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Ken Plays The Race Card. And Loses

April 16, 2008

I don’t particularly follow the campaign for the London mayoral election. In fact, I don’t follow it at all. But when I heard about Ken Livingstone’s race relations manifesto for London I thought that I should say a few words on the subject. Of race relations, that is, and how some people use them for their own political gains.

But first about Ken’s manifesto. In it he promises that he will set new targets to ensure that more black and Asian people work in public services. He also promises to set up an annual State of Community Equality report to monitor the numbers of ethnic staff hired. He claims that his main opponent, Tory candidate Boris Johnson, has no idea how multiculturalism works and that if he, Livingstone, loses the election racial tension will grow and it might even lead to race riots. He also says that London needs more black and Asian police officers, teachers and Black Cab drivers to reflect the make-up of communities.

Now, on the face of it Red Ken doesn’t seem to say anything bad and only his point about possible race riots erupting if he goes amounts to deceit and scaremongering. But in reality the London mayor actually sounds like a racist of the worse possible kind because he patronises ethnic minorities in the most disgraceful way.

Livingstone is one of those politicians who think that if they bang on about racial tension, widespread racism, need for positive discrimination and so on they would secure the ethnic vote and, even more importantly, could always claim that anyone who says anything against them is effectively a racist. Ken has already accused Boris Johnson of being an enemy of racial harmony by allowing a column to be published in The Spectator, when he had been its editor, that mentioned a study that allegedly showed that black people were not as intelligent as white people. By the way, the same study said that white people were not as intelligent as Asians and no one made a big deal out of that.

But that’s beside the point and the point is that by saying that there should be more black and Asian cops, teachers and Black Cab drivers Livingstone is missing one important point, i.e. that there should be more good cops, teachers and Black Cab drivers and it doesn’t really matter what ethnic background they come from because if they aren’t good then everyone will suffer – blacks, whites, Asians. And it is very insulting for ethnic minorities to hear from the mayor that they should be hired only because of some quotas and targets that need to be met and not because of their personal skills and qualifications. Livingstone probably takes black and Asian Londoners for total idiots if he thinks that he is offering them solutions that would help them develop as communities. Any discrimination, even a positive one, is not good for race relations. And what would that State of Community Equality report that Livingstone is promising achieve? It would only cause frictions, resentment and fuel racial tension. It would not solve any problems at all.

I personally find many people who constantly talk about the need to fight racism and improve race relations insincere and hypocritical. They are actually the ones who often cause most of the problems and create barriers between communities. In the case of Ken Livingstone we see someone who tries to play on outdated prejudices and offer simplistic solutions while sounding like a patronising racist himself.

Black and Asian people can be good police officers, good teachers and good cab drivers. But they don’t need Livingstone’s patronage to get these and other jobs. I hope that they will see through his tricks and vote him out.

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