The Scarman Report is an historic act of affirmation. What it affirms is a rational and optimistic approach to the difficulties of absorbing the ethnic minorities into the mainstream of British life.

The great evil of the public debate about race has been the habit of mind that lumps together all the disparate obstacles to racial integration as a single intimidating disorder of the social system, and then prescribes or predicts some appropriately apocalyptic outcome: repatriation or black insurrection or a violent backlash.

Lord Scarman’s Report breathes the pragmatic spirit of British reform. Notwithstanding its judicious tone, its criticism of police behaviour and policies is radical. Its recommendations are all the more forceful for being couched in the language of restraint and civility. Its success requires an unequivocal Government response. Even as it was being formally accepted by Home Office Ministers and police chiefs on Wednesday, it was possible to discern the first muted rumblings of official dissent from several of its most important recommendations. They are now being considered by Whitehall at the same time as those of the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee report on racial disadvantage.

Key quote

“We have to do things for ourselves. We can’t wait for other people.”

Ted Watkins, Los Angeles community leader who helped rebuild the Watts ghetto after the 1965 riots, preaching self-help to Britain’s black communities

Talking point

California cults are heading for the hills. Fears of nuclear war, economic collapse and imminent Armageddon have set doomsday groups, with tens of thousands of followers throughout the American West, stockpiling weapons and food.

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