Looking out for Leicester

ACCORDING to a conspiracy theory I heard last week from quite a reliable source, the government picked on Leicester to reimpose its lockdown in order to show the pandemic was all the fault of the Asians. At the weekend, The Sunday Times named Bohoo in its front page lead story, “Fashion giant faces ‘slavery’ investigation”. It alleged that a factory in Leicester with the sign Jaswal Fashions making clothes for the chain was paying its workers “as little as £3.50 an hour”. This clearly needs to be resolved urgently by Bohoo, which is owned by Mahmud Kamani (above right) and family. They were ranked 16th last year with a net wealth valued at £920 million in Eastern Eye’s Asian Rich List. But focusing on the problems in Leicester comes a little late in the day. When the pandemic began, the government should have targeted British Asian communities in Leicester and elsewhere in its Covid-19 health warnings. Even now, it should offer “culturally sensitive” messages to Asians in multi-generational households, and warn them of the risk of catching the potentially lethal virus in crowded mosques, temples and gurdwaras. Home prayer is safest for the time being.