Friends and neighbours.

The German Chancellor, Angela Merkel has declared that multiculturalism - at least in Germany - has been a failure.  So what about here?  The original idea was integration - people coming here from other countries and cultures would become British by osmosis as it were.  But that didn't work, mainly because immigrants tended to band together with there own sort, and you quickly got areas of towns and cities (usually at the bottom end of the market) which were predominantly Asian, or West Indian or whatever, and obviously if you are living among others of your own race there is less need to be able to speak English or to comport yourself in a "British" manner.  So multiculturalism was born - each to his own, everybody free to do their own thing, and everybody respecting everybody else's right to do so.  Except human nature doesn't work that way - you very quickly get a tribal attitude, a feeling of "us and them".  So no, I don't think multiculturalism is working - but don't ask me what the answer is!