Britain's curious anti-racists.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)

SIR: I was fascinated by John O'Sullivan's article on "The Real British Disease" (January-February 2006). But he had obviously not been in England himself for most of the period covered by his article. I, on the other hand, had not only been in England but had been personally and heavily involved in all the relevant controversies.

It began in 1966 when a man, who was later to become both a New Labour (Blairite) Home Secretary and later Foreign Secretary, as a closed (secret) member of the Communist Party, became President of the National Union of Students to implement its policies of "No Platform for Racists or Fascists!"

It was quite impossible to extract any definition of either key term from any office holder in the NUS, so long as that organisation maintained that policy. Years later, that man, as Home Secretary, launched a campaign against Institutional Racism, with no acknowledgment of his indebtedness for that concept to the US Black Power militant Stokely Carmichael. This campaign followed the principle, unprecedented in the UK, of a presumption of guilt, and the Church of England and other major national ...