Dishonest statement in Tristram Hunt's article in the Guardian today Dreams of a new Elizabethan age http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/may/31/dreams-elizabethan-age-end-empire
Mr Hunt tells us: "The 1948 British Nationality Act had inaugurated modern, multicultural Britain."
However if Mr Hunt bothered to do some research (instead of just parading his prejudices) he would know that the Attlee government did not intend to inaugurate a multicultural society, for instance:
PRO, CAB 128/17, CM37 (50), 19 June 1950: "The Cabinet's discussions turned mainly on the means of preventing any further increase in the coloured population of this country. Ministers were apprehensive lest the higher standards of social service in this country should attract here an undue proportion of the surplus population of the West Indies and other Colonial territories... Should not consideration also be given to the wider question whether the time had come to restrict the existing right of any British Subject to enter the United Kingdom."
You are telling porkies Mr Hunt.
The Attlee government did not intend to inaugurate multiculturalism - quite the reverse, as the Cabinet papers show.
By all means advocate the policy of multiculturalism, but do not make false statements to support your argument.
And once again I have to ask why the Guardian's fact-checking department allowed this statement to pass.
Mr Hunt tells us: "The 1948 British Nationality Act had inaugurated modern, multicultural Britain."
However if Mr Hunt bothered to do some research (instead of just parading his prejudices) he would know that the Attlee government did not intend to inaugurate a multicultural society, for instance:
PRO, CAB 128/17, CM37 (50), 19 June 1950: "The Cabinet's discussions turned mainly on the means of preventing any further increase in the coloured population of this country. Ministers were apprehensive lest the higher standards of social service in this country should attract here an undue proportion of the surplus population of the West Indies and other Colonial territories... Should not consideration also be given to the wider question whether the time had come to restrict the existing right of any British Subject to enter the United Kingdom."
You are telling porkies Mr Hunt.
The Attlee government did not intend to inaugurate multiculturalism - quite the reverse, as the Cabinet papers show.
By all means advocate the policy of multiculturalism, but do not make false statements to support your argument.
And once again I have to ask why the Guardian's fact-checking department allowed this statement to pass.
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