothes or appearance, compared with 29 per cent of white people.

“The results show that ethnic minorities are three times as likely to have been thrown out of or denied entrance to a restaurant, bar or club in the last five years, and that more than two-thirds believe Britain has a problem with racism,” the survey said.

Some things never change.

What? Another “first”?

If India has a problem of too many graduates chasing too few jobs, Britain’s job market is flush with too many first-class degree holders causing a headache for employers in separating the wheat from the chaff.

Universities have been accused of fuelling “grade inflation” by indiscriminately awarding First class degrees in a competitive scramble to attract more students. The good old 2:2 (second class) has effectively vanished with some universities handing out a First to up to half of their graduates. Once, a First went only to the very best, and was something to celebrate.

The higher education regulator, Office for Students (OfS ), found 84 per cent of the universities guilty of degree inflation with the number of Firsts trebling in some places over a six-year period. The trend, it said, was dumbing down Britain’s once famed university system and “undermining” public confidence. If the universities failed to address the issue, it threatened to use its powers to “drive change”.

Education minister Damian Hinds described the report as a “wake-up call” and said universities must be held “accountable for maintaining the value of the degrees they award”.

What next? Ph.Ds for everyone?

Tongue-twisters

Anyone feeling low in this cheerful season, might like to have a go at the following trickyto-pronounce words. No prizes are promised but getting them right will boost your morale.

Here we go:

Khashoggi, Princess Eugenie, Ypres, Taoiseach (the title of the Irish Prime Minister), and Huwawei.

Good luck.

Meghan goes “native”

Around this time last year, Meghan Markle, the then royal-bride to be, was hailed as a “feminist princess” who would bring a dash of 21st century modernity to a stuffy House of Windsor with her agenda of empowering women and promoting diversity. Barely a year on, the news is that the newly-minted Duchess of Sussex has gone native, dumped feminism, and has nicely settled down into the cosy world of royalty.

The woman, who was expected to “shake up” the royal family, is said to be “rapidly turning into little more than a traditional royal woman”, The Sunday Times reported. And, unlike some previous stories about Meghan, this one is no tabloid gossip fed by anonymous sources but based on an academic study published by two British researchers Laura Clancy of Lancaster University and Hannah Yelin of Oxford Brookes University.

It says Meghan is letting herself be subjected to a “conservative, upper-class makeover” echoing novelist Hilary Mantel’s description of Kate Middleton (after her marriage to Prince William) that she looked as though she had been “designed by a committee and built by craftsmen, with a perfect plastic smile”.

Once a darling of the media, Meghan has had a bad press lately amid reports of her allegedly behaving badly with her staff and throwing tantrums.

How times change!

And, lastly, Britons are being urged to change their eating habits as part of the government’s preparations for a chaotic Brexit which could lead to serious food shortages.