News

20 years on, we can now see that Stephen Lawrence’s death has come to play an important symbolic role, Sunder Katwala writes.

Sunder Katwala reflects on what we learnt from focus groups asking people in Leeds and Fareham how integration should work.

The inclusive pride so many Londoners felt in its confident claim to be one of the world’s great global cities was one of the resonant themes of the capital’s success in hosting the 2012 Olympics. Yet the release of the 2011 census, shortly before Christmas, generated a more anxious discussion of diversity. There was also a familiar polarisation – on one side, those who celebrate difference and diversity as enriching the cultural life of the capital, versus those who feel deeply unsettled by the scale and pace of change which they have seen in their lifetimes, writes Sunder Katwala.

Lord Ahmed’s comments blaming his imprisonment for dangerous driving on a Jewish conspiracy are absurd and extreme, says Sunder Katwala.

British Future has appointed Shirley Cramer as its new chair.

Zimbabwean refugee Cynthia Masiyiwa has been selected for the Woman of the Year award at The Migrant and Refugee Woman of the Year Awards. Last year she helped loads of young people get involved in the Olympics, writes Jemimah Steinfeld.

A lover of Iris Murdoch novels, I noticed recently that in my faded 1960s paperbacks her author’s biography proudly boasts of Anglo-Irish parentage. Perhaps her publisher wanted to emphasise a background evocative of literary greats, from Jonathan Swift to Samuel Beckett? That hyphenated identity, Yeats’ “no petty people”, dominated public life in Ireland for centuries. But today, are they still a people at all asks Paul Evans.

Americans don’t get sarcasm, the British love queues and the French like cheese. Stereotypes are often inaccurate, but can also be useful way of finding a common identity. In his sketch show comedian Erich McElroy draws on these stereotypes to describe his long-running struggle between being American and being British, writes Georgia Hussey.

After the performance of the National Theatre of Scotland’s Glasgow Girls, the audience jumped to their feet and roared their approval and wouldn’t stop. The cast looked slightly stunned by the audience’s reaction, but it was a reflection of a truly exciting musical play, writes Rachael Jolley.