BRITONS WILL LIVE IN GHETTOS!

PD James

There is a growing risk that Britons will live in "ghettos" and experience little contact with other people, crime author and peer PD James warned tonight.

The novelist also said in a speech on policing in the 21st century that modern-day life was "bedevilled" by political correctness.

Baroness James of Holland Park - best known for creating the fictional detective Adam Dalgliesh - told an audience in the Palace of Westminster: "Our society is now more fractured than I in my long life have ever known it.

"Increasingly there is a risk that we live in ghettos with our own kind, with a strong commitment to our local community but little contact with those outside it.

"Mutual respect and understanding and recognition of our common humanity cannot be nurtured in isolation.

"And in our relationships we are bedevilled by the cult of political correctness."

She added: "If in speaking to minorities we have to weigh every word in advance in case inadvertently we give offence, how can we be at ease with each other, how celebrate our common humanity, our shared anxieties and aspirations, both for ourselves and for those whom we love?"

It would be "unfortunate" if the police became "enamoured" of political correctness, which she described as "a pernicious if risible authoritarian attempt at linguistic and social control".

Modern day police forces were also hampered by a "culture of blame" and red tape, the peer went on.

"There is little point in government promising money to recruit extra policeman if they are to spend their time in filling in forms," she said.

"It sometimes seems that we have an army of well-paid unproductive officials whose only task is to interfere with those who have a proper job to do."

She added: "Perhaps the time has come when we need to look at the whole structure of our police service to see how far it meets the challenges of our changing society."

Minor "tinkering" to the structure could be "more irritating than effective", she said.

The 87-year-old novelist concluded that police deserve "our respect and gratitude" for a "complex and demanding" job. (Story here)

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