Diane Abbot saw something different.

For many of us the Daily Mail is the most racist paper in the UK. So it came as no surprise this week when one Daily Mail writer used the death of mixed-race teenager Kane Gorny to condemm the NHS display in last weeks Opening Olympic ceremony.

Kane Gorny died in a hospital in 2009 from dehydration when hospital staff failed to understand his condition and left him without water. The situation got so bad that Kane called police who were dismissed by nurses saying that Kane was confused.

The death of Kane Gorny was indeed a tragedy and those responsible for his care should be punished but it does not mean that the NHS is a bad insitution. There are thousands of staff that do their jobs well and who knows where many of us would be without them.

This Daily Mail writer however seemed to want to condemn the whole NHS and then used the mixed-race teenager's death have a rant about mixed-race Britain and multiculturism.

The article read:

'How does the family of Kane feel when they see the NHS being shamefully glorified at the biggest sporting bonanza in the world? Sick to the stomach, I imagine.'

As their son aspired to be a footballer this would have indeed made the family sad but for different reasons.

It went on:

But it was the absurdly unrealistic scene - and indeed one that would spring from the kind of nonsensical targets and equality quotas we see in the NHS - showing a mixed-race middle-class family in a detached new-build surburban home, which was most symptomatic of the polically correct agenda in modern Britain.

This scene is only absurd and unrealistic to racists and obviously someone who has never used the NHS where a large proportion of middle class mixed-race families who live in detached new-build surburban homes work.

This was supposed to be a representation of modern life in England but it is likely to be a challenge for the organisers to find an educated white middle-aged mother and black father living together with a happy family in such a set-up.

There are no shortage of middle class mixed-race families in England. Move in the 21st Century please.

Almost, if not every, shot in the next sequence included an ethnic minority performer. The BBC presenter Hazel Irvine gushed about the importance of grime music (a form of awful electronic music popular among black youths) to east London.

Actually grime music is just as popular with white youths.

This multicultural equality agenda was so staged it was painful to watch.”

If you are a racist then any celebration of multiculturism will be painful to watch. It was supposed to be a stage show after all and was not meant to represent real life otherwise they would have had to include the slaves and workhouse children - this was supposed to be a celebration of the good not the bad. On this ocassion your pain gave millions great joy.

Unfortunately the kind of politically driven multiculturalism we saw last night is the kind of social engineering we have come to expect.

If anything the social engineering in this country has been more the other way and the Daily Mail is guilty of pushing that policy forward with its constant criticism of non white immigrants.

Now considering London is the multicultural capital of the world and at least 1 in 10 Londoners is mixed-race Danny Boyle did quite a good job to make everybody feel included. After all we are all going to be paying for it for a very long time.

We were very impressed with Diane Abbot's comments about the ceremony, which she wrote for the Jamaican Observer:

PEOPLE are still talking about the Opening Ceremony of the 2012 Olympic Games. It was a wonderful spectacle. But one of the most striking things about it was that it marked important progress in the evolution of Britain as a genuinely multicultural society where people of all races live side by side on the basis of mutual respect.

The ceremony was meant to be a panorama of British history, culture and contribution to the world. So it was important that one of the scenes featured the HM Windrush, the ship that brought the earliest post-war West Indian immigrants to Britain. There was also a group of performers representing those immigrants, as they would have dressed coming off the boat. For those of us who are the sons and daughters of that generation, it was a very moving moment.

But it was also noticeable that, in all the scenes of British history that the ceremony depicted (however far back), there were performers of colour. This was actually historically accurate, as there have been people of colour in Britain since Elizabethan times. But in most British historical drama everyone is portrayed as Anglo-Saxon. So it was important that the Opening Ceremony chose to remind the millions of people watching that Britain has always been a multicultural society.

There was a big sequence in the ceremony devoted to popular music and culture. This revolved around a young couple falling in love. The girl's family were mixed race — a black father and a white mother. And the couple themselves were made up of a young black man and the mixed-race girl. This was noteworthy.

At no other point in Britain's history would an important ceremony like this revolve around a mixed-race family and a non-white young couple. And there is no other country in Europe that would have such a couple as symbolising youth in general.

The high profile given to this young couple shows how far Britain has come in its attitude to race. No doubt the fact that the American president is himself mixed-race has also affected attitudes.

Surprisingly, there was very little backlash to the ceremony. A Conservative MP, who described it as "leftie multicultural crap", was slapped down by Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron. Progressive newspapers like The Guardian and the Tory press like The Telegraph united in praising it.

Racism has not disappeared in Britain. But the extraordinary nature of the Opening Ceremony shows that we have come a long way.

We couldn't agree more Diane.

View other news:

Source:Dailymailonline JamaicanObserver