http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1446260,00.html

Jay Rayner
Sunday March 27, 2005
The Observer

Ethnic minorities living in parts of Britain are now four times more likely
to have suffered from racism than they were before the last general
election, according to one of the most exhaustive studies of race and crime,
undertaken by The Observer .
Between 2000 and 2004 racist incidents reported to the police in England and
Wales - anything from verbal abuse to the most vicious of assaults - rose
from 48,000 to 52,700.

However, it was the sparsely populated areas, home to the smallest, most
isolated minority communities, that witnessed the significant increases.
North Wales Constabulary recorded 80 racist incidents in 2000. Last year
that jumped to 337, meaning that more than 4 per cent of the region's 6,000
ethnic minorities experienced some form of racial intolerance.

The Observer can also reveal that the main party leaders have been warned
against inflaming racism dur ing the forthcoming election campaign by Trevor
Phillips, chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality.

While Phillips has refused to disclose what was said at the meetings, the
CRE has become increasingly concerned about the tone of a campaign that has
already seen posters on immigration by the Tories at a time when there is
evidence of growing racial intolerance in Britain.

In Cumbria, now statistically the most racist region in England and Wales,
reports of racist incidents more than doubled, and have affected more than 6
per cent of the population. There is a similar picture in West Mercia,
Cleveland, Hampshire and Staffordshire, all police areas with relatively
small minority populations.

Between them, they accounted for just over 1,500 racist incidents in 2000:
last year the figure was nearly 3,500. Scotland also saw a significant jump,
from 2,242 incidents in 2000 to 3,800 last year, making it one of the 10
most dangerous regions of Britain.

By contrast, London, home to about 1.9 million of Britain's ethnic
minorities, saw a decrease from more than 23,000 incidents in 2000 to just
over 15,000 last year.

Writing in today's Observer, Phillips said: 'Today, Jews, Muslims and
Gypsies tell the CRE that they are under siege in Britain. They have good
reason to feel threatened. In the weeks ahead every journalist and
politician should read these figures and remember that what you say may not
be what is heard. What seems like a perfectly innocuous message to you may
not sound that way to a Gypsy or a Jew or a Muslim or a black Briton.'

Ben Bowling, professor of criminology and criminal justice at King's College
London, agrees. 'There's strong evidence that excluding language used in
political rhetoric echoes rapidly down on to the streets,' Bowling says.

Since the publication in 1999 of the Macpherson report into the murder of
Stephen Lawrence, which branded the police institutionally racist, major
efforts have been made to improve the way incidents are identified and
recorded. 'We wish to encourage the reporting of all racist incidents,' a
spokesman for the Home Office said.

However, there is growing concern that little is being done to address the
causes of racism itself. The CRE will be attempting to address this,
Phillips has revealed, but only once the election is over. 'The CRE plans to
launch a new drive to increase interaction and integration between different
communities,' Phillips says.

'People who know each other are less likely to turn disputes into race
rows.' The campaign will, he says, use what he describes as 'agents of
integration' - women and children - to help foster understanding between
different ethnic groups


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