Supermarket sweeping

Trevor Phillips thinks "banal" conversations at supermarkets could lead to social cohesion (18 July, page 10). Presumably he believes that if there had been more conversations, the riots in Northern towns would never have happened. He obviously has never heard of Northern Ireland.

Phillips does not tell us if such conversations would be in English or another mother tongue. Will there be signs at the car park telling customers "You are now entering a social cohesion area. Please be prepared to speak to people from other communities?"

What will people talk about? Deprivation, differential funding, failed housing markets, religious affiliations, political loyalties, arranged and forced marriages, social tensions?

Phillips states that "community cohesion should be at the heart of planning process" but the Home Office community cohesion unit has produced nothing aside from similar vague suggestions.

Phillips has also said that he is opposed to asylum seekers being dispersed outside London. They should all gather in one area, regardless of the cohesion implications. Like many in his field, he is pursuing contradictory agendas and creating displaced problems that have to be confronted sooner or later in the public sphere.

The problems in the Northern towns arose because the separation between ethnic groups was total and self-reinforcing. They lived in different housing, with separate catchment areas, separate schools and did not mix socially. Many spoke no English.

Area-based regeneration funding may have created further separation by giving the impression that some groups were receiving more favourable treatment.

The forthcoming inquiry by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister scrutiny committee is likely to blow away some of the myths being peddled by the metropolitan chattering classes represented by Phillips.

Society is entitled to a more serious analysis of problems, which have erupted into social unrest, from the chair of the Commission for Racial Equality.