From the very beginning, just after the war, ethnic minorities first came from the Caribbean and then from the Indian sub-continent, until about 1960. But, from 1962 onwards public attitudes towards ethnic minorities have gradually deteriorated. Legislation was introduced to cut down immigration and to promote equal opportunities for ethnic minority communities.

3.3 million Britons are now from an ethnic minority which accounts for 5.5% of the population, but there are numerous differences between the groups in their standards of living, access to opportunities such as jobs, education or housing, as well as in their belief systems, likes and dislikes.

The Blair government is committed to working tow ards equality in employment and the New Deal programme should promote equal opportunities. The Department for Education and Employment has adopted a Race Equality Strategy in its employment policy and develops action plans to meet the needs of ethnic minorities. The civil service has decided to increase its minority ethnic staff. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has encouraged recruitment of ethnich minorities in junior and senio posts and the government aims to recruit 8000 black and Asian police officers over the next ten years. Furthermore, the Army launched an equal opportunities plan in 1997 and the plan means to increase the number of black and Asian soldiers fivefold to 5.2%.

Ethnic minorities have contributed to British culture and politics and they have their own newspapers and political organizations. Weekly newspapers include the Caribbean Times, Asian Times and Amar Deep Hindi. The Standing Conference of Afro Caribbean and Asian Councillors, the Black Against State Harassment and Repression Groups and the Muslim parliament are the main ethnic organizations. They are about 650 ethnic minority councillors in England and Wales (3.1% of the 21.498 local councillors in 1998), but in the House of Commons they are only nine black or Asian MPs and in the House of Lords they are ten black or Asian life peers. Ethnic minorities are worse off than the British community, especially Pakistani, and Bangladeshi families. In 1997, 82% of Pakistani households and 84% of Bangladeshi households had an income below half the national average, owing to high rates of male unemployment, low rates of women’s economic activity, low wages and large households. Furthermore, the unemployment rate for black (Caribbean, African and other) and Pakistani/Bangladeshi male workers was three times higher than the rate of white workers. An in 1997, black men earned 82% of the wh

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