UK News 10-12-2001 Fury Over Blunkett`s Test of Britishness who: Home Secretary David Blunkett what: Says British citizens should adopt British social values when: Yesterday snippet: "David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, provoked a race row in the Labour Party yesterday," says The Telegraph, "by demanding that ethnic minorities adopt British social values and `norms of acceptability`." Mr Blunkett said that it was the duty of British citizens to ensure that their children and granchildren grow up feeling "British" and furthermore that they must be able to demonstrate a "modest grasp" of English and pass a simple test of their understanding of British democracy and culture. The story breaks as the press await the publication tomorrow of three reports into this summer`s riots in Burnley, Bradford and Oldham. It also coincides with a House of Lords knock-back for Mr Blunkett`s draconian anti-terrorism bill. The Independent is not shy about its opposition to his policy-making - and takes the opportunity to have a dig at the tabloids along the way. "Mr Blunkett`s contribution to the `war against terrorism` has been to strike a series of authoritarian poses," says today`s leader, commenting that he is acting "more to appease the assumed vengefulness of public opinion as reflected in the coarser press than to make the British people genuinely safer from the threat." The Scotsman compares Mr Blunkett`s remarks to Norman Tebbit`s "cricket test" in which, in 1990, he noted that the true nature of an immigrant`s citizenship could be revealed in the crowd of a Test match. "Which side do they cheer for?" he asked. "Were they still looking back to where they came from, or where they were?" The Telegraph simply says that the most remarkable thing about his comments "is that anyone should have found them remarkable". [... more]

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