1 The Sun headline attacking the French EU official, Jacques Delors, in 1990.
2.
2 The Sun headline after the sinking of the Argentine battleship Belgrano in the Falklands war, 1982.
3.
3 In 1990, Conservative minister Norman Tebbit argued that British Asians and blacks should only be regarded as British citizens if they supported the English cricket team–the so-called ‘cricket test’.
4.
4 The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, chairman, Sir William Macpherson (London, Home Office, 1999), CM 4262.
5.
5 S. Glover, ‘The institutional hysteria dies down’, The Spectator (13 March 1999), pp. 10–11.
6.
6 Jonathan Calder’s letter to the Guardian (15 September 1997). Quoted in L. Elliott and D. Atkinson, The Age of Insecurity (London, Verso, 1999).
7.
7 This argument was originally made in a more complex form by Ceri Peach, professor of social geography at Oxford University, and reported widely. P. Barker, ‘Moving with the times’, Guardian (4 August 1999) developed the argument, concluding that ultimately whites will have the real problems of social exclusion.
8.
8 In 1999, the Home Office announced proposals to allow police officers to take fingerprints on the streets and to subject arrested suspects to compulsory drugs tests. A new prevention of terrorism law granted powers to the police, MI5 and Customs to target any group which is believed to have threatened violence to advance a political or ideological cause. See ‘Adding racism to the criminal justice system’, Campaign Against Racism and Fascism (December 1999/January 2000), pp. 6–7.
9.
9 See ‘Learning the lessons of Dover’, Campaign Against Racism and Fascism (October/November 1999), pp. 3–5.
10.
10 S. Richards, ‘The New Statesman interview–Gordon Brown’, New Statesman (19 April 1999).
11.
11 The Mail has steadily increased its circulation so that it is now the second bestselling national daily newspaper in Britain after the Sun, pushing the Mirror into third place. In fourth and fifth positions are the Express and the Daily Telegraph, the bestselling broadsheet. See Guardian Media (13 December 1999).
12.
12 D. Williams, ‘Brutal crimes of the asylum seekers’, Daily Mail (30 November 1998).
13.
13 J. Goodwin, ‘Suburbia’s little Somalia’, Daily Mail (12 January 1999). Somali community organisations say that articles such as these lead directly to a rise in racial attacks. In January 1999, British Somali organisations picketed the Daily Mail offices to protest at the increased hostility they faced as a result.
14.
14 A. Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity (Cambridge, Polity Press, 1990).
15.
15 For accounts of press racism in the 1980s, see N. Murray and C. Searle, Your Daily Dose: racism and the press in Thatcher’s Britain (London, Institute of Race Relations, 1989) or P. Gordon and D. Rosenberg, Daily Racism: the press and black people in Britain (London, Runnymede Trust, 1989).
16.
16 ‘Murderers’, Daily Mail, (14 February 1997).
17.
17 This was not the first time that the Mail had campaigned in a limited way on behalf of a black family. In September 1983, the Mail took up the case of the Pereira family who were facing deportation. The Mail’s support rested on the fact that the family had ‘adapted’ to English culture, lived in an English village and had the backing of the rest of the (white) villagers. Other deportation cases which did not meet these criteria were, of course, ignored by the Mail. See N. Murray and C. Searle, op. cit., p. 6.
18.
18 ‘For Stephen’s sake avoid a witch-hunt’, Daily Mail (24 February 1999).
19.
19 L. Lee-Potter, ‘No black and white issue’, Daily Mail (24 February 1999).
20.
20 S. Glover, ‘As the Prime Minister damns the entire nation …’, Daily Mail (26 February 1999).
21.
21 Ibid.
22.
22 Ibid.
23.
23 ‘Keep Sir Paul’, Daily Telegraph (23 February 1999).
24.
24 A. Palmer, ‘The Lawrence report will make things worse’, Sunday Telegraph (21 February 1999).
25.
25 P. Hitchens, ‘Don’t let racism blind us to reality’, Express (23 February 1999).
26.
26 ‘Not all black and white’, Daily Telegraph (8 February 1999).
27.
27 ‘A misguided and unfair report’, Daily Telegraph (25 February 1999).
28.
28 L. McKinstry, ‘Macpherson was a useful idiot’, Sunday Telegraph (28 February 1999).
29.
29 Ibid.
30.
30 ‘Police shame and Stephen’s tragedy’, Daily Mail (25 February 1999).
31.
31 ‘For Stephen’s sake avoid a witch-hunt’, op. cit.
32.
32 L. Lee-Potter, ‘No black and white issue’, op. cit.
33.
33 S. Glover, ‘As the Prime Minister damns the entire nation …’, op. cit.
34.
34 P. Hitchens, ‘Don’t let racism blind us to reality’, op. cit.
35.
35 A. Alexander, ‘Why the thought police need you’, Daily Mail (5 March 1999).
36.
36 ‘Police shame and Stephen’s tragedy’, op. cit.
37.
37 S. Glover, ‘Why we British are not racists’, Daily Mail (23 February 1999).
38.
38 S. Glover, ‘As the Prime Minister damns the entire nation …’, op. cit.
39.
39 S. Steven, ‘Don’t they know we’re no longer a racist society?’, Mail on Sunday (28 February 1999).
40.
40 Ibid.
41.
41 M. Steyn, ‘The British are much too hard on themselves’, Daily Telegraph (27 February 1999).
42.
42 L. McKinstry, ‘Macpherson was a useful idiot’, op. cit.
43.
43 R. Littlejohn, ‘Rank incompetence and a grotesque circus of hate’, Sun (23 February 1999).
44.
44 Ibid.
45.
45 R. Littlejohn, ‘Has Tony Blair become our first black Prime Minister?’, Sun (2 March 1999).
46.
46 Ibid.
47.
47 Ibid.
48.
48 Ibid.
49.
49 P. Toynbee, ‘White backlash’, Guardian (3 March 1999).
50.
50 R. Littlejohn, ‘Enemies of the people’, Sun (5 March 1999).
51.
51 Ibid.
52.
52 Ibid.
53.
53 Ibid.
54.
54 M. Marrin, ‘The Toynbee tendency’, Sunday Telegraph (7 March 1999).
55.
55 Ibid.
56.
56 Most of the Macpherson report consists of a forensic analysis of how the police failed to secure the conviction of the murderers of Stephen Lawrence due to unwitting racism, mistaken assumptions and incompetence. However, certain points which the report makes, because they have a relevance for any organisation which provides a service to black people, have been picked up on out of all proportion to the weight they are given in the report as a whole. One of these is the idea that ‘colour-blind’ service provision is no longer satisfactory. In the Inquiry, a number of police officers used the excuse that they could not be acting in a racist way because they treated all people the same (they were ‘colour blind’), whereas Macpherson points out that it was precisely because officers were blind to the race element of the case that they failed to consider the possibility of a racial motive. Macpherson concludes that the police need to be more aware of the specific needs of different racial groups and take these into consideration in their provision of service. See Macpherson, op. cit.
57.
57 See M. Barker, The New Racism (London, Junction Books, 1981) for an early attempt to trace the new racism running through Conservative politics from Powell to Thatcher.
58.
58 R. Littlejohn, ‘Has Tony Blair become our first black Prime Minister’, op. cit.
59.
59 R. Littlejohn, ‘It’s their culture innit?’, Sun (2 July 1999).
60.
60 M. Marrin, ‘I’m English, by George–and proud to say so’, Daily Telegraph (22 April 1999).
61.
61 P. Hitchens, The Abolition of Britain (London, Quartet Books, 1999). As well as his book and his column in the Express, Hitchens, at the time of writing, also hosts radio programmes on Talk Radio.
62.
62 J. Redwood, The Death of Britain? (London, Macmillan Books, 1999).
63.
63 A. Milne, ‘That anti-English feeling’, Right Now (October/December 1999), p. 21-21.
64.
64 N. Comfort, ‘Taxi drivers banned from flying the flag’, Sunday People (8 August 1999).
65.
65 A. McSmith, ‘Tories torn over English flag-waving’, Observer (11 July 1999), p. 8-8.
66.
66 G. Younge, ‘Journey to the heart of darkness’, Guardian (21 April 1999).
67.
67 T. Nairn, The Break-up of Britain: crisis and neo-nationalism (London, New Left Books, 1977), pp. 291–305.
68.
68 R. Littlejohn, ‘Has Tony Blair become our first black Prime Minister?’, op. cit.
