The diversity election: it’s hardly party time

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/may/03/diversity-election-hardly-party-time-manifestos

Version 0 of 1.

Though the election race is tight, there is no glaring sign that any of the major participants think they can get over the line by focusing on diversity. They are probably right. It doesn’t resonate in the way jobs or housing do. But there should be requisite attention.

Maybe Labour will step up. After all, the party’s black and minority ethnic manifesto promises to close the pay gap for black and minority ethnic workers. It notes: “Half of the Bangladeshi community [is] earning below the living wage.” It plans to clamp down on hate crime, including making Islamophobia an aggravating factor in the assessment of criminal offences. This has already been attacked, not least by aggrieved Telegraph types, as kowtowing to the Muslims. The Telegraph, as ever, an engine of social change. Labour’s big thing is race equality in Whitehall, imposing obligations on all departments. Folk are excited. A review in New Statesman called it “the most progressive document on race ever produced by a British political party”.

What of the Tories? They promise to “protect British values and our way of life”, which is fine but vague and it is all a bit punitive – “tough new language tests for migrants”, reduced spending on translation, English tests for public sector workers. Hardly celebratory. There is stuff about greater equality in police recruitment and a reform of stop and search. But given all they know about their need to win more minority support – 16% of minority voters supported the Tories in 2010 – they have hardly grasped the nettle.

The glossy Lib Dems minority manifesto also addresses language skills, policing and equality at work. Compared with the Tory offer, its tone is less confrontational. It also promises to address Islamophobia. That will annoy the Telegraph.

The Greens would also send the Telegraph mad with talk of “celebrating diversity, mandatory diversity and equality lessons in schools and an equalities committee to be established in the House of Commons”. Good on them.

Then there is Ukip. Don’t laugh. It does have some minority members. And it wants “people to integrate”, according to its manifesto. It imagines a “unifying culture” open to all “regardless of their ethnic or religious background”. But it also seems pretty keen on defunding or de-establishing the laws and bodies that might bring that about. Risible. But then, Nigel Farage didn’t get where he is today chasing minority votes, did he?