The overall aim of this book is to provide some explanation for the kinds of discourse used in dealing with racial issues. The central task throughout is to combine the insights offered by a theory of ideology with an analysis of examples of actual discourse about race and related matters. Because of the immensity of the task of trying to account for all kinds of racial expression, the study is confined, in the main, to an examination of political discourse, and further, to the political discourse of a limited number of national politicians belonging either to the Conservative or to the Labour Party.

There are a number of reasons for selecting political discourse about race and race-related issues as a subject for study. Such discourse is related to decision-making or to the absence of decision-making, which gives it a little more significance than that of a casual conversation in a public bar. Also, it is the language of persons who are accustomed to making public pronouncements and are aware, to some degree, of the likely consequences of their utterances. And, because of the ideological setting in which it occurs, political discourse may reveal more consistency and regularity of feature than other kinds of speech. Force of circumstance probably encourages politicans to develop, enlarge upon, and systematise their views on various topics. There is also likely to be variation between different schools of political thought, enabling useful comparisons to be made.