But what if it's actually true?

Sure, many people insist that this isn’t true:

Yet without a draft paper even being discussed by his fellow commissioners, he said the report would “challenge perceptions of racism” and that “our early findings suggest that life chances are more influenced by age, sex, class, and geography rather than race”. In other words, despite the massive increase in awareness of racism all around the world this year, the government inquiry will tell us race is a minor consideration.

We have excellent evidence that geography is the most significant influence over lifetime income for example. Which country you’re born into has more effect than anything else - class, gender, race, anything - over how much you earn. Being born into a rich country puts you well up the listings, into a poor one well down them.

This all being rather important. Take the analagous gender pay gap. If this is the result of direct discrimination against women then the solution will require one set of actions. If, instead, it’s about children, childcare and sexually dimorphic responses to those pressures then the solution will lie elsewhere. Even, it would be possible to ponder whether a solution was necessary.

So too with any considerations of race or anything else. If we spot differential outcomes then we need to know why. Appalling inner city schools perhaps, being from recent immigrant families, linguistic skills, and, yes, consider actual and direct racism as a cause. But only when we’ve done so and narrowed down the cause can we get anywhere close to evaluating a useful solution.

Simon Woolley is the director of Operation Black Vote. He was chair of the No 10 race disparity unit until July 2020

Ah, we might not have the most open of minds considering this issue then.