"19 dead, the cost of cockles," shrieked the newspaper headline. A human tragedy? Indeed it was, but not more so than elderly folk being beaten or stabbed to death for the price of a couple of shots of heroin, events which never make banner headlines. Even so, these two matters are linked by one important factor; we suffer under depraved and useless rulers.

The young Chinese who died had, of course, absolutely no right to be here, as they hardly qualified as the skilled workers which Britain is supposed to need so badly. Moreover, the youngest schoolboy on the streets around and about Morecambe Bay must have known that these foreigners were illegals 'employed' by ruthless gangsters who, for some reason, were managing to evade the law. So where were the police while all this was going on - and did it begin yesterday? The answer is that, with regard to ethnic matters, it is best to leave things well alone as long as you can. After all, no one was committing serious crimes such as breaking the speed limit or distributing racist material.

On the other hand, there are times when ethnic problems need to be sorted out. Take the results of a recent inquiry into the National Health Service, for instance. This showed that, in the eyes of staff, black patients were more aggressive, more alarming, more dangerous and more difficult to treat than their white counterparts. The report, which dealt with the death of one David Bennett, a mental health patient, described the NHS as being shot through with 'institutionalised racism', and stated that the treatment of black and other minorities is a disgrace. So it seems that we are asked to accept that the alleged tendency towards bad behaviour on the part of one ethnic group was founded not on fact and personal experience but on prejudice. And the solution to the problem? The report recommends the appointment of a National Director for Mental Health and Ethnicity in the NHS and concludes: "We do not expect excuses in the future for delay, lack of action, or failure." This, and the further recommendation that no patient should be restrained in a prone position for more than three minutes, will clearly address the problem!

Whites don't seem to matter

As has been pointed by several writers in Spearhead, white teenagers who are attacked and murdered by racist gangs are lucky if they make the front page of their local paper and are soon buried and forgotten. No sense in harping on about the downside of the multi-racial society! Traumatised girls who walk in fear following an assault are just told to be more careful in future. Thus it is with utter disbelief that I read of a further inquiry into a fire in which several black teenagers died 23 years ago. The pressure for this has, naturally enough, been accompanied by suggestions of a racial motive for the inferno rather than sheer carelessness on the part of the revellers. And all the while our indigenous white population is required to accept collective guilt for the deaths of Damilola Taylor and Stephen Lawrence. The former, in all probability, slipped and fell on a broken bottle, while the blatantly racist and slipshod inquiry into the Eltham murder produced not a jot of useful information, least of all any real evidence as to the race and identity of the killer.

No help to harmony

This lunatic indoctrination that black is beautiful and white is guilty, sponsored by all the main political parties and promulgated ad infinitum by the laughable Commission for Racial Equality, provides the worst possible scenario for harmony between people of different backgrounds, beliefs and abilities. If someone genuinely believes that they are right, then all the daft legislation devised will not convince them that they are wrong. When a nurse is punched in the face, it is entirely up to the ward staff to protect themselves in whatever way they can, and if that means four of them holding a patient down for as long as it takes, without using a stopwatch, to calm him or her, then so be it. It is certainly not the business of some idiot panel of inquiry to draft the rules of engagement.

And there is another certainty, which is that when you ask Blair, Howard or Kennedy to address these problems they will just smile and look the other way. At best, they will suggest yet another inquiry which will come up with the conclusion that if everyone repressed their feelings and their natural instincts then everything would be great. But, inevitably, we are now coming close to the limit for the general acceptance of such nonsense. More and more we hear: "They don't care and they won't do anything." For them, it is an unhealthy climate and one which they have brought on themselves.