Token Nonsense

Meritocracy: a nice idea.

Some of Britain’s most popular television programmes including the Vicar of Dibley and Who Wants to be a Millionaire have been criticised for being “too white” in a report led by Trevor Phillips, the equality chief.

The research found that Black and Asian viewers felt that despite the growing number of ethnic minorities living in the UK, they still felt under-represented on hit television shows.

If this questionable research is truthful and representative, then the response should manifest itself as the raising of the middle finger of your right hand. The "growing number" of immigrants into this country, we presume, are here to work or to live free of terror in some poor war-torn state. Why should they suddenly be entitled to see themselves on television?

When non-whites did appear in dramas and soaps, they said they were often “token” characters ...

In that case, if TV shows had to star a certain number of ethnic people, how would they not also be "token"?

If you want to be "representative", let's get technical about it then: according to the 2001 census, 92.1% of the population are white, meaning 7.9% are not. 4% are "south Asian", 2% are black, 1.2% are mixed race, and 0.8% are either oriental or "other". So if we round things up for the sake of making it easier, there should be one member of an ethnic minority for every nine whites.

Of course, you could then get into the issue of how "under-represented" eastern Europeans are, but as ever, they don't seem too bothered about it.

He [the BBC's Dr Samir Shah] said that urgent steps were needed to give people who did not benefit from an Oxbridge education the chance to get a job in the industry.

No, you'd rather a black kid with an A-level in Media should get in over someone who's actually suited for the job.

Why is anyone surprised when we hear this from Westminster ...

IMMIGRATION is the single biggest cause of public concern, an influential group of MPs warned yesterday. They are so worried that they told the Government it must act urgently to defuse tensions before the concern boils over into riots.

To my knowledge, we were warned some time ago of "the uncertainty of violence, on a scale which can only adequately be described as 'civil war'".