Archive for wonkotsane

Dead Man Walking

June 4, 2009 Labour No comments

I thought Gordo would hold on to power until the next election, that the ragged remains of his cabinet would rally round their leader to postpone the inevitable electoral destruction.  But not now – El Gordo is a dead man walking.

Jackboots Smith, the fascist bitch of a Home Secretary has resigned.  Hazel Blears, the psychotic ginger dwarf has resigned.  Beverley Hughes, another fascist bitch, has resigned.  Patricia Hewitt and David Chaytor are resigning.  But the most important resignation is James Purnell, the no-mark DWP minister, who has blamed No Mandate Brown for his resignation and called on him to resign as leader of the Liebour Party.

When ministers are resigning on an almost daily basis, a secretary of state openly challenges you to resign, an email is doing the rounds of your MPs gaining signatures to call for your resignation and your party is slugging it out with the Lib Dims for 3rd spot in the euro-elections, you’re fucked.

There’s no doubt about it, El Gordo is in the last few days of his leadership.  The only important unknown is whether Liebour will have the brass neck to try and go on for another year with another unelected Prime Minister or if they’ll bite the bullet and call a general election.  Who knows, her majesty may decide that enough is enough and dissolve parliament herself.

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Job Advert of the year

June 4, 2009 Funny 2 comments

This job advert was in the Shropshire Star tonight.  It was so unusual, I had to give it a public airing …

Glue pot wanted.

Will live in the Wrexham area and work from home.

Will be computer literate and attractive personality with a flair for organising and acting as part time secretary, dogsbody, research assistant, admin manager, arranger.

Self starter who can see the wood for the trees and can get things done without needing somebody else to tell them how to suck eggs.

Not hard work, probably requiring no more than 16 hours a week.  More intelligence and brain power and ability to think outside the box.  You will be supported by the Moneypenny telephone answering service.  Tell us about yourself and salary required and any future ambitions.

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Why Cameron won’t answer the referendum question

June 4, 2009 UKIP No comments

Lots of people are wondering why David Camoron keeps avoiding answering the question of whether he will hold a retrospective referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.

The reason is simple – he doesn’t want to admit that he can’t.

To repeal the Lisbon Treaty, or even to just repatriate powers from the EU like the Tories say they will in their manifesto, requires the unanimous agreement of all EU member states.  The only way to repeal the Lisbon Treaty after it has been ratified by all member states and comes into force is to repeal the European Communities Act and leave the European Empire.

This is why David Camoron refuses to answer the question of whether he will hold a retrospective referendum.  He knows that if he holds a retrospective referendum he can’t honour the inevitable no vote unless he takes the UK out of the EU and he has already said that the UK will never leave the EU under a Tory government.

As I said the other day, David Camoron is a fundamentally dishonest person.  Don’t waste your vote on the Tories and their false promises, vote UKIP.

June the 4th is UK Independence Day

June 4, 2009 UKIP No comments

Today is June the 4th, UK Independence Day.

Here are your instructions for tomorrow:

  1. Take your voting card to your local polling station
  2. Exchange your voting card for a ballot paper
  3. Find the box with UK Independence Party written next to it
  4. Put a cross in the box

If you encounter any canvassers for the LibLabCon, the Greens, Libertas, Jury Team, the English Democrats, the BNP or any of the other eurofederalist and/or racist parties, adopt the Churchill victory pose as seen on the thousands of UKIP billboards and posters up and down the country, rotate your raised hand 180 degrees and optionally utter the first string of Anglo Saxon words that spring to mind.

Scottish doctor calls for compulsary vaccinations in England

June 3, 2009 England, Health, No Mandate 10 comments

Sir Sandy Macara, former Chairman of the British Medical Association, has called for MMR vaccinations to be made compulsary by making an immunisation certificate a pre-requisite to being accepted for a school place.

He says that doctors have tried to convince parents but it’s not working so it has to be made compulsary, which begs the question: if the entire medical establishment can’t convince parents that the MMR jab is safe then someone, somewhere is doing something wrong.

We decided to have our children immunised even though there were doubts being cast in the media about the safety of the combined-MMR vaccination. We took a calculated risk, as we all do with any medication no matter how long it’s been around or how safe it’s been considered to be in the past. I used to have painkillers on repeat prescription when I was a teenager that were taken off the shelves a few years ago because they do nasty things to your insides. We also took a calculated risk in allowing one of our children to have his tonsils taken out even though there was a suggestion at the time there might be a risk of contracting CJD from metal surgical implements. And long time readers of this blog may recall that we took a calculated risk in allowing another one of our children to have open heart surgery even though he would be the youngest child in the UK to have had the Ross Procedure performed on him. This is what parents do – they weigh up the risks and benefits of many things every day where their children are concerned and come up with the answer they are most comfortable with. That’s what being a parent is about – caring for your children, deciding what is right and wrong for them and making the decisions for them that they can’t make.

Vaccinations are something a parent should decide on, not the state. One parent’s decision affects one child, the state’s decision will affect millions and if they get it wrong the ramifications are far greater. And, of course, the British government could only make vaccinations compulsary in England and I’m sure it won’t surprise you to learn that Sir Sandy Macara is Scottish.

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Thieving bastard Telford politicians

June 1, 2009 Corruption, Sleaze, Telford 6 comments

My thieving bastard MP, David Wright, clearly has a different view of what’s reasonable to the rest of us.

He thought it was reasonable to keep a 17 grand bung from a property developer for changing the tenancy agreement on a flat in Westminster the taxpayer was paying the rent on rather than give it to the Fees Office to go towards the inflated rent the taxpayer was paying as a result of the new tenancy agreement.
He thought it was reasonable to claim £599 for a TV for his flat in London so he could watch the news when he was down there.  Tesco are selling a 15.6″ HD LCD TV with built-in Freeview tuner and DVD player for £129.97.  Is that good enough for watching the news on?  I might take a trip to Tesco tomorrow and find one and take a picture of it showing the news, purely for scientific purposes of course.

He thought it was reasonable to claim £64.99 for a razor to keep at his London flat so he didn’t have to take one with him when he went to London (his explanation).  The Fees Office didn’t think it was reasonable and rejected it.  Tesco are selling an electric razor for £11.

The other thieving bastard MP in Telford, Mark Pritchard, also has a problem grasping what is reasonable to your average taxpayer.

He thought it was reasonable to move from one flat to another in Westminster and claim £1,000 for new furnishings, £199 for a new vacuum cleaner, £145 for a microwave, £55 for new kitchen utensils and £45 for new bedding rather than take what the taxpayer had already paid for from his old flat to his new flat.  What happened to the old furnishings, vacuum cleaner, microwave, kitchen utensils and bedding?  Were they sold and the money paid into the Fees Office?  Or were they left in his old flat for the next tenant, thus depriving the taxpayer of a nominal return on their investment?  If he absolutely needed to replace all these items then Tesco are selling a vacuum cleaner for £16.59, a microwave for £29.39 and a full set of kitchen utensils for £29.36.

Pritchard said:

Rather than but new furniture and kitchen appliances, I purchased second hand goods – again, keeping the costs down.

I have only claimed for the necessities for living in my flat and had no luxuries.

Second hand?  £199 for a second hand vacuum cleaner?  £145 for a second hand microwave?  Second hand, my arse.

Come the revolution, these two thieving bastard politicians will be the first against my wall.

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Alas poor Darling, we knew him well

June 1, 2009 Corruption, Sleaze One comment

If Alistair Darling wasn’t an English-hating, thieving bastard Scottish politician I could almost feel sorry for him.

He got promoted to the number 2 job (quite literally) in the British government just as El Gordo’s elaborate pyramid scheme collapsed and the economy took a nosedive.

He followed through (possibly quite literally) with Liebour’s policy of abolishing the 10p tax bracket – a policy that probably originated with El Gordo – and had to stand there and take all the grief for pushing hundreds of thousands of low-paid people further below the poverty line.  Then he had to cobble together a scheme to give back the extra tax poor people were paying and expose himself as a weak, incompetent Chancellor.

Like I said, I could almost feel sorry for him but I won’t because he’s a thieving bastard politician.

Alistair McDarling is reported in the Daily Telegraph as having claimed second home expenses on his grace and favour home in Downing Street and on a flat he owns in London that he is renting out.  Darling says the Telegraph is telling porkies but they have copies of the claims he made.

But not to worry, Darling will get his comeuppance very soon – El Gordo has put the curse of Jonah on him by giving him his full support.  I give him a week, two at the most.

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David Wright: Thieving Bastard Politician

May 30, 2009 Come the revolution, Corruption, Telford, Traitors 2 comments

I’ve been patiently waiting for the Daily Telegraph to get round to my MP, David Wright.  I was confident he’d be getting a mention based on the fact that he’s usually the local rent-a-quote for the Shropshire Star but we’ve not heard a peak from him since the expenses fraud stories started.

So what has my thieving bastard of an MP been up to?  Well, he rented an apartment in London in an apartment block called Dolphin Square.  The block was bought from Westminster Council by a property developer who paid every tenant £16,787 to change their tenancy agreements.  So, bearing in mind that the taxpayer had been paying the rent for his apartment, where did this money go?  In the thieving bastard’s pocket of course.

Only a day or two ago he posted a “news” piece on his website about expenses in which he was very careful not to criticise anyone, not even “the system” which most of his colleagues tell us is at fault.  He even tried to divert attention from the expenses fraud stories, saying it’s detracting from the work they’re doing to get us out of the recession:

I am conscious that every day the newspapers are dominated by stories about MPs’ allowances. Each day this happens we lose a day when we could be talking about the work we are doing to help people with their jobs, their homes and their family. That is what I want to focus on in the coming months.

Another quality speech from David Wright, almost word for word what the grown ups have been saying.  How many times have you heard El Gordo or Harriet Harperson or countless other Liebour ministers say almost those same words?  David Wright always has been and always will be a low grade Liebour Party mouthpiece, right up until the next election when he loses his seat.

Back in January I wrote to David Wright and asked him not to support the Liebour government’s attempts to exclude MP expenses from the Freedom of Information Act following a High Court ruling last year that they had to be released.  He replied saying he supported making his expenses secret and instead breaking down the headline figures that were already available into different categories.  I sent him an email back which he didn’t bother replying to.  The last line of my email was:

I would strongly urge you to reconsider your support for this assault on democracy and accountability.  Or is your desire to hide your expenses, perhaps, because you have something to hide?

I wonder why he didn’t reply?  Could it be because he had something to hide?

And while we’re talking about his expenses, the previous “news” item on his website says:

The House of Commons Communications Allowance rules require that no news stories are added to this website during the 28-day ‘closed period’ before the European Elections and County Council Elections in England on 4th June.

So even when he’s talking about misuse of MPs expenses, he’s still fiddling the expenses system.

According to the “news” section of his website – the “news” section he’s not allowed to update because it’s against expenses rules – he’s holding a couple of surgery’s on Friday.  I might pay him a visit and see why he thinks he should have pocketed nearly 17 grand for changing a tenancy agreement for an apartment that the taxpayer has been paying for.

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100th Twitter follower

May 30, 2009 General 3 comments

I got my 100th Twitter follower yesterday – @Mallarybc, an English ex-pat living in France.

I don’t normally plug blogs other than by adding them to the sidebar, especially when they’ve only been set up today, but as she’s my 100th follower I’ll make an exception: Mallary’s blog.

It’s not always possible to blog but I can Tweet almost any time, any place by text message so if you want to keep bang up-to-date, follow @wonkotsane on Twitter.

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Fixed Term Parliaments aren’t enough

May 27, 2009 General 6 comments

David Camoron is making some vague noises about constitutional reform (that us proles aren’t allowed to express an opinion on of course) with a suggestion that he might look at fixed term parliaments.

Whoop-de-fucking-do.  Fixed term parliaments are generally a good idea but is it enough to re-engage a disaffected electorate and restore trust in thieving bastard politicians?  No.

So how about this for a suggestion: directly elected Prime Ministers.

Instead of voting for a candidate and then the leader of the party that had most candidates elected being made Prime Minister and forming a government, why not hold elections for the post of Prime Minister?  It also neatly deals with the problem of a party changing its leader and some other lame duck MP taking over as Prime Minister without a mandate mid-term.

The problem with the electoral system we have in the UK is that the top job in government is reserved for one of only a handful of people.  Republicans complain that a pleb like you and I can never become the most important person in the country but they’re missing the biggest injustice in the power game – the fact that your average voter can never aspire to hold the top job in government because you have to be the leader of the political party with most MPs to get it.

Ideally, the Prime Minister would be an almost presidential figure – leader of the country, not the party – but without the executive powers.  The Queen should, of course, remain as head of state and bills should continue to require royal assent.  The Prime Minister, once elected, should appoint a cabinet based on a system of proportional representation with a minimum number of independent MPs (and by independent I mean not a member of a political party, not just an MP who’s resigned the whip or had the whip taken off them).

What reasonable excuse is there for effectively banning independents or supporters of any of the smaller parties from heading up a government?

And while I’m on my soap box, there should be a basic requirement that a cabinet minister is qualified or at least experienced in the area their ministry covers.  We could then avoid the situation where, for example, we find ourselves in the depths of recession with a marxist lawyer as Chancellor of the Exchequer rather than someone with a qualification in macroeconomics.

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Lib Dims launch “diversity fund” for minority candidates in Wales

May 23, 2009 Lib Dems, Political Correctness, Wales 7 comments

Lib Dim Welsh Assembly member, Kirsty Williams AM, has set up a Welsh Lib Dim Diversity Fund and her colleague, Peter Black AM, is soliciting £100 donations for the fund.

The “Diversity Fund” has been set up to raise money to fund election campaigns for female, ethnic minority, disabled and disadvantaged Lib Dim candidates in Wales.

I have asked Peter Black several times on Facebook why black, female or disabled people need or deserve more money for election campaigns.  Do elections cost more money for such people in Wales?  His answer?  It’s an “internal matter” and he doesn’t have to answer to me.
Well no Peter, you don’t have to answer but by not answering you look like a mealy-mouthed politician who’s been caught out making a tit of himself in a desperate search for a good headline.  Elections cost the same whether or not you are a “minority” candidate so there is no need for extra money for any candidate.

But there’s quite an important point that I would like to make, along the lines of the one I’ve made about the Ministry for Inequality and the institutional discrimination contained within it and the Equality Bill it has produced.  By grouping all the various “minorities” together, they actually form the majority and by focussing resources, legislation and policy on them, you turn white men into the under-represented, discriminated-against minority.  This is why positive discrimination is such a fallicy.

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The working class can kiss my ass

May 21, 2009 General 8 comments

Michael Martin – aka Gorbals Mick – has finally resigned as Speaker of the British Parliament after being the first Speaker in over 300 years to be forced out of the job by his colleagues.

This is good news because Gorbals is, to be brutally honest, a tosser.  Even better news is that he will also be applying for the Stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds, one of the ways of resigning as an MP.

It’s not actually possible to resign as an MP so those MPs that no longer want to be MPs have to apply for a job as an agent of the Crown which means that legally they can no longer be an MP.  So MPs apply for the Stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds or the Manor of Northstead.

Anyway, archaic political lesson over, back to Gorbals.

Whilst it is a good thing that Gorbals has been forced out of office and is resigning as an MP, it is important that he isn’t made a scapegoat for the whole House of Commons over their expenses fraud.  The other corrupt MPs mustn’t be let off the hook – they must be forced to resign, by-elections have to be held and criminal investigations and prosecutions must take place.  Preferably, a general election should be called because the electorate has no confidence in the entire British government.

And someone really should tell George Galloway that Gorbals Mick, with his salary of £144,520 and the title of “Highest Commoner in the Land”, isn’t working class.  Yes, he was born to a working class family in some sink hole in Glasgow but that was a long time ago.  Alan Sugar was born to a working class family, he talks with a working class accent and he’s woth £830m – is he still working class?  Mohamed Al-Fayed was born to a working class family in Egypt and he’s now worth £900m and owns Harrods – is he still working class?

Gorbals is part of the establishment, part of the ruling class and an extremely wealthy man (probably a millionaire by now).  Working class he is not.

Let’s just hope that the next speaker is someone with the balls to stand up to the whip and carry out the job with the impartiality that Gorbals lacked.  And with a bit of luck, the next speaker won’t be an English hating ignorant jock.

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Mmmm, burger

May 17, 2009 General 11 comments

We decided to go for lunch today at my sister’s pub, the Plume of Feathers at Harley (website, map).

The mushrooms with beef tomato and brie was fabulous, the garlic bread was THE best garlic bread on the face of the planet, the burger was … epic … and the chips weren’t cut, they were hewn from giant potatoes.

As anyone who has met me in person will no doubt have gathered, I like my food and this was one of the best meals I’ve had for as long as I can remember.

The picture quality doesn’t do it justice but you can at least get an idea of the size of the burger – this is on a large dinner plate, at least 12″ in diameter.

Epic Burger at the Plume of Feathers

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Liebour unveils latest clone PPC

May 17, 2009 Labour One comment

Erith & Thamesmead Liebour Party have chosen a tax investigator as their PPC, according to the BBC.  I’m assuming she’s a former tax investigator as it would be incompatible with being a civil servant.

Teresa Pearce’s website is an interesting read …

Only Labour would have introduced the NMW and its up to Labour to defend it. (link)

Really?  The National Minimum Wage (NMW) was introduced as part of the EU Working Time Directive, not by the Liebour Party.  Whichever of the eurofederalist LibLabCon was in power at the time would have had to introduce it.

Further down the home page, she examine’s Boris Johnson’s record after his first year as Mayor …

  • The “letting go” of Sir Ian Blair as police chief
  • A rise in public transport fares averaging  6% overall – higher than the rate of inflation
  • Three year freeze on bus expansion program
  • Environment budget reduced by £139k
  • The Greenwich Waterfront Transit Scheme cancelled.
  • Mayor’s decision not to proceed with the Thames Gateway Bridge.
  • Failure to provide leadership over police mishandling of G20 protests
  • 2/3rd cut in funding for London Cycle Network
  • Dropping of £25 emissions charge for gas guzzlers and Western Extension of congestion charge.
  • Abandonment of 100 public spaces program.
  • Planning for new transport schemes abandoned: Cross River Tram; DLR extension Dagenham Dock; Croydon Tramlink, Oxford Street tram; large number of step free access tube schemes

(link)

Ian Bliar was shit at his job, he was a Liebour Party stooge and he was deeply unpopular.  He wasn’t sacked by Boris or “let go”, he resigned because he couldn’t carry on bumbling through his job without the protection of the Liebour administration.  Ian Bliar will go down as a liar and a weak commissioner whose primary purpose was to serve the Liebour government.

Public transport fares have to go up everywhere – London included – because the Liebour Chancellor keeps putting up fuel duty and road tax.  The Liebour Transport Secretary is also busily extending the annual MOT test to include all sorts of spurious checks that have nothing to do with safety but increase the cost of a test year on year.

The three year freeze on the bus expansion programme (note the spelling Teresa, we’re not Americans), the reduction in the environment budget, the cancellation of the Greenwich Waterfront Transit Scheme, the cancellation of the Thames Gateway Bridge project, the funding cuts in the cycle network, the abandonment of the public spaces programme (spelling again Teresa) and cancellation of the other transport schemes are all necessary because the Liebour Prime Mentalist and the Liebour Chancellor have destroyed the economy and we can’t afford them.

Abandoning the £25 emissions tax on big cars and expansion of the congestion charge is a popular move and reflects the wishes of the majority of Londoners and commuters

And it is not the Mayor’s job to take a lead on the investigations into the bad policing of the G20 terrorist protests.  The Mayor isn’t the head of the Metropolitan Police, he isn’t the head of the CPS, he isn’t the head of the IPCC and he isn’t the Home Secretary.  Ultimate responsibility for the Metropolitan Police and their actions lies with the Liebour Home Secretary, Jackboot Smith.

Going further back, she even has the nerve to complain about the Post Office being hung out to dry when it is the Liebour government that has withdrawn state services from the Post Office and implemented the EU Directives that have allowed that postal service to be plundered by foreign (mainly state-owned) companies.

What is it with the Liebour Party and hypocrites?  Is it a requirement to be an ill-informed, hypocritical party mouthpiece to get selected as a candidate?  The only consolation is that Liebour is going to be decimated in the next couple of elections and Teresa Pearce has got about as much chance as a ghosts fart in a force ten gale of getting elected.

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Another thieving bastard politician stealing from the taxpayer

May 16, 2009 Come the revolution, Corruption, Sleaze 2 comments

Another thieving bastard MP has been suspended from the Liebour Party for expenses fraud.

David Chaytor - Benefit ThiefDavid Chaytor, the thieving bastard MP for Bury North, has been fraudulently claiming mortgage payments on his expenses even though the mortgage was paid off by the taxpayer in 2004.  In total he has fraudulently claimed nearly £13k.

Chaytor said it was an “unforgivable error in my accounting procedures”.  Well whoop de fucking do.  For you and I. that argument doesn’t wash with the taxman, it doesn’t wash with the police, it doesn’t wash with the CPS.  Even a troughing cabinet minister on £141k doesn’t forget that the taxpayer paid their mortgage off for them 5 fucking years ago.

This wasn’t an error in accounting procedures, this thieving bastard MP has stolen £13k from the taxpayer.  Suspension from the Liebour Party isn’t good enough, he has admitted defrauding the taxpayer and now he needs to be arrested and prosecuted for fraud, obtaining a pecuniary advantage and malfeasance in public office.

If one of my local MPs is exposed for fraudulent expenses payments – and I fully expect mine to be – then I’ll be reporting them to the police.

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It’s all within the rules

May 15, 2009 Come the revolution, Corruption, General One comment

Shaid Malik MP, ironically a Minister in the Ministry of Justice, has resigned from his ministerial post after claiming nearly £67k over three years in second home allowances whilst paying just £100 per week in rent on his main home thanks to an undeclared subsidy he had negotiated with the landlord.  The landlord has allegedly rented out properties that are uninhabitable and been fined for the offence.

But of course, it’s all with the rules says Shaid Malik.  Lots of other MPs have been saying their claims are all within the rules as well.  Most of them have gone on to say that the system is wrong and that the taxpayer is right to be upset, dismayed, horrified at the expenses the system has allowed them to make.  You might say that they have concluded that their decision to make the claims was …

So outrageous in its defiance of logic or accepted moral standards that no sensible person who had applied his mind to the question to be decided could have arrived at it.

The above is a quote from the ruling in Associated Provincial Picture Houses v Wednesbury Corporation which gave rise to the legal test of Wednesbury Unreasonableness.  The test asks if an administrative decision is so unreasonable that a reasonable person would never make the same decision and if that is the case, a judge is entitled to hear the case and make a judgement on that basis.

The argument that it’s all within the rules is no defence and neither is ignorance of the law.  But a Justice Minister should know that, shouldn’t they?

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Resignations, suspensions, apologies but no arrests

May 14, 2009 Corruption, General, Sleaze 3 comments

Andrew MacKay, David Camoron‘s thieving bastard aide, has resigned from his job with Camoron after it emerged that he and his thieving bastard MP wife, Julie Kirkbride, have been claiming second home allowances on two different homes for 8 or 9 years.

Elliot Morley, the thieving bastard MP who claimed £16k in expenses for a mortgage the taxpayer had already paid off for him, has been suspended from the Parliamentary Liebour Party.

Lord Truscott has resigned from the Liebour Party and he and Lord Taylor of Blackburn face being the first peers to be suspended from the House of Lords since the 17th Century for offering to table amendments to bills for money.

How many thieving bastard MPs have been forced to repay expenses in the last few days?  And the best we’ve had is Andrew MacKay resigning as Camoron‘s assistant – but not as an MP?  Where are the arrests?  Where is our modern-day Cromwell (sans religion) to purge Wesminster Palace of the corrupt thieving fucking bastard MPs?

You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately … Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!

You are no longer a Parliament, I say you are no Parliament.

Damn it, I’d lead the fucking purge using Cromwell’s own words if there was any chance it wouldn’t end in me being locked indefinitely up on a terrorism charge.

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Hypocrites

May 14, 2009 General No comments

A couple of months back a civil servant lost his job for releasing information on MPs expenses. He narrowly escaped a prosecution and during the police investigation, Damian Green MPs office was raided by police.

A few days ago, the Telegraph started publishing leaked details of MPs fraudulent expenses and the Speaker, Michael Martin, has called in the police to investigate the leak but not to investigate his thieving bastard colleagues.

All of which makes John Hemming MP, Austin Mitchell MP and Peter Bottomley MP hypocritical bastards for tabling a motion condemning the Jersey Police Force for arresting Jersey Senator Stuart Syvret and searching his home without a warrant.

People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.

The Jersey Attorney General has ruled that the raid and arrest were legal under Jersey law. What business is it of these three MPs, none of which are Privy Councillors, what goes on in Jersey? They should be concentrating their attentions a bit closer to home.

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Institutional discrimination in the Ministry for Inequality

May 13, 2009 Political Correctness, Propaganda, WTF? No comments

The Ministry for Inequality really is a bottomless pit of hypocrisy.  I sent the following Freedom of Information request the other day:

1.  What proportion of the Ministry’s employees are:
a. Male
b. Female

2.  What proportion of the Ministry’s employees are:
a. White English (or British if you don’t record English nationality)
b. White non-English (or British if you don’t record English
nationality)
c. BME

3.  What plans there are to appoint a Minister for Men.  If there are
none, why not?

The Ministry for Inequality has a Minister for Women but no Minister for Men and the three Ministers for Equality are women.  As expected, the Ministry for Inequality is heavily biased against men in its workforce as well:

Dear Mr Parr

GEO/09/FOI/000024

Thank you for your request for information sent on 28 April, which we have dealt with under the Freedom of Information Act.  I can confirm that the Department holds the information you are seeking.

1.  What proportion of the Ministry’s employees are:
a. Male
b. Female

Of our 118 staff in post:
42 are male &
76 are female.

2.  What proportion of the Ministry’s employees are:
a. White English (or British if you don’t record English nationality)
b. White non-English (or British if you don’t record English
nationality)
c. BME

Of the staff that have declared their ethnic identity:

36 are White British
30 are from Another white backgrounds
11 are from Black African/Caribbean background.

3.  What plans there are to appoint a Minister for Men.  If there are
none, why not?

Ministerial appointments are a matter for the Prime Minister.  The second part of your question is not strictly a Freedom of Information request, however we are sometimes asked about a Minister for Men. The following is the response that we use :

“The Government recognises that there are areas in British society where men face disadvantage or discrimination but the quickest glance at our income and poverty figures will show that overall, women are the main victims of inequality in our country.

This remains true today despite the passing of the Equal Pay and Sex Discrimination legislation almost 40 years ago. For example:

Women account for over half of the United Kingdom’s population, but only make up 19.4% of MPs and 29.3% of local councillors.
Black, Asian and Ethnic minority women account for 11.6% of the UK’s female population but make up less than 1% of local councillors.
Only 11% of the directors in the boardrooms of the top 100 FTSE companies are female;
The gap between the pay of male and female workers is currently 12.6% for full times and 39.1% for part-timers.
In 2007/08 there were 106 homicides where the perpetrator was the partner/ex-partner of the victim. Of these, 72 victims were female and 34 male;
Women still shoulder the lion’s share of caring for the old and the young and 90.5% (2001 Census) of lone parents are female.”

So almost two thirds of the Ministry for Inequality’s employees are women, they have no male ministers and there are no plans to create a Minister for Men to represent the specific interests of men in the same way that the Minister for Women does for women.  White “British” (I would imagine “British” in this case mostly means English as the Ministry for Inequality is in London) employees are also in a minority if the recorded information is representative of the whole workforce.
How on earth can the Ministry for Inequality use the way people vote as justification for discrimination?  If we didn’t vote for any women in the next election, what business is that of the state?  The whole point of democracy is that we can vote for who we want, when we want.

There are plenty of women working their way up through the ranks at FTSE100 companies but large multi-nationals tend not to employ people just because they’re women, being able to run a large multi-national is usually one of the key requirements.

How much of the “gender pay gap” is down to the type of work being done rather than the fact that they’re women?

Is the Ministry for Inequality really suggesting that a Minister for Women can reduce the number of women murdered by their current or former partner?  Does Ms Harperson also have the answer to the problems in the middle east and a cure for cancer?

And the reason why 90.5% of single parents are women is because the system is institutionally biased towards women.  In cases of marital breakdown, the mother will automatically be given custody unless there is a good reason not to.

So the Ministry for Equality really doesn’t live up to its name at all.  Institutional discrimination is clearly rife in the Ministry for Inequality but they don’t seem to have any intention to clean their act up despite intending to pass a bill forcing companies to publish this sort of information.  If publicising the gender bias in the Ministry for Inequality doesn’t banish discrimination in a government department, why is it going to make a difference in a private company?

Harriet Harperson is a shamelss hypocrite.  Don’t forget to sign the petition calling on the Prime Minister to appoint a Minister for Men and deal with the gender bias in the Ministry for Inequality.

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May 11, 2009 Funny No comments

Inspired by Toque …

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