New citizens of the United Kingdom may soon have to undergo a citizenship test, pledging their allegiance to the Queen, demonstrating their knowledge of English language and culture and quite possibly promising to cheer on the England cricket team. What they needn’t bother to do, on the other hand, is to take too much notice of the law. The Metropolitan Police Authority has declared that the police stop and search a disproportionate number of people of ethnic minority background, and that they must stop it at once. In 2002, we learn, 34 per cent of people stopped and searched were black; yet blacks make up only eight per cent of the population.
One is not, of course, allowed these days to make the point that an awful lot of London’s muggers are black. What one can point out is that a disproportionate number of victims of muggings, too, are black.
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