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Evening Standard column

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown

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This isn’t how to enforce an immigration language test of love

A mole in the Home Office tells me civil servants are hyperactively pushing out policies to curb migrant flows

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My children wouldn’t recognise Blair Peach’s world

Celia Stubbs, at long last, can read the official account of how her partner Blair Peach, a 33-year-old teacher, came to die while on a demonstration in Southall, west London

No Mr Denham, our lives are still blighted by racism

Communities Secretary John Denham’s claim that class, not race, is now our biggest social barrier is a cynical appeal to white voters

Women should be wary of romanticising Islam

I am keen to meet Allegra Mostyn-Owen and support her invaluable work at the mosque in Forest Gate, east London

The BNP do not deserve a place in this debate

Tell me it is a bad joke, please. The BBC, bastion of ethical values, has invited into its bed the British National Party, an avowedly racist organisation with a fascist pedigree

Our hypocrisy as the French raze ‘the jungle’

Those who risk everything to try and make a better life need more respect and even if they are eventually deported, must be treated with compassion

This stop-and-search threatens us all

Several young men in my circle of friends and family have recently been stopped and searched by the police, just some of the 8,000-plus people so questioned by the Met in 2007-8

I’m not convinced by Kate’s class act

There is much kerfuffle over Kate Winslet's outburst this week. She came over all upset that people label her middle-class (because she speaks "nice") when her parents had toiled against all odds. Ergo: she is forever a working-class lass. No she isn't.

Cry God for a new England and St George

England is festooned with flags and bunting; the red cross is worn on chests, heads and bags, even socks. It isn't clear, though, what version of Englishness is being celebrated with St George's Day today. Is it little Englishness or expansive Englishness? Is it an ethnic definition or does it include all who live within this geographical entity?

This police watchdog has lost his bite

This time, I'm afraid, it's personal. Nick Hardwick, Chair of the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), is not delivering police accountability

A whiter shade of beyond the pale

The Black and White Minstrels are thankfully long gone

Spare us Madonna's adoption tourism

In 2006, Madonna got David, her Malawian adoptee. Now she is back again, this time bidding for Mercy, a four-year-old orphan

Our own Obama is still just a pipe dream

Our first black PM, our own Obama? After a century perhaps, I said, and made my son very cross. He, a young barrister, is more upbeat and hopeful than his grumpy mum. It seems new research agrees with him. A study comparing race and opportunity in the US and UK finds many reasons to be cheerful about our situation.

London needs to speak every language

For over half a million schoolchildren in Britain - one in seven - English is a second language. Middle England has reacted with shock to the new figures. Calm down, guys. Languages are a gift, not a disease.

Stay calm and face down these Islamist boors

Trust me when I say that most of us British Muslims detest the fanatics who screamed at British soldiers parading in Luton this week even more than outraged non-Muslims do. We want the ground beneath them to open up.

Pity poor mothers: the nanny always wins

Tory frontbencher Caroline Spelman must return the £10,000 she claimed from the public purse to pay her nanny in the late 1990s, who, apparently, also did secretarial work. There's no reason really to feel sympathy for Spelman. Yet most working mothers will surely feel a weary pang of recognition at her nanny troubles. I know I do: for wonderful women though many nannies, child minders and au pairs are, dealing with them is often more debilitating than the wailing baby.

Ivan’s lesson: look the disabled in the face

Ivan Cameron died yesterday, aged only six. He had cerebral palsy and epilepsy and couldn't move much or communicate, except I imagine his parents did know what he wanted and was feeling, picked up on signs and responded

Sisters are doing it to themselves

Stamping her well-heeled little feet, Sienna Miller whinges about the "sisterhood", more vicious to her than the universal brotherhood of sweetiepie men

The reality TV show every parent must see

I flopped down on Tuesday night and turned on the telly. Channel 4 was broadcasting Girls and Boys Alone, a series I knew I would detest, as many have

Sorry, Carol – Auntie had to dump you

Carol Thatcher says she is baffled that a remark made by her in jest has caused such upset. The top brass at the BBC have decided that her services are no longer required on The One Show, presented by Adrian Chiles and Christine Bleakley. Thatcher, a roving reporter on the show, described a French tennis player as a “golliwog” while chatting off-air to Chiles and the comedian Jo Brand. They objected, her
apology was hopelessly inadequate and now she is gone.

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