Academic Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve was today confirmed as the new chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

Ethnic minorities, women and disabled staff go in latest redundancies

In 1967, the residents of Monterey, a quiet fishing village on the coast of California, were worried about hosting a rock festival as they feared that thousands of  pot-smoking, free-loving hippies would come from San Francisco and ruin the area.

Thirty-two years after the first black officer Norwell Roberts applied to the Metropolitan Police “as a joke” the inquiry into the Stephen Lawrence murder investigation released its report. Apparently little had changed.

Ministers failed to take account of how key elements of its public sector cuts programme would impact on women, ethnic minorities and the disabled, Britain’s official equality watchdog concludes today.

Ken Livingstone was dealt a fresh blow last night when it emerged the Commission for Racial Equality had referred his remarks about a journalist to a local government watchdog to see whether he had breached the Race Relations Act.

Ofsted, the school inspectorate, has started to judge schools as failing because their teachers are not promoting racial equality, the head of Britain's anti-racist watchdog claimed yesterday.