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October 13, 2005

There is no discrimination ....

Isn't it amazing how we have loads of legislation forbidding employers from practicing "discrimination" while at the same time actually encouraging, by means of "targets" for "diversification" the very thing the law forbids. Our employment legislation requires that candidates be chosen on merit, but the "diversity" policies of this government actually require that "all candidates are equal, but women and ethnic groups are more equal than white anglo-saxon males", particularly in the recruiting to any post in government or in the fire and emergency services. The following report speaks for itself!

Hewitt admits sex bias

Patricia Hewitt has admitted breaking the Sex Discrimination Act when, as trade and industry secretary, she overruled advisers and appointed a woman to an influential job instead of a better-qualified male candidate.

The health secretary and her former department were taken to the High Court by Malcolm Hanney, a merchant banker, after he was turned down for a £9,000-a-year position on the South West Regional Development Agency. Hanney had used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain notes taken at his interview in which he was described as the strongest candidate.

A spokesman for the DTI said it had "misunderstood certain provisions" in the code of conduct for appointments. "Processes have changed to ensure this does not happen again," he added.

Interestingly, she faces no criminal charge for this, which is precisely what her Department would insist upon, if it had been any commercial employer! Are the government and Ministers above the law? Not in the eyes of the Constitution of any truly democratic state, but evidently not, in the eyes of Blair and his Aparatchiks in Whitehall!

Taking a look at the latest government statistics on recruiting and at the targets for "diversification" for one of the metropolitan fire and rescue services, it soon becomes apparent that in order to meet the target, only three in every forty recruits for the next ten years can be white males. This means they have a serious problem, because the same statistics show that ther ratio of applicants does not in any way support that level of recruiting - unless every woman and ethnic minority applicant is automatically accepted and every white male is required to meet a range of criteria, chosen to ensure their deselection, that will not be applied to any other group.

There is no bias or discrimination in "Positive Discrimination"; is there?

Posted by The Gray Monk at October 13, 2005 10:20 AM

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