British politics has come a long way in the half- century since Patrick Gordon Walker, whom Harold Wilson hoped to appoint as Foreign Secretary, lost a by-election in Smethwick, Birmingham, to an unknown Conservative whose appeal was greatly enhanced by a racist slogan. None of the political parties would now benefit from such a campaign and the choice of words would not be permitted in any case.
Yesterday, John Denham, the Communities Secretary, made the notable claim that racism was now a less severe impediment to life chances in Britain than poverty and social class. He claimed this as a victory for the policies of the Government. Perhaps recent legislation has had a beneficial impact. It is always hard to say whether Race Relations Acts lead public opinion or simply confirm it. But, even if Mr Denham is allowed one cheer of self-congratulation, his own analysis points to an obvious failure in policy that still awaits a solution.
In the search for a neat rhetorical formula, Mr Denham has simplified his categories a little too much. Poor life chances that are often attributed to racial or ethnic origin have always, in fact, had a strong class causal element. Fifty-eight per cent of boys from families of Indian origin make it to university. Only 29 per cent of their peer group from Bangladeshi families will get a higher education. The difference is that Indian immigration tended to come from the urban bourgeoisie while Bangladeshi immigrants were from less well-educated farming families. In every ethnic group, children who get free meals at school do significantly less well than those who do not.
There is, thus, a resilient link between background and outcome, no matter what nation your father left to come to Britain. Indeed, more than a decade of Labour government has done very little to alter this fact. There has been a reduction in child poverty but it remains true that, the farther up the income distribution you are, the better your chance of doing well at school. When the Government came to power in 1997, 8.5 per cent of children aged 16 to 18 were not in work, education or training. Now 13.4 per cent of that age cohort is unoccupied. The gap between rich and poor is all but unchanged at a level that Labour declared was unacceptable at the end of a long period of Conservative rule.
The group that does worst of all, the one to whom Mr Denham’s remarks were chiefly addressed, are the children of the white working class. Only 6 per cent of white boys eligible for free school meals went to university. In other ethnic groups, in the comparable population, 26 per cent make it through. At the lower end of the income scale, the likelihood diminishes close to vanishing point.
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It is salutary that the Communities Secretary, like Trevor Phillips, the head of the Equalities Commision, before him, is addressing this question. The British National Party is having some success recruiting support in areas where secure employment disappeared with the demise of heavy industry. The two seats that the BNP now has in the European Parliament show that atavistic fantasy is still a temptation for people who feel neglected by the respectable parties.
After 12 years of Labour government, Mr Denham’s analysis represents a shocking indictment of failure to achieve the mobility and economic betterment of marginalised sections of society. The fact that all ethnic groups apart from black boys have a better chance of getting to university than white boys shows how much there is still to do. The relevant category for this group, as Mr Denham points out, is not that they are white. It is that they are poor. But, for all his claimed success on race, there has not been much progress on class.