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Playing the race card
Whatever one may think of Livingstone, he isn't a racist
It may be possible to reconcile oneself to the inevitability of having a Mayor of London, unnecessary, expensive and ridiculous though it will be. It is another thing, however, to reconcile oneself to any of the candidates that have been emerging.
Lord Archer and Ken Livingstone appear, in their different ways, to have a curiously weak grip on reality, to say nothing of their other failings, and though that may not matter much in itself, it is hardly a recommendation for public office; the thought of either having any serious power over our lives - if indeed the job of mayor actually offers any - makes me feel rather faint. By contrast the broadcaster Trevor Phillips, while in no way actually appealing, seemed a less bad bet that the rest. At least so he seemed until last week. But last week he too revealed his own unsuitability. He accused Ken Livingstone of racism.
The ironies here are so rich that one hardly knows where to begin. Phillips and Livingstone are Labour rivals for the job of Mayor of London. Earlier this year, in an open letter to Tony Blair, Livingstone suggested that while he himself should be allowed to run as Labour's official candidate, for all his Leftist views, he would be happy, for the sake of balance, to take on as deputy his rival Trevor Phillips, "who", he said, "I understand is your preferred choice". Reports vary as to how Trevor Phillips originally responded to this offer; some said he was at first and privately rather keen to accept; his supporters, reportedly, deny that entirely. However that may all have been, last week Trevor Phillips angrily protested in an interview that this offer was "arrogant and patronising".
"I think there is a rather serious point", he said, "that I will put as mildly as I can. All of us who come from minority communities get rather used to, and fed up of, any time we emerge on the public scene - people treating us as apprentices." If, he continued, Ken Livingstone "wants to be leader of a city where a third of the people are from ethnic minorities, I think he is going to have to be a little bit more sensitive, isn't he?"
Mr Phillips has since denied, through a spokesman, that what he said amounted to an accusation of racism, but it is hard to understand what, otherwise, he meant. How otherwise can his words be understood? And what would his point sound like if he put it less "mildly"? No one can deny it is a serious point, however one puts it. Allegations of racism are always serious, but particularly here and now, in London, after the Lawrence case. Memories of the Macpherson Report are still raw in the public mind, with its astonishing allegation of institutional racism in the police, and the even more astonishing confessions of institutional racism in schools and nursing and elsewhere.
Worst of all was the suggestion, often put forward by the race relations industry, that people cannot avoid being racist, and that when they deny it, that only means they are unconscious of it. These were explosive group slanders. It is a dangerous thing to accuse people with good intentions of harbouring bad ones; it tends to become a self-fulfilling prophesy. Bullying well-meaning people about racism will eventually breed it.
Whatever one may think of Red Ken Livingstone - whether one smiles at his charm and his newts, or shudders at his socialist record - nobody could possibly imagine for one minute that he is a racist. Nor do I imagine that a skilled political operator such as Livingstone could somehow "make a mistake", in public along racist lines, as Phillips has suggested, offering him "the benefit of the doubt". No. The doubt here must be about Mr Phillips and his good sense. There is nothing insulting with the suggestion that Phillips might run for deputy mayor; it was simply an attempt at political horse-trading, which he has every right to reject, on the reasonable ground that he aims higher. Equally, he might have accepted it, conscious of his own superior talents, as a stepping stone - the world is littered with deputies of all colours who consider themselves superior to their superiors, regardless of colour. Of course Trevor Phillips is right when he says that people from minorities feel fed up - angry might be a better word - and with good reason, all too often, about the disadvantages they suffer.
For that very reason it is all the more important not to complain of unfair racial discrimination, or to hint at it, when it does not exist. This has happened all too often with complaints of sex discrimination. It is true that sex discrimination is pervasive and hard to contend with; what is sad is that the difficulties reasonable women face have been made much more intractable by the many false and frivolous accusations of unfair discrimination brought by unreasonable women. It reflects badly on other women. It hardens men's hearts, and women's hearts too. It exaggerates resentment and undermines people's good intentions.
I don't know why Trevor Phillips has made these insinuations. He is a clever man and must know what he is about. I hesitate to accuse him of cynicism, or of trying to exploit racial tensions for political advantage. But I do feel sure of this: the advantages of playing the race card are short-lived. The losers - those who are most cheated - are always the ethnic minorities. To use Phillips's own words against himself: "If he wants to be leader of a city where a third of the people are from ethnic minorities, I think he is going to have to be a little bit more sensitive."
The Sunday Telegraph | Sunday, June 20, 1999
