However, your model assumes that Happiness With Race Relations [HWRR] is a function of the proportion of non White British in the region. This is clearly flawed as it assumes that all such people have a homogenous affect on the happiness of White British people. Living next door to an Irish family is very different to living next door to Finsbury Park Mosque (I struggled for a few minutes to come up with a non-Islamic example of potentially undesirable neighbours and, after discarding Greek students, Chinese cockle pickers, Somali asylum-seekers and Russian disco-fiends [don't ask] I decided it was a relevant one and went for it). Also, the actual question asked was “do yuo think that your local area is a place where people from different backgrounds get on well together?” “Backgrounds” can be interpreted by respondents to cover the entire diversity of personal history and therefore many respondents will not have interpreted this, as you have, as a strictly ethnicity-based enquiry.

That’s not to say I disagree with you about misery being a significant driver of BNP-voting. That, surely, is the very definition of a Protest Vote. Of course there are cunts like Griffin and that other despicable oik that got elected as an MEP who clearly vote BNP for ideological reasons but I hope they’re the minority. It would be interesting to ascertain what degree of fidelity BNP voters have to the party. Whether most of them only vote the once, at a low point in their lives and in protest, and then have an epiphany, recant and resolve never to be such a twat ever, ever again.

Word.

Cue “But why should I have to buy my pie and chips from a muslim. It’s just not fair“”

So all Turks are Muslims ? And you’re calling me a racist ?

How is it “freedom” if something I want is no longer avaiable ? Last time I checked we lived in a democracy which means stuff I do/don’t like is as important as stuff migrants do/don’t like, except that when I deign to express that opinion it’s called racism by hypocritical middle class wankers like you.

You’ll be waiting a long time for Matt Munro to object to that because it’s the “free market” and “choice”.

Usual right-wing fuckwit then, basically.

Cue “But why should I have to buy my pie and chips from a muslim. It’s just not fair“.

Boo hoo, cry. That’s freedom for you – sometimes stuff *you* don’t like happens. Besides, Tesco will have stepped in to fill the pie and chips market, so get over yourself.

It’s a specious argument anyway – I like curry and you could get a decent curry in any UK city long before anyone could even spell multiculturalism. Something being avaiable and something being shoved down your throat are 2 very different propositions

It may be an awful cliche, but: I like Vietnamese food, and I live in a city that, thanks to its ethnic diversity, has an awful lot of Vietnamese people; some of them are jolly good at cooking Vietnamese food; and some of _them_ then proceed to sell me it at reasonable prices. Thus my life is enriched.

Why not do it?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/24/afghanistan-black-watch-double-life

Nor does herpes, but that’s not an argument for spreading it.

“We also know that immigration largely has no effect economically”.

Then why do it ?

Erm, no, not in a free society.”

Exactly – and if you want to change a free society you have to show how that change is beneficial, otherwise you are imposing the will of a minority on the majority…

LOL

Erm, no, not in a free society.

I don’t think the above has anything to say about multiculturism either way, it has nothing to say about how how seperate or homogeneous these people are in terms of culture, just ethnicity. The standard criticism of multiculturalism, (by the sane rather than the “we just don’t like darkies” crowd), is that it encourages isolation and makes relations between ethnicities more fraught. Assuming, for the sake of argument, that you have similar levels of multi/uni culturalism across the board it might affect the hight of the line but not the gradient.

John B: Good article but I reserve the right to be a deeply suspicious SOB when it comes to “happiness stats”. Not that I’m alledging some sort of “Liberal Conspiricy”, I just think it’s a difficult thing to measure accurately.