The Scottish Islamic Foundation (SIF), Scotland's primary Islamist pressure group, was forced this week to return £128,000 of public money.

A new study has found that 'institutional racism' by teachers towards black Caribbean students in secondary schools can significantly undermine their chances of academic success.

There is evidence to suggest teachers routinely under-estimate the abilities of some black pupils based on assumptions of behavioural problems, such as confrontational attitudes, which overshadows the student's real academic talent, leaving teachers to expect students to under-achieve.

"What legitimacy is there in a Parliament which makes crucial decisions on immigration with just fifteen ethnic minority MPs when there should be more than sixty? How can a House of Commons expect its decisions on counter-terrorism to be taken seriously by Muslim communities when there are only four Muslim MPs in the House of Commons?"

Trevor Phillips posed these rhetorical questions in a much publicised speech he delivered at the week-end to mark the fortieth anniversary of Enoch Powell’s notorious ‘rivers of blood’ speech.

‘Blackburn, in common with many northern towns, is experiencing a huge upsurge in pimping, and it is an unpalatable truth … that many of the newest wave of pimps come from within the Asian community.’

So claimed a truly stomach-churning report in last week’s Sunday Times. The report exposed the large scale of organised sex trafficking of white under-age girls lured into prostitution and drug addiction in northern towns by unscrupulous gangs of men of largely Pakistani origin.

According to the Daily Telegraph a spokesman for the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) conceded that ‘fear of sounding prejudiced’ has discouraged frank discussion of black gang crime involving knives and guns. However, Home Office minister Baroness Scotland recently told the home affairs select committee: ‘We accept there is an increasing problem of the use of guns and we are trying to address it. We have not had any evidence that this issue is solely or disproportionately an issue for black young men.’

As a people we have become hyper-sensitive about race, but criticism of a phenomenon like gang culture can be race-related without being racially prejudiced. The guiding principle should be that everyone ought to be judged by their conduct, not their race. Black youths have been drawn disproportionately to gang life, but it’s not because they are black. The congregations of evangelical churches are also disproportionately black but that tendency too is not causally connected to race.