Sociolinguist Rob Drummond explains why accent discrimination is a form of prejudice which can be extremely harmful, whether it is light mocking in a social setting or ‘linguistic profiling’ in a court case. He shows how women and other minority groups in the UK and US are particularly likely to come under fire for the way they speak. In conversation with Intelligence Squared’s Hannah Kaye he argues that our accents are a major part of our identity and that contrary to some predictions, they are not on the way out in the UK. He talks in particular about a new British accent known as Multicultural London English, which has developed from the waves of immigration from the Caribbean, Africa and South Asia, further enriching the multiplicity of accents on these shores.