There’s a lot of mixed feelings when it comes to British identity. Almost everyone I know has a separate ethnic identity which means we often don’t think about what it is to be British, or it can mean that we tend to appreciate it less.

I went to Ethiopia in 2010 and personally didn’t enjoy myself. I was so used to being wrapped up in this blanket of multiculturalism that I didn’t realise being in a whole city full of people who looked similar to me would feel so unsettling. However what was even more surprising was that people were judgemental when I spoke in English and some even laughed. Immediately I was defensive of being British, which was unusual as I was used to complaining daily about almost everything in Britain. At the end of the trip I was glad my parents decided to raise me in London. There are a lot of things we can be grateful for: the underground or the education system, for example. There aren’t many people in the world who can say they can get miles around a city in less than an hour.

The Conservatives, according to an article in The Economist, are much less likely to win non-white votes than socio-economic indicators would predict. What’s going on – and how could the party reverse the pattern, asks Sunder Katwala.

British Future went to York this week to to join the cast of the play Bed in a passionate debate about British identity.

The debate, held on the set of Bed in the York Theatre Royal, saw York University lecturer Mike Savage, Charles Hutchinson of the York Press and the director of Bed Cecily Boys discuss Scotland, the British Empire and Yorkshire pride.

Watch our video to hear some of what they said.

Channel 4’s Make Bradford British defied the expectations and took risks to explore how we want to live together or apart, but left Sunder Katwala feeling more hopeful about a Britain that we want to share.

British Future headed off to Stratford this morning to get a sneaky peak inside the Olympic stadium ahead of this summer’s crowds. Even the journey to the stadium is exciting, if you take London public transport options, the Docklands Light Railway or the Jubilee line. Both sweep past the edge of the park allowing arrivals to catch sight of the striking new buildings, the swoop of the aquadrome and the butterfly of the velodrome in the distance.

Featuring an interview with Sunder Katwala, a Pod Academy podcast discusses Britain, identity and our new report, Hopes and Fears.

In the podcast you can also hear some clips from the British Future debate held at our launch, where the Spectator’s James Forsyth, political commentator Matthew D’Ancona, novelist Christie Watson, graduate Promise Campbell and British Future’s Sunder Katwala discussed identity and class, British values, and the London borough of Brent.

The Department of Communities and Local Government has launched its long awaited new strategy on integration – simply entitled Creating […]

The government had made a mistake in not having a proper judicially-led inquiry into the summer’s riots, former Met police commissioner Ian Blair said today, giving the inaugural Stephen Lawrence criminal justice lecture to the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust in London.

When you’ve no stable family network, an area becomes home. The prospect of leaving Brent, a decision I had to consider last year as the call for independence intensified, proved far more unsettling than I had anticipated. My obsession with the area, Willesden in particular, mirrors Zadie Smith’s passion in her bestseller White Teeth; even the author’s American polemic On Beauty makes its way home.