Phil Woolas, New Labour's odious new Immigration Minister bases his borderline racist views on a constant reiteration of the term "community". Woolas was previously "Minister for Communities" during which time he fuelled tabloid headlines by making unsupported remarks about inbreeding causing birth defects in the Pakistani community and calling for the sacking of a Muslim teaching assistant who wanted to wear the Niqab. (This is what New Labour means by "promoting community cohesion")

A quote from Woolas in a recent Guardian article ("You can't come in" Guardian 2, 18/11/08) shows how easy it is for politicians to (mis)use the term community for deeply xenophobic purposes: " A large part of the reason why we had riots and we were targeted by the hard right was because we hadn't talked about it (immigration) enough and we didn't reflect what people in communities were saying and thinking and worrying about. The body politic was cut off from the communities". By "the communities" it is quite clear that he means his white constituents rather than his black ones - though the way he uses the term allows him to avoid saying this. Woolas' pronouncements on race are actually no different from those of Enoch Powell in that they both accept without question that large numbers of white people are being entirely right and sensible to feel threatened by newly arriving refugees and migrants.

Surely a responsible politician (especially one in the position of Immigration Minister) should try to lead opinion rather than just reflecting and reinforcing the dirty and dangerous views of the red top newspapers. The job of an immigration minister is not just to "reflect what people in communities are saying and thinking and worrying about". This is exactly what pandering to racism means!