Sneers do inquiry a disservice.Macpherson Revisitedby Martin MearsJurisconsultusGeoffrey BindmanMartin Mears can write with vitality and wit.

His linguistic gifts and his appetite for fogeyish invective have won the former Law Society president a promising second career as a commentator and columnist in the press.

Sadly, his talents do not encompass serious social criticism.The tired clichs of 'political correctness' and the fantasy of a left-wing anti-police conspiracy do nothing to help us understand the failure to bring to justice the murderers of Stephen Lawrence.

Less still do they help us to confront the prejudice and discrimination which have long disfigured our society.The evidence that Stephen was set upon by a racist gang of white youths is overwhelming, and noother explanation for his murder has been seriously advanced.No one who ever saw Sir William Macpherson - the retired High Court judge who chaired the inquiry into his death - on the bench couldmistake him for a closet liberal.

His inquiry was extremely rigorous and transparently even-handed.

It concluded that the police investigation was marred by a combination of professional incompetence, institutional racism and a failure of leadership by senior police officers.Mr Mears contests these findings in this pamphlet.

He acknowledges that the police investigation was imperfect to some extent - he could hardly do otherwise, since it failed to bring the perpetrators to justice.

But he disputes that its failure had anything to do with racism, institutional or otherwise.

He says the report is a 'profoundly mischievous document' which is 'more likely to exacerbate race relations than otherwise'.Leaving aside his sneers at the 'discrimination industry' and the political opinions of the Lawrence family lawyers, one can have some sympathy with his difficulty in understanding institutional racism.

Deliberate discrimination - of which the inquiry largely exonerated the police - is conceptually clear, if difficult to identify.

Institutional racism is more imprecise.

It looks to outcome rather than intention, acknowledges the complex factors leading to the manifest failure of the police to deal effectively with racist crime, and is a convenient label for these factors.The inquiry came up with sensible proposals for reform of police practice and of anti-discrimination legislation which are being implemented.

The Race Relations (Amendment) Bill, which is about to become law, extends the prohibition of racial discrimination to all public authorities, including the police.Stephen's parents have received praise and awards for their determination to force the government to recognise its failure to tackle racist crime.

Mr Mears acknowledges their personal tragedy, but gives them no credit for their achievement.There is room for an intelligent evaluation of the Macpherson recommendations.

This pamphlet is the opposite - a crude hatchet job, which suggests ignorance and prejudice.Geoffrey Bindman is the seniorpartner at London-based Bindman & Partners