Dear IRR News subscriber,

This week the IRR’s Jon Burnett, analyses Eric Pickles’ recent integration speech given at an event hosted by the think-tanks British Future and Policy Exchange. (Next week he will analyse British Futures’ new report on the state of the nation.)

Lawyer Dave Renton assesses why race discrimination tribunals fail at the employment tribunal. We also carry a review of Daniel Trilling’s book: Bloody Nasty People. There is also a call for people to take part in an Independent Review of Mental Health and Policing in the London area.

And racial violence has been in the news this week, with a man and his wife being attacked and abused in Ashford, Kent at the weekend by youths with snowballs; a 16-year-old and her aunt have been jailed for a vicious racist attack in Glasgow in which they pulled the hijab from a woman’s head, while a man has been jailed for placing a pig’s head outside a mosque in Newbury. And Stuart and Doreen Lawrence have revealed they have received threats of racial violence following publicity after Stuart made a complaint to the Met police about being so frequently stopped and searched.

Harmit Athwal

Editor, IRR News