By RICHARD KLEIN

Last updated at 23:39 29 February 2008

Over the past two decades, Britain has been through a revolution.

The extent of the change, in both scale and speed, has probably been unique in the peacetime history of our country.

Globalisation, mass immigration and economic upheaval have helped to transform the fabric of our nation.

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Eyes on the prize: Bingo in a Seventies working men's club

Today, we are one of the most culturally and racially diverse places in Europe.

These changes have been the subject of noisy debate within the media, politics and academia, yet it is a curious irony that, in all the heated discussion about the consequences of this revolution, one voice has been largely absent: that of the white working class.

Politicians pontificate and academics argue, yet the voices of the British working-class public have been all but ignored.

Given that they are the people most affected by all this upheaval, this is a bizarre omission.

No longer hailed for their community spirit, their attachment to strong families or their respect for tradition, they are now often portrayed as reactionary or backward, with opinions so outdated they can easily be dismissed.

The voice of the white working-class is barely allowed to intrude into British politics or culture.

In metropolitan circles, where sneering at any minority ethnic group would be regarded as an outrage, this white working-class opinion is all too often treated with suspicion or contempt.

The word chav, for instance, is now often accepted as a way of marking the behaviour of the working class, even though any similarly abusive description of ethnic minorities would lead to police inquiries.

What is particularly bizarre about this approach is that, until recently, the white working class were seen as an integral and respected part of our national life.

Working-class heroes, like Michael Caine or George Best, were celebrated as national icons, their strong accents and easy self-confidence adored by the public.

Working-class life was realistically portrayed in novels, films and dramas. Working-class culture was the driving force in popular music, comedy and sport.

In politics as well, some might argue that the white working-class exerted an enormous influence, in a positive way through the expansion of welfare services to alleviate poverty and illhealth, and more negatively through the tribalism of the trade union movement that ultimately led to the disaster of the Winter of Discontent in 1979.

Yet there is something seriously wrong with a civic society which is reluctant to hear the views of a sizeable section of its population, especially one that has done so much for our country in the past and has felt the impact of social revolution perhaps more keenly than any other group.

That is why, as the BBC's commissioner for documentaries, I was so determined to redress the balance by commissioning a new season of programmes looking at the attitudes of the white working class.

The very fact that such a move is treated as controversial is a measure of how far they have been marginalised. But I thought it was vital for the BBC to address their concerns, for two reasons.

First of all, the Corporation has a unique voice in Britain as the nation's only public service broadcaster. We therefore have a duty to reflect the views of all sections of the public, and the BBC is the right place to have a debate about these issues.

After all, the white working class pay their licence fees like everybody else.

Second, I felt that ventilating their views produced fascinating material in itself, which deserved a wider audience.

Conflict is at the heart of all great fiction, biography and history, and there can be few greater arenas for emotional conflict than the state of the white working class in modern Britain, struggling to embrace the modern, diverse, globalised, everchanging world.

The season, called "White", features a range of programmes about workingclass life in 21st-century Britain.

One documentary, called Last Orders, studies the pressures on a traditional working men's club in Bradford in Yorkshire, some of whose members feel under siege.

They feel threatened not only by the influx of migrants taking their jobs, but also by other changes imposed by the Government, including the smoking ban and the arrival of cheap alcohol in urban pubs, areas where working men's clubs used to be the only places capable of offering cheaper drinks.

In one sense, the club's clientele might be criticised for their reluctance to embrace the modern world, yet I believe that most viewers of the film will feel a sense of sympathy for their tremendous, and increasingly rare, community spirit and their anxiety in watching their comforting environment disappear.

Other programmes in the season include a 40th anniversary study of Enoch Powell's notorious "rivers of blood" speech in 1968, in which he predicted racial chaos as a result of increasing migration.

Powell prophesied that mass migration would lead to segregation and communal violence, but the incendiary nature of his language dominated the headlines.

While the programme makes it clear that his language was racist, it also sets out to explore whether Powell's speech struck a chord at the time.

For example the London dockers, in the vanguard of the Labour movement, famously marched in his support when he was sacked from Ted Heath's shadow cabinet.

What particularly provoked me into commissioning this season was some research we did a couple of years ago with the BBC Learning team, when I was asked to look into issues which the public would like us to cover.

We conducted a survey, the outcome of which might have surprised liberal opinion-formers.

It showed that the public valued campaigns on Africa or Aids or Third-World famine less than issues more directly relevant to them: crime, immigration, the perceived breakdown in authority and the lack of discipline among young people.

That was the authentic voice of the traditional white working class. Now - in its wide-ranging geographical and social scope - the White season gives a chance for them to be heard.

And a number of key themes emerge from the programmes. One of the strongest is their belief that they are ignored by the media and political classes.

That shone through the documentary about the working men's clubs in Wibsey, Bradford, where members saw themselves as "the forgotten people", abandoned by the Labour Party and left behind by a modern Britain.

The American producer of the film, Henry Singer, spent several months in the town and admits that it was a journey of discovery.

As he says: "I was not aware of the depths of the sense of alienation people in towns like Wibsey feel, and I was not prepared for how strongly people there feel about race and immigration. They certainly made me realise that the preconception that a lot of people, including the media, have about these issues are incredibly simplistic."

The complexity of working-class attitudes was something I was determined to convey. It is far too easy for the middle classes, who benefit from cheap labour - whether it be from a Polish plumber or a Ukrainian nanny - to fail to understand the difficulties facing the white working class.

But as these BBC films demonstrate, the white working class claim they are the ones who suffer from the changes: losing their jobs, seeing their wages undercut, watching their local services under increasing strain.

In the film The Poles Are Coming, set in Peterborough, locals say that the infrastructure of the city has been dragged to breaking point by an influx of Poles.

One GP's surgery has registered 1,000 new patients from Eastern Europe in six months, while a local primary school has just one child who speaks English as a first language at home.

Echoing the sentiments of others, an elderly lady says she feels like a stranger in her own country.

A local councillor, who once championed the arrival of Ugandan Asians in Peterborough, now says that "enough is enough".

What also comes through is that, for some sections of society, they are the makers of their own misfortune.

For example, in this film a group of working-class lads complain that immigrants are taking their jobs, yet when the reporter, Tim Samuels, offers them jobs picking vegetables in fields for £7 an hour, they reject the offer outright as not something they would want to do.

It's also true that some of the comments made by some of the characters in these films are racist, and that they have been attracted to extreme political parties.

A sense of deep resentment also shines through the documentaries. In part as a consequence of multiculturalism, the irony is that many of the white working class see themselves as an oppressed ethnic minority too, and lower down the ladder than other groups on the hierarchy of victimhood.

They complain of double standards and hypocrisy, pointing out that the media revel in telling stories of Asian and African immigrants, but ignores tales from the white working class.

Every other culture, they argue, is revered except that of the indigenous population. And their most powerful grievance is often reserved for the Labour Party.

Though they feel they have been neglected by all political parties - "none of them care about the likes of us" is a common phrase - they are particularly angered by the perception that the Labour Party, founded just over a century ago to protect the interests of the working class, now no longer sees them as important - they feel abandoned.

I am in no way a spokesman for the white working class. But I think the message from the White season is a troubling one.

In the modern world's rush to embrace diversity and globalisation, we cannot afford to ignore the voices of any section of society which feels bewildered by the pace of change.

If we don't give everyone a voice, it may only lead to further social division.

I'm hoping this season will enable a debate to take place in an open and honest way.

•Richard Klein is BBC Head Of Independent Commissioning For Knowledge. BBC2's White season begins on March 7 with Last Orders, at 9pm.