Pity Black History Month UK, assailed on all sides. Those on the right seek to end the celebration on the basis that it amounts to special treatment for a group that doesn’t deserve it. History should be colour-blind: society should not differentiate, they say. We are not racist, we just want fairness. But often, they are – and they really don’t.

On the other side of the argument are the progressives, notably minority progressives, who say the idea of a month to consider Black history is demeaning because it should already have a year-round place in our teaching and consciousness. There is a further view that any beneficial effect the month once had has been diluted by unimaginative repetition and commercially motivated virtue signalling. Players taking the knee in the Premier League? Been there, done that: yawn!

I have long taken the glass-half-full approach. The ideal would be for Black history to be incorporated into the social and educational culture – and perhaps one day it will be. But in the meantime, I’ll take a mandated, month-long focus on the Black contribution to the way our society has evolved. And it seems very necessary this year, when the very notion of belonging in Britain........

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