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Opinion: England’s demographics swing -- like a pendulum do

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England was where I first heard the term ‘multicultural,’ long before it entered popular American speech as an inexact synonym for multiracial. Today, as even a week’s visit dramatizes, the UK is both multicultural (as controversies over the role of Islam in public education demonstrate) and multiracial. In 2004 the non-white population of the UK was 14.7%; it’s no doubt higher now.

Anyone watching British TV or living (or vacationing) in London would think the proportion to be much larger. Racial tension is mitigated, so an expat American told me, by a natural British reluctance to offend -- a quality not shared by the British National Party.

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And yet ... contradictions abound. Last weekend I was in Bath on shopping day; the number of non-white faces was minuscule. The daughter of a friend of mine from London had this reaction to a visit to the hinterland: ‘Daddy, everybody was white!’ And judging by postcards on sale in London, tourists want to bask in the afterglow of the old England, the one of which Roger Miller sang in ‘England Swing (Like a Pendulum Do)’ of the ‘rosy-red cheeks of the little children.’

I don’t want to exaggerate the demographic polarization between London and elsewhere in the UK. Notable non-white populations are found in other cities. But one wonders, despite British civility, if racist politicians, even in cities, will exploit the widespread feeling in ‘little England’ that London isn’t Britain any more than Los Angeles or New York is America. ‘I don’t go to London anymore,’ an elderly lady told me. ‘No one speaks English there.’

-- Michael McGough

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