I agree, further south and east into outer London is a different kettle of fish. Eltham, Thamesmead, Bexley and also Bromley to some extent are more racially tense (also these are still predominantly white areas).

Politically, how does the race issue affect Oldham (except for generating a high BNP vote)?

That part of London (South East) has had its fair share of racial problems in the past

There was the Stephen Lawrence murder in nearby Eltham in 1993 and the BNP have their headquarters in Welling but over the past 10 years the BNP and others have found their strongest base of support further east in places like Barking, Dagenham and before that, Tower Hamlets

I’ve certainly haven’t noticed the racial tension in places like Eltham and Lewisham match those levels in East London and in places like Burnley and particularly Oldham

Nick Griffin won 16% of the vote here in 2001 – his best performance at a general election

There are many working class areas in London where white and non-white live together in significant numbers without much racial tension. I live adjacent to Catford, Sydenham and Downham which all fit that description.

Maybe the difference is that these areas contain a lot of black people but not many Muslims.

Oldham certainly fits that description (one has to go there to see just how run-down it is) but what surprised me most was that the kids expressing these views – and this relates to both whites and Asians – didn’t seem to be from exclusively deprived backgrounds

I did and I found the attitudes of both sets of children – white and Asian – very disheartening but most of all surprising

It would be tempting to say that although the capital city London is becoming atypical of the UK as a whole. The last election demonstrated that but i think in this case it’s Oldham which stands out as unique

There was obviously the race riots prior to the 2001 election, which saw Nick Griffin stand as a candidate, but I remember a documentary Darkus Howe did around the same time, attempting to find out how racist the UK was – and I remember then he said that of all the towns he visited, Oldham was the one which he found the most racist

I think he also went to other towns similarly affected

The one thing these places do have in common (apart from high levels of immigrant communities) – Oldham, Burnley, Blackburn, Dagenham, Barking – is a great deal of unemployment, poverty and urban deprivation – factors which the far right have always fed off

What was most shocking about Oldham was that it was ordinary, everyday school kids from all sorts of walks of life, who held these views – almost monolithically too