Now PM tries to measure how racist the nation is: State will try to work out level of prejudice but asking how many people have friends from different ethnic backgrounds

Research will attempt to unravel levels of racial prejudice in Britain

It will be similar to the 'Happiness Index' survey introduced by Tories



David Cameron’s attempt to measure the happiness of the nation is to be extended to measure racism.

The state will in future try to gauge levels of racial prejudice by trying to work out how many people have friends from other ethnic backgrounds, how much crime is influenced by racial prejudice, and how much people respect the idea of diversity.

The answers to questions about ethnicity will be included in new official estimates of ‘social capital’, Whitehall jargon for how well people get on with each other, how their neighbourhood gets on, and what they think of national institutions.

The state will in future try to gauge levels of racial prejudice by trying to work out how many people have friends from other ethnic backgrounds, how much crime is influenced by racial prejudice, and how much people respect the idea of diversity. File picture

Some of the new measures will be calculated from information gathered by state surveys in response to inquiries about how many friends people have of different colours and from different cultures.

A paper from the Office for National Statistics yesterday said they should contain ‘a measure of the proportion of people who have some friends of different ethnic background than own.

Contact between people of different ethnicities can decrease prejudice and increase values of cooperation.’

It said people with friends of different ethnicities are likely do more for other people. ‘Those who have a more diverse social network in terms of ethnicity or age are more likely to volunteer than people who have no friends outside their own ethnic groups,’ the proposal said.

The new happiness measures, to be finalised this autumn, will also look at how much people think ethnic differences are respected in their neighbourhood, and crime problems including whether people are attacked or harassed because of their ethnic origin or their religion.

Prime Minister David Cameron launched the official attempt to measure happiness three years ago, with the aim of finding a new way of guiding Government policies

The Prime Minister launched the official attempt to measure happiness three years ago, with the aim of finding a new way of guiding Government policies.

His well-being scales, prompted by demands from Brussels for European-wide happiness figures, are designed to supplement traditional economic measures such as gross domestic product or unemployment.

Happiness questions have been inserted into large-scale state surveys and are put regularly to more than 160,000 people, at a cost of £2 million a year. They ask people on a scale of one to 10 how happy they are, whether they are satisfied with their lives, whether they think their lives are worthwhile, and how anxious they are.

Some findings so far have run counter to assumptions held by politicians and ministries. They have shown that very few people are worried about green and environmental concerns.

However they have produced powerful evidence that married people are have much higher levels of well-being than others – and that in particular they are happier, more satisfied and less anxious than cohabitees.

They have also indicated that stay-at-home mothers are more likely to think their lives are worthwhile than do women who go out to work.

The ONS said it was planning ‘a set of headline measures for the UK, which cover the four aspects of social capital and supplement the existing information published by the ONS on human and natural capital.’

It added that social capital measures would be part of the well-being programme and would assess ‘personal relationships, social network support, civic engagement and trust and co-operative norms.’

Social capital, the ONS said, ‘is also associated with values such as tolerance, solidarity or trust. These are beneficial to society and are important for people to be able to co-operate.’

The idea that many people do not have friends from other ethnic backgrounds, and that this is damaging to everybody, was first given a widespread airing in the 2000s by television presenter Adrian Chiles.

Mr Chiles made a series of programmes for BBC2 asking ‘why are all my friends white?’.

He said he was shocked when he looked at pictures of 131 guests at his wedding and found no non-white faces among them. ‘It’s not that I haven’t come into contact with many black or Asian people during my life,’ he said.

‘I grew up in the West Midlands, which is home to the largest non-white communities outside the capital, and now I live in Hammersmith, a decidedly multi-racial area of West London.’

Alongside people with friends from different ethnic groups, measures suggested by the ONS include ‘one showing the proportion of people who agree or strongly agree that residents in their local area respect ethnic differences between people. Respect of ethnic differences is another social norm important for social cohesion.’

There may also be a measure of ‘tolerance and non-discrimination towards people with differences based on ethnicity, language, culture, religion, nationality, sexual orientation, age or other characteristics.