Why is traveller hatred acceptable?

"I hate travellers," he said.

Well actually he said "gipsies", a word that has long been associated with our travelling friends and is continually used without a second thought by people who don't know the differenceor choose not to find out.

I asked him if he had met every traveller on the planet to back up his sweeping generalisation, he replied: "No" before adding: "But they're all the same."

I am not sure his mitigation would stand up in court but it seems to be the defence of most people in the UK, especially here in leafy Hertfordshire.

The fact that this man has adopted a live-and-let-live policy for years and takes any hint of a racial remark personally led me to assume something must have happened to tip him over the edge.

It turns out he was walking his dog and a group of travellers, who had settled in his park, had a go at him when he told them to pick up the pet's poop. I am sure white, black and Asian people have all been guilty of such an offence.

And whilst anybody who says they hate a certain race is not tolerated by the vast majority, a different tack is taken with travellers.

My friend's view was met with universal approval from fellow drinkers. When I pointed out it this was racist, they all guffawed and I was greeted with comments such as: "Well everyone hates pikeys."

Even some of the most liberally minded people believe berating the travelling community is acceptable. It seems anybody can say anything, anywhere about travellers and it will be seen as normal behaviour.

But defend them, as I did, and people become quite irate, using baffling arguments like: "If I went to the toilet in your back garden, how would you feel?" I told that person how awful it was that a traveller had done this to him and asked when this awful event had occurred. It soon transpired that this had never happened and he alluded to claims that travellers do such things in parks, before adding: "So they are more than capable of doing it in my back yard." I added that I was also capable of carrying out such a heinous crime, but that he shouldn't panic as it was highly unlikely.

Over the years, I have interviewed a number of travelling families. One group invited me into their caravan and told me of their fight to keep their son in school. They offered to move into a council house, but they were told they would not be considered.

The family owned the land they were on and kept it reasonably well yet everyone wanted them out. They had bricks thrown through their windows and while I was there, somebody set fire to their clothes line. When their 19-year-old son caught one of the arsonists and called the police, he was arrested for restraining him. The mother of the firestarter called our newspaper days later and claimed he had been playing football when a gang' of gypsies' jumped on him. It was only when a passing police car saw them and arrested the gipsies' that her poor' son got away, she claimed. We ignored the story, but another newspaper ran it with the headline: Son battered in unprovoked gipsy attack.' It seems most taxpaying residents would not even blink at such a story and would see it as more proof that travellers need to be gotten rid of. I have also had bad experiences with travellers but there is good and bad in every race and every community.

Here in St Albans, politicians from the extreme right all the way down to the far left are falling over themselves to tell taxpayers how against travellers they are. As soon as we receive a press release from one party about travellers another is sent almost immediately because the authors believe that the hatred for this group is universal.

And unfortunately, it appears that they are right. We ran an article a fortnight ago about Peter Robb and his family, who returned from a funeral to find their caravans impounded. I am not going to go into the details of this long running saga but the web comments gave an insight into what people think of travellers.

Our article was balanced but this led to a comment from a reader who suggested we had sided with the travellers. I can only assume G Nott from London Colney is so used to seeing one-sided articles against travellers, he believed our balanced piece was nothing of the sort. "Shame on the Review to stoop to the level of an emotive headline and less than neutral reporting of these people's plight'," he barked. The other comments simply agree that this family should be homeless. This has happened before with families who have young children. No sympathy is shown for the children who have no choice in the life selected by their parents.

So how do we get around this problem?

The trouble is, until more travelling sites are set up, it will not go away. But it seems nobody wants travellers close to their home.

Travellers on such sites pay rates, rent and bills and if they misbehave can be evicted.

The problems faced by travellers escalated in the late 90s when a new act saw them thrown off legitimate sites. Local authorities used to have a legal duty to provide sites for gipsies and Irish travellers. In 1994 this obligation was removed following the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act and, as a result, there are now too few sites to accommodate travellers.

Now the community is left trying to change the public's perception.

In 2003, 23 per cent of Romany gipsy pupils and 42 per cent of Irish traveller pupils in England obtained five or more A*-C grades GCSEs. Many now have jobs and less than 30 per cent live on illegal encampments.

But nothing will change until councils stop attempting to drive these families onto the next district rather than giving them the sites they need.

Meanwhile parties and politicians attempting to gain extra votes by picking up on the public apathy towards this group should be ashamed of themselves.

And while the vast majority of the travelling community might not be able to show how they feel towards them in an election, it doesn't mean that other voters aren't offended.