WIKILEAKS ON LEICESTER

There's so much stuff pouring out of WikiLeaks that it's not surprising Leicester is mentioned. Sooner or later, it seems like just about everywhere, everything (and everyone?) will be.

I get into the office late, after a day of meetings out, to find a phone message left by Neil Tweedie, from The Daily Telegraph. He asks if we would contact him urgently. I do, just after 1600. Neil tells me that he's been hoping to get someone from Leicester to comment on a document released by Wikileaks, in which a US State Department official reported on a visit to Leicester, giving her impression about the city's Muslim population.

Since leaving his message, Neil has spoken with someone at the Federation of Muslim Organisations, But I can't let the opportunity pass without saying that I'll get him some comment which they can publish in our Chair's name. And here it is, as sent to Neil within the next couple of hours:

"In Leicester, we're used to being the focus of attention for visitors, observers and commentators from all over the world. Hardly a week goes by without some individual or group contacting us (or some other agency working for community cohesion in the city) with an eye to seeing what's going on here - and this has included journalists from the US. We'd never claim to be perfect, or to have solved the issues that come with being a diverse city, but people here are genuinely trying to make things work out for the good of all. The thing that makes this matter newsworthy, of course, is its connection with WikiLeaks. But helping the different communities within the city of Leicester live and work side by side is an ongoing activity from which we can never really take a break, or say that it's been achieved once and for all."

Cllr Manjula Sood, Chair of Leicester Council of Faiths, was the first Asian woman Lord Mayor in Britain. She was featured on the front page of The Daily Telegraph in March 2009, when Leicester hosted a homecoming parade for British Service personnel returning from active service in Afghanistan and Iraq. Our parade was free of the kind of protests that marred similar events in some other British cities at the time.

Neil tells me that the story will be published in tomorrow (Sat 5 Feb). In the event, it doesn't appear - lots of space is devoted to the Prime Minister's declaration of his "war on multiculturalism", so I'm not surprised if some other issues have to move aside to make space for this.

The latest development in the Wikileaks story is that it has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

For a more skeptical view of cultural diversity in "One Leicester", read Ed West, writing on the Telegraph blog.