Things we won't say about race that are true C4 21.00 - 22.25

Covered End

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trevor_Phillips

It looks like the penny has finally dropped. Allelujah !
He admits he was wrong and says we should be free to discuss racial issues and facts, without being labelled a racist.
To be fair to him, he's been saying it for 10 years. See link.
He says that not being allowed to discuss these issues, openly and honestly is unhealthy and has caused problems in eg Rotherham and led to the growth of far right parties across Europe.

PL54

Even my wife was talking about this last night - and she's Welsh

Jints

From your link, it sounds as if he has been saying that kind of thing for more than a decade:

Phillips and Livingstone had a frosty relationship throughout Phillips' time on the London Assembly, and Phillips' opposition to multiculturalism saw them clash time and again during his tenure at the CRE. In a Times interview in April 2004, Phillips called for the government to reject its support for multiculturalism, claiming it was out of date, and legitimised "separateness" between communities and instead should "assert a core of Britishness".[4]

In 2006, Livingstone accused Phillips of "pandering to the right" so much that he "would soon join the BNP".[5] Phillips himself replied that his views had been "well documented" and "well supported". Phillips has made speeches stating that "it was right to ask hard questions about multicultural Britain". Although he apologised for his misuse of statistics on levels of segregation he welcomed the focus on integration of different communities after the launch of A Commission for Integration and Cohesion.[6]

Trevor Phillips has spoken on the need for free speech to "allow people to offend each other."[11] These comments came after the protests against the Danish cartoons satirising the Islamic prophet, Muhammad which sparked protests in the Muslim world. He stated in an ITV interview: "One point of Britishness is that people can say what they like about the way we should live, however absurd, however unpopular it is."

brogib

How long's he been saying for fellas, 10 years or a decade? Make your minds up ffs!

Daggs

Told me nothing i didn't already know.

Covered End

Good programme. I agree it told us nothing we didn't already know, but at least Trevor Phillips is acknowledging, that he got it wrong and we need to discuss these issues openly and honestly.

A pity this thread was sunk, because his message was, let's not "sink" these issues, let's discuss them.

Lincsaddick

Covered End said:

Good programme. I agree it told us nothing we didn't already know, but at least Trevor Phillips is acknowledging, that he got it wrong and we need to discuss these issues openly and honestly.

A pity this thread was sunk, because his message was, let's not "sink" these issues, let's discuss them.

Totally agree, although Phillips only really scratched the surface .. more power to him though and to C4 for broadcasting such a potentially controversial programme