The “now you see it, now you don’t”, “was it or wasn’t it” racism of recent days is nothing new, but it is profoundly dispiriting and corrosive (Nigel Farage defends MP’s complaint about TV adverts as ‘ugly’ but not ‘deliberately’ racist, 27 October). It reduces racism to a prejudice that leaks, unintentionally, out of clumsy words.
Similar excuses were made after Frank Hester said Diane Abbott “makes you want to hate all black women” and that she “should be shot”, and after Robert Jenrick complained about not seeing “another white face” during his tour of part of Birmingham. Both said that their remarks had nothing to do with skin colour.
