THE morning after the Notting Hill carnival, Mr Glen Smyth, chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, declared that it had been "almost trouble free" and "comparatively peaceful".

Now it is disclosed that there were two murders, nineteen stabbings, 69 other casualties and 129 arrests. "Comparatively peaceful"? Compared with what - the Second World War?

A young BBC journalist was stabbed. Even more disturbingly, we now learn that police officers were instructed by their superiors not to search Notting Hill revellers for firearms.

Two police officers, each with more than ten years experience, have told how, "Steamers - robbery gangs - were allowed to roam the streets without any attempt to arrest them". One of these police officers said people were not being told the truth about the extent of disorders at the carnival, "for political reasons". Another policeman who was actually there on the beat said: "Police stopped a man who was found to be carrying a gun. He was surrounded by six officers, but a senior officer came over and said that the man should be allowed to go on his way."

These perversions of justice and the rule of law are natural consequences of the Macpherson Report which defined a racist incident as "any incident so perceived by the victim, or any other person".

This is absurd. It means that any trouble-causer apprehended by a policeman is licensed to accuse the policeman of racism. I live next to Snow Hill Police Station and I have talked to officers in the City Police and in the Metropolitan Police Service. They all say the same, that officers are reluctant to apprehend members of the ethnic minorities - especially Afro-Caribbeans - for fear of being hauled up on a racist charge.

No wonder talented young men and women are leaving the police force in droves. No wonder those who remain are demoralised. They have suffered the slings and arrows of the right-on, politically-correct commissars for longer than they can bear. They have had to listen to the police force described as "institutionally racist" and they have had to stifle their anger when their politically-motivated senior officers have gone on television and "confessed" their previous racist motivation.

Moreover, the Macpherson Report itself is a perverse and contradictory piece of writing: on one page it argues for equality of all the races; on the next page it declares that members of the ethnic minorities should be treated differently.

These things are a disgrace. The majesty of the rule of law - what compels our obedience to it - is its indivisibility. Justice must be the same for everyone, rich or poor, black, white, brown, sky blue pink with yellow dots on. The law itself is being corrupted by Macpherson and the climate of fear which it has produced among law-enforcement officers.

There are racist thugs in this country, as there are in every country. Has Lord Macpherson ever visited Rwanda, for instance? But it is a slander and a lie to say that as a nation we are institutionally racist. On the contrary, we have a history of broad tolerance and of offering a welcome to foreign immigrants.

And most of the members of ethnic minorities think of themselves as British and lead quiet, hard-working and law-abiding lives. It does no good though to pretend that there are no black thugs, muggers, knifemen, "steamers" and the rest. The answer must be for the police to treat this minority of black evil-doers with the same evenhandedness that they treat the minority of white evil-doers. The present policy amounts to inverted racism and it will lead to nothing but bitterness and violence.

l The Rev Peter Mullen is Rector of St Michael's, Cornhill, in the City of London, and Chaplain to the Stock Exchange