In 2016, not long after the EU referendum, Fatima Manji, the Channel 4 News presenter, wrote a splendid put-down to Kelvin MacKenzie, the former Sun editor, who had seen fit to criticise her for wearing a hijab while reporting on that year’s terrorist attack in Nice. “I pi**ed on MacKenzie’s apparent ambitions to force anyone who looks a little different off our screens, and I’ll keep doing it,” she wrote.
Populism hates difference and individuality, of course, and Fatima has now written Hidden Heritage, a book that eloquently explains how these traits are cornerstones to the country. She quotes the former Tory minister Lord Norman Tebbit – who once suggested any Asian who supports a team other than England isn’t properly integrated – as asking Asians “are you still harking back to where you came from or where you are?” Fatima says: “The book’s answer to his question might be ‘where I am was always influenced by where I came from’.”
