You can count on Nitin Sawhney to make a politicial statement wherever he is. At UK’s The Big Chill festival a week ago he did not disappoint and added his own audio visual context to what The Independent describes as “current crises over race, faith, and terrorism.”

a robed Asian vocalist wailed out what sounded like a muezzin’s call to prayer, and Tony Blair made the first of a number of unscheduled appearances, his image from a recent press conference filling the screens. Crash-edited together in the style of what, in the era of Thatcher and Reagan, used to be called a scratch video, Blair cut to Blair cut to Blair, his finger jabbing in gestures of aggressive admonition.

He has been leading the charge against current attempts by British politicans to classify “Asians” as Pakistani British, or Indian-British. In a recent interview he lamented that slowly and slowly civil liberties in England were being undermined.

“It’s dangerous to be bringing these things into their profile. It breeds insecurity and paranoia. If you are going to focus on nationality then you should refer to everyone as British if that person is born here. Why is it necessary to specify an origin, especially in this climate?”