The One That Is Off To The Re-Education Camp . . .

Bloody hell, but Labour are a mess. A news story has come out this morning which has got my mind pinging off in a hundred different directions.

Not only have Labour abolished boom and bust (well, the boom bit, certainly), not only have Labour swept away the spectre of child poverty (and how does that work if the child is living with poverty stricken adults? Do the adults not matter?), they have now announced that they've done away with racism.

Being black or Asian in the UK no longer means you will be automatically disadvantaged, Communities Secretary John Denham will say in a speech later.

Mr Denham says the problems of white working class areas must be tackled.

Or to put it in other words;

We've started an election campaign months in advance of the actual date, in the hope that you're all thoroughly sick of it, and come the big day and stay at home, because the more of you that turn out, the bigger the pile of shit we'll find ourselves in come the count. And don't vote BNP, there's no point, we've done away with racism.

A number of things occur to me about this.

Firstly; I will be expecting huge broadsides at the Tories, but occasional bow chasers fired off to send out a subliminal message about the BNP. Defeat to the Tories is all but assured, despite Cameron's best efforts to turn people away from them himself, but what really scares Labour is the BNP. They are petrified of them.

Secondly; If Labour have abolished racism and we have (I'm assuming) also done away with sexism and homophobia, what is Harriet Harman for? Or is this an early shot in the battle for people to take over in a clusterfuck of a leadership election, assuming Brown actually stands down after the election? Are we seeing camps trying to undermine rivals' power bases?

Thirdly; It is typical of Labour hubris to declare that it is they who have sorted this out. They don't realise that society evolves at its own pace, all the legislation in the world makes no difference. As far as they are concerned, it is all down to them and the all powerful state. They have declared it does not exist. Therefore, if you do not believe that, or think you see evidence that it still does, you are in the wrong. This is how re-education camps get set up.

You'll always get individuals who for whatever reason will hate all, some or one of the groups that is different to them, but as a whole British society hasn't had a real racism problem you may find elsewhere for a long, long time. Indeed I would submit that Britain is one of, if not the best, place in the world for race relations. It isn't perfect, but it never will be, nor will anywhere else, however it is testament to the basic decency of the British that racism is not a huge problem in this country. It is not testament to politicians, they can no more legislate to prevent racism than they can to legislate to prevent snowfall. They can legislate to prosecute racism, but that will not stop racists being racist, indeed they will merely see it as an attack on their freedom of expression and what they perceive to be their perfectly legitimate values and will fight against it.

Finally; This isn't all that Labour have done away with. They've also done away with habeas corpus, trial by jury, freedom of association and a whole raft of other things that I would submit are fairly important.

Just in case that anyone thinks I'm being unduly biased against Labour, I will state that I have absolutely no confidence that an incoming Conservative government will change any of this. This is a toybox that they cannot wait to start to playing with.