Today’s blog post is written by Ojeaku Nwabuzo, a researcher at Runnymede

We welcome the Equality and Human Rights Commission's report, published on Monday, which highlights the Treasury’s failings to comply with the public sector equality duty at the time of the Spending Review 2010. In 3 out of the 9 measures the EHRC chose to concentrate on, the Coalition Government was found to not be fully in accordance with the public sector equality duty. This, however, is not the complete story. The public sector cuts in the 2010 Spending Review were unprecedented in their scope and depth. At the time, the Coalition Government planned an estimated £80.5 billion cuts to public spending across 19 government departments. The Commission’s detailed assessment covered only a segment of the Coalition Government’s reforms (read chapter 3 of the report for more details).

Runnymede was 1 of 9 organisations that provided formal submissions to the Commission. One important point that we raised, which was echoed in the Commission report, was the glaring data gaps in the Coalition Government’s assessment of the impact on ethnic minorities. We were shocked at the Coalition’s Government’s lack of analysis of the services and benefits being cut and the numbers of minority ethnic people that would be affected. The Government’s own Overview of the impact of Spending Review 2010 on equalities included just 397 words to the impact of cuts on ethnic minorities.

Today's blog post is written by Klara Schmitz, a research and policy analyst at Runnymede. This piece also appears on the website of the UK Race and Europe Network (UKREN).

Greek left-wing leader Alexis Tsipras has today accused European leaders of “playing poker with European people’s lives”, by insisting on austerity measures, whilst David Cameron is due to tell French President François Hollande that austerity is working and “we are moving in the right direction”, when they meet tomorrow. Austerity has been the main prescription across Europe for dealing with the continent's nearly three-year-old debt crisis, but what impact is it having on ethnic minorities and anti-racism work across the EU?

Back in 2010 Amnesty International’s Annual Report demonstrated that the economic downturn had led to a rise in racism and xenophobia in public discourse in Europe.  Earlier in May, the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI), published their Annual Report claiming that the economic crisis was fuelling the rise of racism and intolerance in Europe. It said that the lack of economic opportunities and welfare cuts are pushing ethnic minorities into poverty, and feeding negative attitudes towards immigrants.

ECRI has recently reiterated its concerns about the persistence of racist violence across Europe, and the economic crisis is often seen to be fuelling fears among the general public that can lead to racist attacks on ethnic minorities and migrants. There has been a dramatic increase in the number of racist attacks in many countries, including Italy, Malta and Greece.

Today's blog post is written by Runnymede research and policy analyst Phil Mawhinney

The UK Conservative Party is currently asking why only one in six black and minority ethnic (BME) voters plumped for them at the last election.  As the BME population increases – 16% by 2016 – and parliamentary majorities remain elusive, they know they have to think about this properly.

So how does the party view BME communities? David Cameron’s 2011 speech at the Munich Security Conference , widely reported as claiming that ‘state multiculturalism has failed’, gives some insight.  The basic argument, that ‘Under the doctrine of state multiculturalism, we have encouraged different cultures to live separate lives, apart from each other and the mainstream’  was much-disputed at the time.

But recent research by social psychologists, discussed at an event earlier this month, critiques this understanding of multiculturalism, identity and ‘Britishness.’