If you keep people in the dark and feed them manure they’ll grow up to riot

In The Times newspaper a short while ago Trevor Philips argued that the problem is less race and more class. I would add education and diversity of experience. Those behaving badly, one suspects, are artisan and ill-educated. I apologise if anyone is offended by this assertion but I suspect it’s true. It is a generalisation and there are exceptions – the vile Nick Griffin is a Cambridge graduate. Boris “Piccaninies” Johnson went to Oxford. But liberalism is not the dominant ethos behind the Red Wall.

Bigotry breeds amongst the dim and disadvantaged. If you feel offended by the Black Lives Matter movement you’ll spout the facile and dimwitted “All Lives Matter” response. If you see Black footballers asserting their rights to equality of treatment by taking the knee you’ll boo them.

Football fandom has become a bit gentrified in recent times but it is still overwhelmingly white, male and working-class. Most fans behave decently – but some don’t as we saw at Wembley.

If we educated children better racism would die. But remember xenophobia – racism’s close cousin – is at the heart of our Government of Brexiteers. That’s why there are so many flags and why it has become common for many to denigrate foreigners.

There are signs that decent Tories are rebelling against a government that whatever its fine words is discriminatory at its heart. Chesham and Amersham was an indicator that some have had enough. It’s in our hands to eliminate the scourge of racism not by becoming more politically correct but by improving the quality of our education considerably. Remember if you keep people in the dark and feed them manure they’ll grow up to riot.