Trevor Phillips

Trevor Phillips OBE is a British broadcaster, politician, and civil servant. He was born in London to Guyanan parents and was elected President of the National Union of Students from 1978 to 1980. During the 1980s and 1990s he worked as a television journalist in London. He was elected to the London Assembly in 2000 and was its Chair, but stood down in 2003 when appointed to chair the Commission for Racial Equality. In 2006 he was named as Chair of the Commission for Equalities and Human Rights, the new 'single equality body'.

Sourced

• Most liberal-minded folk would like to think that since they are not hostile to people of a different race, racism is a disease of the uneducated, unenlightened and socially backward - football hooligans, British National Party supporters, policemen. You could call this the Bad Guy Theory. But the Bad Guy Theory does not explain why Indian-heritage children do nearly twice as well as Pakistani-heritage children at GCSE.
  • The Times, 29 October 2004

• If Peter Mandelson has an historical parallel, it is Robespierre, the architect of the Terror. Without his zeal and cool passion for the right of the French people, the ancien regime would almost certainly have reasserted itself in some way. His defence of the ideals of the revolution was absolute and unmoving. It won him no friends, and eventually swallowed him. It would be a tragedy for Labour if it were to do the same to the architect of its own revolution.
  • The Independent, 30 August 1997

Unsourced

• Across the board, people are looking at the problem, but simply not changing anywhere near fast enough.

• I ask questions, and a large part of my life has been spent asking questions of Ken Livingstone.

• I don't want to have people brought in simply because they are black or Asian.

• There's no secret about my ambition, I do not want to go into the House of Commons. My only real political interest is in London and if one day I'm in a position to run for mayor, then terrific."

• We need more male black teachers, tempting them with extra cash if necessary."