At the other end of life, in our old age, the UK boasts both some of the widest health inequalities<\/a> in Europe and also some of the lowest expectations of length of life. We live in the most highly divided European society and this should be an issue of great concern, not least because it makes us more stupid and less healthy in aggregate. It also detrimentally affects even those at the very top.<\/p>\n Perhaps to help illustrate the detrimental effects of living with great segregation the Prime Minister, Theresa May, makes a series of simple geographical mistakes in her foreword<\/a> to the Integrated Communities Strategy Green Paper \u2013 Building stronger, more united communities. In her first paragraph she refers to the four countries of the United Kingdom as one country \u2013 failing to acknowledge the devolved administrations and differing approaches of other people from other parts of the Kingdom.<\/p>\n Mortality rates in the London Borough of Kensington<\/strong><\/p>\n Mortality rates in the Public Library of Science<\/a>, (all deaths 2011-2014)<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Mrs May is part of a very small segment of society, especially isolated from others in British society, and her words reflect this. In the same short paragraph, she condescendingly, and with a flourish of megalomania, promises that she herself will \u2018build a country that works for everyone \u2026 in which everyone, whatever their background, can go as far as their hard work will take them\u2019<\/p>\n In future, phrases such as this will be looked back at as being very telling of her and her governments\u2019 thinking and beliefs. She follows a politics that is itself a product of great social segregation. In the European Parliament the Conservatives were forced to align themselves with groups such as the Polish \u2018Law and Justice\u2019 party; because they had so little in common with other European Conservatives.<\/p>\n Contemporary British Conservative politicians often grow up on the fiction that when people \u2018get ahead\u2019 it is because their \u2018hard work\u2019 got them there.<\/p>\n But it is very difficult to learn to treat people well when you do not grow up with them. In 2013 even Nigel Farage criticised Theresa Mays \u2018go home\u2019 vans of operation \u2018Vaken\u2019<\/a>. When, in her second paragraph, Theresa May suggested that \u2018Britain is one of the world\u2019s most successful multi-ethnic, multi-faith societies\u2019, the actions of her own Home Office prove that not to have been the case.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n One of the vans deployed by the Home Office during operation Vaken in 2013<\/p><\/div>\n The legacy of Theresa May as Home secretary \u2013 operation Vaken<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n In her third paragraph (on page 7 of the Green Paper) the Prime Minster claimed that her government\u2019s recent Race Disparity Audit had been \u2018ground-breaking\u2019. It was not. Geographers have explained that it \u2018meant little<\/a>\u2019 because it showed so little understanding of geography. Mrs May said it would help address the inequalities that \u2018prevent us from building a Britain where everyone has the chance to succeed.\u2019 Note again, the implication being that individuals should be given \u2018chances\u2019. The language will be familiar to children who have read the \u2018Hunger Games\u2019 books, where all children are given \u2018a chance\u2019.<\/p>\n In her fourth paragraph of introduction the Prime Minister said that the reason to confront segregation is because it \u2018undermines our unity as a nation\u2019. She is obsessed with the idea of Britain as a nation, a single country, her country.<\/p>\n In her fifth paragraph the Prime Minster claimed that the green paper will \u2018tackle the root causes of a lack of integration \u2013 including a lack of social mixing in some of our neighbourhoods and schools, unemployment and poor English language skills.\u2019 These are part of the reason some people are less integrated into society than others, but not in the way Mrs May means. For instance, while she was growing up she did not go to the same type of school as most other children in Oxfordshire, and many (if not most) of the young adults she met at university went to segregated private schools.<\/p>\n It is not Mrs May\u2019s fault that she does not understand Britain. She was almost certainly never been taught human geography well at her school or university and her advisors now are misinforming her still. She did not benefit from going to school where the most common language after English was Urdu. She did not go to a school with a wide cross section of society. She did not grow up in a diverse neighbourhood. She did not make friends later from a wide cross section. Why should we expect her to have integrated well?<\/p>\n However, even having benefitted from a more inclusive upbringing is no guarantee of better understanding. In his forward to the Green Paper the relevant Secretary of State, Mr Sajid Javid, reminisces over translating for his mother in the doctor\u2019s surgery at the age of six. He talks of \u2018shared rights, responsibilities and opportunities.\u2019 But as Tony Blair before him also failed to understand, this phrase about \u2018rights and responsibilities\u2019 came from R. H. Tawney and originally meant so much more.<\/p>\n It was Tawney who best described the rights of the poor and the responsibilities of the rich<\/a>. Tony Blair turned the phrase on its head. Mr Blair was also a product of private education. The Green Paper (page 64) proposes a new national survey to ascertain the extent to which people are aware of their \u2018shared\/common rights and responsibilities\u2019. Perhaps the origins of the phrase needs to be better studied by those preparing this first. The entire \u2018Measuring Success\u2019 section of the green paper is risible.<\/p>\n The Green Paper (page 11) begins with an assertion that: \u2018As of January 2017, 60% of minority ethnic pupils were in schools where minority ethnic pupils are in the majority.\u2019 In other words, in diverse areas there are diverse schools. In great contrast, the proportion of the children of the richest 5% who are educated where children of the richest 5% are in a majority is, of course, far higher than 60%. And in contrast to mixing by ethnicity in schools, which is increasing over time<\/a>, there is no evidence that the rich are mixing more.<\/p>\n We are a divided society because the wrong people are today in power; selfish, individualistic, nasty people from \u2018the nasty party<\/a>\u2019 as Theresa May herself once called it. Until a government not sponsored by the rich and made up almost exclusively of the rich is in power we should not expect progress.<\/p>\n Note: This is an edited extract of: Dorling, D. (2018) Britain is a Segregated Society<\/a> \u2013 the isolation of the richest from the rest, Chapter 7 in J. Holmwood, G. K. Bhambra and S. Scott (Eds) Integrated Communities, published May 1st, UK: Discover Society\/Social Research Publications<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.dannydorling.org\/wp-content\/files\/Segregation_in_Kensington.png\")
London Borough of
Kensington (all deaths
2011-2014)<\/p><\/div>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.dannydorling.org\/wp-content\/files\/small_6_3_gohomevan-1024x683.jpg\")