IN A SENSE, today's "shock" figures, showing racial harassment incidents in Blackburn leaping by 870 per cent in just 12 months to the highest level in the country, are like the old Tory unemployment statistics.

We all knew the official total was a lot less than reality.

In this instance, with cases of racism reported to the town's Racial Equality Council, we find the old figure of some 20 or so incidents a year to be nothing like the truth.

For last year the REC's caseload leapt to 200 incidents.

This sudden surge is accounted for by new methods employed by the organisation.

In short, rather than waiting for complaints to come to them, they have set up a special team to discover what the true level of racial harassment is.

It is, we learn, a system that is attracting interest from similar organisations across the country.

And, if copied on a wide scale, we may at last get an accurate assessment of how much racial harassment there is in Britain and how many lives are unfairly and cruelly blighted by it.

Cynics, of course, may say that these pro-active methods uncover more trouble simply because they go looking for it.

But, surely, if the "official" figures on racial harassment are essentially false, more potential trouble is only fomented because it means that too many people are getting away with racism and too many victims are left resentful because of that.

That is no formula for justice or successful race relations.

Yet, what we do not expect if this new system is continued or expanded is for the number of incidents to keep on rising.

That is because exposure itself is a deterrent - and another good reason for having precise investigation.

But also the new government has promised to make racial harassment an offence in itself.

And when punishment is added to accurate exposure, we can look forward to the true level of racist incidents diminishing.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.