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New Mayor must stop our schools separating out along race lines, equality chief warns
Anne McElvoy09.05.08
Britain's equalities chief Trevor Phillips meets Boris Johnson today, saying he hopes the new Mayor can heal one of the major rifts of the Livingstone years over the handling of race relations in the capital.
And the race relations commissioner warned Mr Johnson that he was "hugely concerned" about schools "gradually separating out" along racial lines.
"As long as he is consensual and wants to bring the city together, that's fine by me," he said.
Mr Phillips, the chairman of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, criticised Ken Livingstone's record on integration, saying: "One of the things that people like me felt uncomfortable about was that their way of doing politics was to Balkanise and control.
"They would choose this group and give them something, that group and give them something. Londoners don't want to feel that one part of the city is being played off against another. No one really likes that approach apart from some community leaders who benefit from it."
Mr Phillips said that Lee Jasper, the Livingstone aide who was suspended pending an inquiry into funding and sexually explicit emails, had been a divisive figure. "Lee was signed-up, old-style bureaucratic multiculturalism - as big a trader of favours you could get."
But Mr Phillips also signalled that he would confront Mr Johnson with stark challenges on the opportunity gap in the capital. "We have to slow the trend of schools being colonised by parents who can afford the premium on house prices to live nearby. They cannot simply entrench their good fortune and ensure other people cannot share it," he said.
"What is being hoarded is not an advantage of the middle classes against the poor but one section of the middle classes against the rest. Even people who have the advantage of it feel uncomfortable about it... They don't want to be locked into a rich man's ghetto.
"We have to be prepared to try different solutions. Let's see how the balloting system in Brighton works out or look at the redrawing catchment areas as we did in some northern towns to prevent racial segregation." The Mayor has no control over schools, but can influence policy on skills development.
"It is an unintended consequence of more choice in state education," he said. "Where you get separation in schools you find that the schools with the highest ethnic component get the poorest resources and are the hardest for any child to emerge from with a good education."
Mr Phillips admitted his difficulties with Mr Livingstone had led to a freeze in relations between the commission and the Mayor's office, inhibiting attempts to repel the advance of the BNP - which won a seat on the London Assembly in last week's election. "We thought that it would be good if we did something jointly with Ken in the pre-election purdah period about the dangers of voting for Right-wing extremist parties. We got nothing back at all.
"It felt that we were being stopped from doing something important by relatively unimportant personal stuff. It was hard to talk about anything substantial if someone finds it hard to say good morning to you. We have not exchanged more than a couple of words since I left the Assembly (in 2003)."
Mr Phillips, who is thought by some to harbour mayoral ambitions, said the Labour Party in London had to learn to live without Mr Livingstone.
"It's a huge hole. The party needs to step back and think about how it appeals to Londoners. We need to beef up the politics of the city. The mayoralty is too weak and the checks and balances on it are too feeble. We need more decision-making and power exercised directly in London. It doesn't matter so much what colour the rosette is."
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This is one QUANGO we can easily do without.
Also, Mr. P, ever heard the one about birds of a feather flocking together? You aren't going to change human nature by legislation. Schools reflect where people live. Would you have bussing US style?
- Dr Nick Ashley, Huntingdon England
If you are reading this Mr Phillips, I and no doubt many others are going to report you to the Metropolitan Police for your disgusting "less than human" comments published in the Herald. You're an overpaid jobsworth living a life of Riley at the Tax payers expense, constantly meddling, when anyone with half a brain could of told you 20 years ago the mess that we were heading for.
- John, Wapping
The man has a cheek, telling people what to do and criticising others who do the same. And as for his title of equalities chief, wasn't he quoted just the other day in Scotland's Herald newspaper saying that members of one of the democratically elected political parties should be treated as less than human. If that isn't biased and nasty - not to mention the other overtly political stances he takes - I don't know what is. Get rid of the man.
- Helen, Norwich
