New Labour = Are they thick or what?

Excuse my language but really I am beginning to think that Labour are trying to get kicked out of office.

There all useless, I thought I would never say it but since Tony Blair left office I don't think they have had one good idea between them. The Tories must be rubbing their hands with glee, they could start burning books and they would still get elected at the next election just because the entire electorate is now completely bored.

Labour has gone past incompetent into territory where no government has been before.

Harriet Harman is the latest new labour muppet to trot out a 'new terrible, potentially frightening missing the entire point' law.

The new equalities act which among other things will allow employers to positively discriminate and with two equally qualified candidates choose the ethnic minority candidate or female candidate over the white male.

Luckily it can work both ways, if white men are under-represented then they can be selected in preference. However in all practicality who would do that?

It is usually at this point in the article that I point out the over reaction of the media or that the legislation actually does a whole load of other things but I feel very strongly about positive discrimination.

I feel the only way to combat discrimination is not only to outlaw negative discrimination but also positive discrimination. Allowing positive discrimination will convince some organisations that negative discrimination can somehow be justified, after all they are just making up for the other organisations that positively discriminate, redressing the balance as it were.

The biggest problem I have with positive discrimination is that it does nothing to address the underlying issues of society and why in some organisations ethnic minorities and women are under represented. Positive discrimination may get them into the organisation but if the culture isn't changed then they will soon be leaving again. Meanwhile you have alienated all sorts of people for not having a level playing field.

What about sectors which are already female dominated. HR is getting to the levels where the women are in the clear majority. There is still a legacy of very senior male HR managers but most of the middle rank is predominantly female. At the lower scale there are some male administrators but again predominantly female. As each year goes by the sector becomes more female dominated. In fact the profession does not even recognise that it has got a diversity issue among the very people who set policy for everyone else.

Will we see positive action recruitment and programmes for men in HR? I doubt it.

Harriet Harman uses the police as an example of why positive discrimination would be a good idea. The Metropolitan police have had targets for years and consistently failed to recruit the number required to meet the targets. They have openly campaigned to be able to positively discriminate in recruitment. There have been equal accusations of both positive and negative discrimination in their recruitment policies from recruits.

This is a very organisational solution to a problem, ignore the root causes and go for the simple solution. Positive discrimination is the equivalent of saying leaves keep getting into the building so lets cut down all the trees in a five mile radius where actually all you need to do is keep the door shut and get someone to sweep the leaves out once a day.

Just because it is hard to establish the reasons for discrimination and a gender pay gap doesn't mean we should not try.

I think a lot of problems stem from the secrecy around salaries, using an economic concept in a market where everyone had complete knowledge of the system then if a company did discriminate and did not pay market rates then its employees would just leave.

Having moaned for half an hour one good thing about the legislation is that it does merge all the previous equality legislation into one new bill.

Mark Easton's BBC Blog raises some more interesting points about equality and particularly about the poor prospects for the white male and some more evidence on why positive discrimination doesn't address the actual causes of the gender pay gap.

I hate to do it but I will give the last word on the legislation to the Tory party,

"This bill should seek to unite not divide. It has good intentions but its lack of detail and clarity is disappointing..."

-Theresa May MP