Former broadcast journalist and equality commission boss Trevor Phillips said that diversity in the UK media can be generously described as “tokenistic” and that its failures have affected the knife crime debate.

Philips, previously chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said TV is “self-congratulating” regarding its diversity drive, but these efforts lag way behind what the US is doing to increase representation.

Phillips said a lack of minority representation in decision-making roles at broadcasters has diminished the knife crime debate and steered it clumsily away from issues of race.