Dear Trevor Phillips,
I know that in the field of equality, you are seen as a major force. Politicians listen to you and try to bring you into policy debates due to your experience, but yet again you and your equality buddies have crossed the line by threatening to prosecute innocent people on the grounds that they don’t do enough to help ‘disadvantaged groups’.
Having inspections teams carry out ’spot checks’ on companies to make sure they are obeying with discrimination laws is simply not acceptable. If you have evidence that a firm is breaching their obligations then fair enough, but why should these inspectors be able to walk into any company and demand their employment records, even in the complete absence of any suggestion that they are breaking the law? It is also outrageous that public sector bodies should have to produce ‘equality reports’ showing that they are employing enough people from disadvantage groups. What if people from these supposedly disadvantaged groups aren’t good enough for the jobs, or haven’t got enough qualifications? What then? Are big city firms going to have to employ disabled people or those from ethnic minorities just for the sake of it? Is the public sector going to be forced to employ these people or faced criminal charges? And as if that wasn’t bad enough, you’re going to publish league tables of who doesn’t employ enough ‘disadvantaged’ people, totally irrespective of the line of work, economic sector or company profile.
In case you hadn’t realised, stupid legislation like this only makes it harder for the UK to become the meritocracy that it should be, and it’s people like you that make damn sure that the most disadvantaged people in this country are still the white, middle-class, British males.
Yours in despair,
A.Tory
4 responses so far ↓
asquith // March 10, 2008 at 9:58 am
I believe in meritocracy, but I don’t think for one minute that it exists today.
But I think positive discrimination is complete ****.
If blacks, women and state school pupils are not getting into positions on their own merits, we should be asking themselves why they don’t apply for the top jobs, why they don’t get qualifications, in the first place.
This quota system is basically accepting that people are inferior, and trying to deal with it after the fact. Which I find insulting and patronising towards the people who are supposed to benefit from it.
Not the clearest comment ever, but I think you can see what I’m getting at
Letters From A Tory // March 10, 2008 at 12:54 pm
I take your point. We should do every we can to give people access to qualifications, opportunities, training, and employment, but this kind of interference is disgraceful. It’s basically blackmailing employers into employing people that they don’t want to.
Madeley // March 10, 2008 at 3:35 pm
“…the most disadvantaged people in this country are still the white, middle-class, British males.”
I’m afraid I absolutely disagree with you on this. White middle-class males don’t have to put up with a fraction of the discrimination, bigotry and abuse that pretty much every other British “grouping” have to deal with on a daily basis.
And the reason a meritocracy doesn’t exist today is nothing to do with “postive discrimination”. The problem is a jobs-for-the-boys mentality that sees people with family/friend/political connections to the powerful being promoted regardless of talent or aptitude.
Letters From A Tory // March 10, 2008 at 4:28 pm
They may not have to put up with abuse, but new legislation is always designed to tip the balance against them, to the point where these new laws (if they are passed) will mean that employers will effectively be forced to ignore white, middle-class British males just because of who they are. That is totally unacceptable.
I probably should have re-phrased it to say that the white middle-classes are fast becoming a seriously disadvantaged group rather than already being the most disadvantaged group, but in terms of new legislation they are definitely the most victimised.
And personally, I think positive discrimination has comfortably overtaken nepotism as a national concern when it comes to employment and equality.
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