Clarkson

If there's one person who should NOT take part in the debate on multiculturalism in Britain, it's Jeremy Clarkson. I've never quite understood how this charmless gearhead got a column in a major newspaper, but he's in the (London) Sunday Times week in, week out.

I've at least tried to understand what multiculturalism is, but I'm not sure he has. Regardless, this week he tells us that multiculturalism won't work. Instead he says:

Ken Livingstone may have engineered a multicultural environment but I suspect that Britain isn't multicultural at all. It's simply a land mass on which an unknown number of immigrants and indigenous people happen to live.

We co-exist like birds. You don't find sparrows joining in with a flock of starlings. You don'’t see yellowhammers swooping down on a cherry tree with a pack of fieldfares. But crucially you don't see them fighting either.

This, I think, is the lesson we should learn in these difficult times. Instead of forcing a Pakistani teenager to swear allegiance to the flag and learn English and get some crummy certificate of Britishness from the local mayor, why not let him be a Pakistani who happens to live in Bradford? Let him go to a Muslim school. Let him support Pakistan when they play England at cricket. Let him be what he wants to be.

Oh okay, so now we just have to behave like flocks of birds sharing a meadow.

Multiculturalism won't work, so Britain should just have what? Multinationalism? I think that's what he's describing here. I presume he'd have separate courts & parliament as well. That doesn't sound like a winner to me there Jeremy.