Cricket test ‘could have prevented terror attacks’
The terror attacks in London could have been prevented if Lord Tebbit’s ‘cricket test’ had been adopted into mainstream social and political life, the peer said today.
The former Conservative party chairman caused outrage in 1990 when he suggested the extent to which immigrants had been integrated into British life could be gauged by what side they supported in international cricket matches.
Today he courted controversy once again, suggesting the failure to integrate immigrants into British society was at the heart of the problems that led to British-born suicide bombers attacking the capital on July 7th.
“We have generated home-grown bombers; a combination of the permissive society together with a minority population deeply rooted in its own moral code,” he told Today.
“You put those two together then you have an explosive mixture, then you only need a detonator.” That detonator, he argued, was borne out of the backlash against the Iraq war.
The cricket test – asking immigrants to support England instead of their country of origin such as India or Pakistan – was merely a way of illustrating the integration that was needed.
“A culture is what defines our society. So if you have two cultures, you two societies living in the same territory and if you look around the world, you see that is a recipe for trouble,” Lord Tebbit said.
“If people had listened to me what they would have done above all was to improve schools in our inner cities where Asian, and indeed black youths, are most likely to come into contact with English young people.”
The education system should teach immigrants about the history and traditions of British culture, he added, but instead they were left to make up their own conclusions from the “drunken, vomiting, foul-mouthed, violent youths abusing themselves” on Britain’s streets.
