The English countryside isn’t racist

I don’t know what your plans are for Easter. Mine generally include a nice walk in the English countryside. There is something incalculably consoling about our landscape. I might even find myself leaning on a stile and looking at some Easter lambs while they do that sudden vertical jump thing, as though they have suddenly found they are standing over a geyser.

But perhaps I should instead scour the rolling hills for signs of racism which I could then report to the relevant authorities.

What am I going on about, some saner readers might be wondering. Well, I have been reading reports in the British press that the English countryside is about to be ‘studied’ by ‘hate crime experts’ to find out whether ‘rural racism’ is lurking. This deeply rigorous academic exercise is going to be led by academics ‘specialising in British colonialism and hate studies’, seeking to record the ‘lived realities’ of ethnic minorities who live or hike there.