Matty, that's probably correct. There was a period where people had a look around them before they said something controversial on the racism front, it never really dropped I suppose, it just became watered down in public. Now they just say it without a care of who's around them and that's probably due to the punishment being effectively nothing. Racial Aggravated Assault is a CS order and fine, so what is calling someone a racist slang term?
Things like "just nipping to the P*** shop" will never stop - including myself at times tbh.