ABSTRACT
The author was director of the Runnymede Trust from 1991 to 1996, and drafting editor of the report of the Runnymede Commission on the Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain from 1999 to 2000, chaired by Professor Lord Bhikhu Parekh. Several years later, he was the drafting editor for the report of the Woolf Institute Commission on Religion and Belief in British Public Life from 2013 to 2015, chaired by Baroness Elizabeth Butler-Sloss. Both reports were disappointingly misrepresented by sections of the British media. In consequence, neither received the thoughtful and sustained attention and deliberation that the commissioners had hoped for and expected. In this memoir, he recalls the principal allegations which the media made, focusing in particular on the allegations against the commission on multi-ethnic Britain, and reflect on what might be done differently if a similar commission is established in the future.
