I've read a few time in the newspapers recently that the last acceptable racism is against Arabs. And it's true that there's a lot of racism against Arabs in Britain. The argument goes, if you were to replace the word 'Arab' with 'Black' or 'Jew' in things that are published about Arabs, you just couldn't get away with it. A case in point is the article in the Sunday Express newspaper by now-former TV presenter Robert Kilroy-Silk in which he described Arabs as "suicide bombers, limb amputators and women repressors" and, in a Monty-Pythonesque moment asked What Have the Arabs Ever Done for Us.

Despite the claims of Kilroy-Silk and the Sunday Express, this article was racist. But it was not acceptable racism. The fact that there was a national outcry and that he was forced to resign as a chat show host, means that the country as a whole does not consider this racism acceptable.

No, the last acceptable racism is something else entirely.

Over many months, our old friend the Sunday Express and its sister paper the Daily Express, both owned by pornographer Richard Desmond, have been running an even more disgracefully racist campaign. This time, the target is gypsies. There has been no national outcry. No politicians have stood up in parliament to decry it. The silence has been painful. If these newspapers were fringe papers, this would perhaps not matter, but they are not. They are two of the largest circulation papers in the country. And they are joined in their obnoxious campaigns by almost every local and regional paper, and many of the national tabloids. Racism against gypsies really is the true last acceptable racism in this country.

Gypsies are portrayed as violent, thieves, child-neglecters, dirty, unhygenic, and living in luxury on state handouts, paid for by so-called hard-working taxpayers. Every crime carried out in rural areas is automatically blamed on gypsies. Every piece of rubbish, every abandoned car, every unsavoury looking individual: gypsies, so they say.

How has it come to this? How is it that the poorest, most abused, least powerful groups in society has become the devil behind every bush? The answer, of course, is in the question. They are poor. They have no power. They don't vote, aren't given the opportunity to do so. They have no lobby groups standing up for them.

The current paradigm both for political power and newspaper sales (and it is not a new one) is that of fear: fear of crime, fear of the terrorist, fear of violence, fear of your neighbour. And particularly fear of the one who is not like you.

Newspapers glory orgiastically in every lurid detail of crimes while simultaneously condemning them. It sells papers. Politicians, who are unable to make improvements in things that people want: education, health, environment, quality of life, use the fear as an excuse. "Yes, education is shit, but we have had to concentrate on dealing with the terrorist, on fighting crime. It's all around you. Be afraid. Then let us strip you of every right." Communities that are both afraid and disenfranchised always need someone to blame. And in drive the gypsies in their run-down caravans, looking for somewhere to stop for the night.

Last bonfire night in England, a caravan with the word "pikey" (a racist term for gypsies) writen on the registration plate, and a tableau of a gypsy family inside was set alight in a village. Gypsies are often assaulted. They receive almost no healthcare or services. Even when they buy their own land, they are evicted from it by campaigns from local communities and councils. Many have given up and moved abroad. Others, who have moved into houses, refuse to admit to their heritage because of the reaction.

Persecution of gypsies has a long and dishonorable history. Gypsies are the forgotten victims of the holocaust. Hitler, like the Daily Express and their like, knew that picking on weak groups was a way to political power among the frightened and dispossessed. While the world has reacted with guilt and shock about the genocide Hitler carried out against Jews, no one cares what happened to the gypsies.

Gypsies need a stronger voice. They need to have bodies such as the Commission for Racial Equality stand up in their name. They need to have politicians condemn the treatment and portrayal they receive. And they need to be given the rights everyone in this society deserves. It is hard to imagine they will ever get any of those.