thomas davison Party Leader
Joined: 03 Jun 2005 Posts: 4018 Location: northumberland
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Posted: Tue Jul 31, 2012 11:13 am Post subject: "Grievances R Us�.THE EQUALITY HOT LINE WE NEED TO SACK |
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Welcome to the Equality Hotline, for Scribble press 3By Richard Littlejohn
PUBLISHED: 23:41, 30 July 2012 | UPDATED: 10:45, 31 July 2012
Harriet Harman brought in the Equality Act in 2010 which forces governments to take into account the impact of policy decisions on so-called vulnerable groups
Today�s edition of You Couldn�t Make It Up is sponsored by the Equality Commission, where staff facing redundancy are threatening to sue for unfair dismissal on the grounds that sacking them would, er, be a breach of the Equality Act.
Budget cuts mean that regional offices must be closed and the payroll slashed in half. But because all of those who will lose their jobs are, by definition, from minority backgrounds they claim their dismissal would be against the law.
This dilemma is the perfect illustration of the problems created by Harriet Harman�s ludicrous piece of legislation, which forces governments to take into account the impact of every single policy decision on so-called vulnerable groups.
If implemented to the letter, it would mean that no one from an ethnic minority or with any kind of disability could ever be sacked. But that in itself would fly in the face of true equality.
Surely if we are �all in this together�, cuts in public spending should affect everyone, regardless of race, gender, disability or sexual proclivity. And if there is one organisation ripe for the chop it is the Equality Commission, an umbrella organisation for every conceivable �victim� group in Britain. It should have been called �Grievances R Us�.
To his great credit, my old friend Trevor Phillips, the outgoing head of the commission, has done his best to whittle the organisation down to size. If he manages to close it altogether he will richly deserve the knighthood that is often wrongly awarded to him by newspapers who can�t tell the difference between him and Sir Trevor McDonald.
The old Commission for Racial Equality performed a valuable function in the days when racism was rife. But even though inequality still exists, we are long past the point where we need a full-time, expensive quango to enforce minority rights.
Adequate laws exist to combat discrimination. But the Equality Act was a bridge too far, a cynical piece of New Labour social engineering designed to scupper any attempt by an incoming Conservative government to tackle the gargantuan budget deficit generated by Gordon Brown�s drunken sailor public spending spree.
If the opening ceremony at the Olympics demonstrated anything it is that Britain is now a country at ease with itself and its inhabitants from a multitude of ethnic backgrounds. Only in Londistan !!!
Effort: The outgoing head of the commission Trevor Phillips has tried to whittle the organisation down to size
I have no truck with the curmudgeonly �too many blacks for my liking� brigade, who complained about the racial mix of the participants in the pageant.
So what if there were few black faces around at the time of the Industrial Revolution? These are the 2012 London Olympics. And that�s what London looks like these days. Get over it.
Almost all of those taking part in the opening ceremony will have been born in Britain. And anything which encourages all British citizens to embrace our rich heritage is to be welcomed, not sneered at.
Far better that than the pernicious doctrine of �multiculturalism�, which concentrates on what divides, not unites, us.
And that�s precisely why the Equality Commission needs to be wound up. It is an uncomfortable, artificial alliance of competing special interest groups with their own individual axes to grind.
It has a vested interest in perpetuating the politics of division, lumping together people who have nothing in common apart from being outside the mainstream of the population.
Paradoxically, the Equality Commission is one of the few bodies where minority groups are over-represented, which makes it even more ridiculous that staff earmarked for redundo are able to claim discrimination. That�s how they got the job in the first place.
All too often this has generated internal conflict as the gays have fallen out with the Muslims and there have been allegations that the Afro-Caribbeans are paid more than the Asians.
The noise coming out of equality HQ sounds like the lyrics of Sly and the Family Stone�s Everyday People:
There is a yellow one that won�t
accept the black one,
That won�t accept the red one,
That won�t accept the white one.
Different strokes for different folks,
And so on and so on and
Scooby dooby dooby . . .
It is time the organisation was put out of its misery. Abolition is the only humane solution. Who knew that the Equality Commission had an office in Guildford, at the heart of the Surrey stockbroker belt in the whitest of the Home Counties?
Celebrating diversity: The Olympic opening ceremony demonstrated that Britain is at ease with itself and its inhabitants from a multitude of ethnic backgrounds
A recent report identified widespread waste, including a telephone advice hotline used by just 73 people in a year � at a cost of �5,000 a pop.
No doubt those members of staff currently facing the sack will be ringing in...
�Thank you for calling the Equality Hotline. Please hold. All our operators are busy squabbling among themselves.
Our services are available in 207 different languages. Please choose from the following menu. For Urdu, press 1. For Jafaican, press 2. For Scribble, press 3...
Hello.
If you are Muslim who wants to complain about gay marriage, press 1. If you are a West Indian who has been racially abused by a Pakistani shopkeeper, press 2. If you are a wheelchair user who wishes to report your disabled access being blocked by an illegal gypsy camp, press 3.
Hello.
If you are a feminist complaining about the oppression of women under Sharia law, press 1. If you are a man who thinks he should be allowed to divorce his wife under Sharia law, press 2. If you wish to make a vexatious complaint of racism against your employer because you think there might be a nice drink in it for you, press 3.
Hello.
If you are facing redundancy and would like to allege discrimination against the commission set up to eliminate discrimination, please hang up as we are unable to help you. As a result of spending cuts, this hotline is no longer in service...
Another billion pounds a year paid to people who should not be here in the first place telling true brits how they have to bow down to them and putting them in prison if they dont--------- when the revolution starts these people will be walking on water to get out of the UK. |
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