- Thursday, April 18, 2024
By: Radhakrishna N S
By Amit Roy
VARIOUS newspapers have argued that last week’s report from the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities had to be fair because the commissioners were, with one exception, members of ethnic minority communities themselves.
One of them was Lord Ajay Kakkar, 56, who was elevated to the peerage in 2010 and sits as a crossbencher. He is a professor of surgery at University College London.
But when I read the actual report, his name was conspicuous by its absence from the list of commissioners.
So had he demanded his name be left off because he disagreed with its findings?
Lord Kakkar did not call me back but his spokeswoman said that the peer stood down from the commission in December last year because he had other commitments.
I asked whether he had a view on the report.
He thought it would be “inappropriate to comment”, I was told.
Make of that what you will. But at least we now know the most distinguished Asian member of the panel has nothing to do with the report.
