I think we can all agree the race report was a great success – except for these very minor points

Such a success, in fact, maybe next week the government should commission another one, written by Nigel Farage, David Starkey and Morrissey, just to make sure

You can’t say Britain is ‘structurally’ racist, just because one person describes black people as ‘piccaninnies with watermelon smiles’ (Dave Brown)

I expect tomorrow we’ll see the headline: “Ku Klux Klan not racist, says official report, which was commissioned by the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan”.

Then the writer of the report can do interviews all day, saying: “It’s time black people stopped complaining and started looking at the opportunities on offer from the KKK, moving forward. Maybe they could seize the moment and take up apprenticeships in sheet design, or cross-burning.”

Because the report commissioned by British institutions, to find out whether British institutions are institutionally racist, chose a man to lead it who has often said, “Britain is not institutionally racist.” And he’s concluded that Britain is not institutionally racist.

Maybe next week the government should commission another one, written by Nigel Farage, David Starkey and Morrissey, just to make sure.

One definitely-not-racist episode they may have looked at was how hundreds of black British citizens, who had lived here for up to 50 years, were threatened with deportation if they didn’t have the papers they couldn’t possibly have, and 83 of them were deported. They were all Afro-Caribbean but it was nothing to do with race, because the government probably did the same thing in Devon, deporting white people who crossed the River Dart on the ferry, sending hundreds of them back to Paignton.

Also, to prove “institutional racism” you need evidence the government was being deliberately hostile to non-white people, and there’s no suggestion their plan, which they called “hostile environment” did that in any way. To prove it wasn’t racist, “hostile environment” threatened Poles and Romanians as well, binding people from all nations together.

Can anyone find evidence of racism in any British institutions, such as our media? Immigrants receive more coverage than any other group in society in our press, so they enjoy being over-represented. Almost every day, they’re mentioned in headlines such as, “We’re strangers in our own bleedin’ country, that’s what we are”, and “Indians to be allowed to bring a Himalayan mountain each to Britain”.

One newspaper reported a Muslim bus driver made his passengers wait while he prayed, and had to issue an apology – as it was entirely made up. But this wasn’t racist, because it was just as likely they might make up a story about a white Christian bus driver, who made all the passengers wait on the 522 to Epsom, while he watched a YouTube clip of Dame Thora Hird telling the story of Jesus and the Pharisees on an episode of Songs of Praise from 1987.

The police sent undercover agents to spy on Doreen Lawrence, mother of the black murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence. But that can’t be racist, because I’m sure they spy on all parents of murder victims. The moment someone’s murdered, the police act swiftly, saying, “Find out who’s dead, and spy on their mother.” It’s just sensible police practice.

Tony Sewell, chair of the report, said for racism to be “institutional”, it must be part of the structure of society, not just from any individual. Because you can’t say Britain is “structurally” racist, just because one person describes black people as “piccaninnies with watermelon smiles”, or Muslim women as looking like letter boxes. These are simply the words of one person, doing a normal job, which in this case is the prime minister.

The report dealt with black people’s incomes being so much lower on average than white people’s wages. It concluded this wasn’t because of racism but due to black people living in poorer areas. So the reason black people are more likely to be poor isn’t because they’re black, it’s because they’re poor. I expect this also applies to why black people are more likely to be detained by the police. It isn’t because they’re black, it’s because they’re detained by the police.

Even in apartheid South Africa, the reason black people didn’t have the vote wasn’t because they were black, it was because they didn’t have the vote. But somehow the apartheid government got all the blame, which is so unfair.

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On average, a black African family has one-eighth of the wealth of a white family, and one possible reason is the legacy of empire, which you could say was part of the structure of Britain. But the report was so thorough it even dealt with this issue, telling us the “slave period” was “not only about profit and suffering, but how African people transformed themselves into a remodelled Britain”.

It was the slaves who saw their capture as an opportunity who succeeded. Instead of whingeing, they embraced the chance to travel, and learned about new subjects such as chains and cotton.

The report claims many academics and experts were consulted to compile this prose, but already one of the people whose name appears on it has said he never heard from them at all. This is slightly worrying, because if you’re going to make up names of people you’ve consulted, couldn’t you use a bit more imagination? They should have said: “We’ve consulted Barack Obama, Mike Tyson, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and Atticus Finch, the anti-racist lawyer in To Kill a Mockingbird.”

But apart from that, it’s been a huge success, and this method must be used for everything else. Students should be allowed to publish a report in which they mark their own exams, criminals can decide if they’re guilty, and if there’s an inquiry into Covid, it should be written by Boris Johnson and whoever he happens to be on a settee with at the time.