The same is true in this country, if not more so. British tolerance of other people's ways, religions, cuisines, languages and dress has not always been matched by an equal willingness on the part of immigrants to subscribe to the value system of the host nation. That was principally the fault of the multiculturalist creed espoused by the Left, which encouraged different ethnic groups to do their own thing, meaning they became more estranged from mainstream society and from one another. In some parts of the country, this led to segregation and separation – the "parallel lives" identified by a report into the 2001 riots in several northern cities. Rather than insisting that immigrants learn English – which would be to their own benefit – millions of pounds have been spent providing interpreters and translating public service documents. This is a subject political leaders usually recoil from discussing – and Mrs Merkel may pay a price for doing so. But the alternative is to leave the debate exclusively to the extremists.