So Britain isn’t racist, after all? Next we’ll discover Boris Johnson has handled Covid expertly, too

The prime minister should hurry up with the investigation into his handling of the coronavirus crisis. Now is the perfect time to find a new narrative

Two independent reports in a matter of days. The first, from the independent body that inspects the police, had concluded that the police did nothing wrong when it forcefully shut down the vigil for Sarah Everard on Clapham Common.

It also concluded that various politicians and people on social media who said the police had got it hopelessly wrong should have shut up because they know nothing. The independent body that inspects the police also inspects everybody else, it turns out. Especially when they’re inspecting the police. Only the official police inspectorate can inspect the police. And if anyone else tries it, well, they can expect to get inspected themselves, even though they’re not the police, they’re just some people on Twitter.

The second, the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities which has concluded that the UK is not an institutionally racist country. "We no longer see a Britain where the system is deliberately rigged against ethnic minorities,” its author Tony Sewell has said.

This is obviously great news, and not just for all the various ethnic minorities who can now be confident they are no longer discriminated against. It’s also a huge boost for the much maligned Theresa May, who once stood outside Downing Street and declared that various systems, particularly the criminal justice one, were indeed rigged against ethnic minorities, specifically black people. It’s specifically a huge boost for her because she correctly identified the problem then did absolutely nothing about it but somehow solved it anyway.

Mr Sewell’s report also concludes that it is high time to take a more nuanced look at slavery, which wasn’t all about “profit and suffering” but actually turned into a really good opportunity for various African people “to transform themselves into a remodelled African/Britain.”

That’s the thing no one ever remembers about the transatlantic slave trade. It was mainly just an extreme makeover show, a few centuries ahead of its time, and that’s where the focus should be in the years ahead.

Read more:

• Is Britain racist? This binary question is unhelpful and obstructs real progress
• These race report findings are very convenient for Boris Johnson
• Government’s race report branded an ‘insult’ which ‘glorifies slave trade’

To which we can only conclude what a terrible shame it is that we will, it is said, have to wait many many years, for the publication of any kind of public inquiry into the government’s handling of the coronavirus crisis. Boris Johnson, it is rumoured, is actually quite concerned about what any kind of inquiry of that nature might conclude. But he needn’t be. He needs to hurry it along. Now is the perfect time for a new narrative, for new angles to focus on. You know, if the pandemic has taught us anything, it has reminded us of the importance of family. And therefore the prime minister was absolutely right, wasn’t he, in February last year, to retreat to one of his grace and favour homes for a full week in order to sort out some of the many complications in a few of his.

We have been reminded, have we not, of the importance of nature, of the mental strain of spending too long indoors with nothing to do. Maybe then, just maybe, “there is a new story,” as Tony Sewell might say, about the Barnard Castle experience. About how it was an opportunity for one man to transform himself through the power of gazing at some bluebells, not to mention remodelling himself as a more courageous motorist.

Maybe, you know, if the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that we are not prepared to meet the challenges we will face in the years ahead. Like climate change, for example. And so maybe, just maybe, the decision to evacuate hospital patients into care homes without first checking if they might be carrying Covid-19 was a brave, foresighted step to shrink the nation’s carbon footprint in the most effective way possible, by drastically reducing the human population.

And once everything went back to normal, it was crucial that people started spending money to get the economy going again. Which is why it was absolutely right that all those massive contracts for PPE that didn’t work were handed out without any due process to people who were already so rich enough they could afford to donate large amounts of cash to the Conservative Party.

What better way to be sure that all that cash would be used to boost the economy than to make sure it only gets given to people who are happy to just give it away?

And when the prime minister’s scientific advisers spent most of the autumn telling him that he needed to do a two-week lockdown right away, but the prime minister decided he knew best and took no notice, leading to a massive spike in deaths and almost five straight months of lockdown instead? Well, look, there was a vaccine rollout on the way and people were going to be called up and told to come in for their injections, and therefore it was very important that they were all at home or otherwise how would anyone have got hold of them?

There are, if you’re just prepared to open your mind a bit, new narratives everywhere. New stories to tell. And if you don’t believe that then just keep it to yourself, or the police inspector will be on to you.