Equality overdrive (continued)

Mark C

Lot's of Labour members in those areas. Our Harriett is thinking ahead - there will be a vacancy for leader of her party next year.

lawrence greek

Totally insane.

Peter

We've got laws against racism, sexism, homophobia just wait for the new law, regionalism. Get a criminal record for telling a joke about a Geordie

Malcolm

More social engineering from this utterly ridiculous woman.

John Moss

More madness from the Mad Hattie.

...and you go in this box....and you go in that box and you in that box.

Oh, now, what to do with you? You are Yorkshire born of mixed ethnic parents, educated at a comprehensive, then at Oxford, now working for a major private sector company, living in the South East.

Which box do we put you in?

seb

Har-Har's merely part of that blessed generation that was inspired by Private Eye and its reports about quotas to assist gay, disabled, IRA freedom fighters take their rightful place in society. If it's a quest, surely it's a noble one!

RobertD

To pick up the points on the previous thread on relative v absolute poverty. This Labour government continually goes about relativities which, by the way they are defined, can only be achieved if every one has exactly the same income.

A more challenging but desirable goal would be to express poverty in absolutes. For example child (economic) poverty is removed when a child has their own room, access to a hygenic bathroom, a nutrious diet, facilities for exercise and play, and an education that enables them to be an economic and social adult. (but not necessarily access to a playsation or pay TV).

Such things can reasonably be measured, and achievement quantified. Once the basic goals are being met the government can get out of the way.

However making a positive difference to people's lives is not the objective. Subjegation and control is all that Harrperson and her clique are interested in.

Thomas Cussans

She fears too many organisations are run by executives from London and the South East.

In other words, people exactly like her.

Ray

"She fears too many organisations are run by executives from London and the South East."

Well, Harriet, at least the same cannot be said of your Government, dominated as it is my personages born north of the Tweed!

Raffles

When will these incompetents learn? There is and always will be a dichotomy between equality and freedom. Freedom trumps equality every time.

Chuck Unsworth

How does she feel about the Scottish cabals running the country, then? What is she going to do about Wales?

This woman is completely and utterly out of her mind - and her depth. What possible political advantage does she hope to gain from this inanity?

More people from which regions? And what is the purpose of this drive towards an enforced homogeneity? Why does she believe it will benefit society in any way? Where is her evidence? Perhaps she'll be advocating this concept for the various religious bodies, or political parties, too. Is she also going to propose a similar approach to the composition of our armed forces, for example?

This is her usual attempt to sloganise, to impose her views on the rest of us and to grab headlines. Such crass behaviour is remarkably dangerous.

Omega Male

Oh Dear,
I'm from the south east, and what's more I'm white, middle-class and male.
And, try as I might, I'm just not gay.
So I must be a very naughty boy, you'd better punish me, Miss Harman...

Jonathan

This must be a late April Fools’ joke surely? How for instance, are they going to decide who qualifies as a Geordie, Yorkshire man/women etc…. If postal addresses are the criterion, then this is open to widespread abuse. My Mum & Dad for example, have retired to Scarborough, but are southerners through and through. So what’s to stop me, a man of Kent, from quoting their address on my CV and erroneously benefiting from this kind positive discrimination?

Of course, the GVN could use place of birth as the criteria – this would certainly be easier to regulate, but it would lead to many inconsistencies. Why should a child for instance, who moved to Yorkshire when he or she was 3 weeks old, be disadvantaged compared to his or her neighbour. Equally why should someone who lived up North for the first year of their life, before moving South, receive preferential treatment over her southern colleagues.

I suppose, X number of years residency – will be the most likely definition. But how do you prove residency? Will employers have to refer to past electoral registers or will old utility bills suffice? If the latter, then I can see a nice black-market in forged Gas bills etc…:) If the former, then this will be yet another layer of bureaucracy & costs added to the application process – as councils will no doubt start charging employers for checking back registers….

I’m sorry – but this piece of legislation just won’t work in practice. Still it might save a few Labour seats up North and I suppose that’s the point…

mac

When world saviour and economic colossus Brown disappears to Cape Cod let us fervently hope that Harman retires even further west, to California, where her loony equality mania is so attuned to the Gray Davis approach to commonweal-destroying politics.

A professorship in crass socialist stupidity would suit her perfectly.

Richard

I, as a Yorkshireman, do feel discriminated against. I know it's not everyone else's fault that they weren't born here but my mother told me I had to make allowances for them and be as sympathetic as possible.

jonnie cab

It is about time they stamped out discrimination against people who discriminate... or do I mean differentiate?
http://moralorder.mediumisthemess.com/blog

Trumpeter Lanfried

I sometimes think that Harriet Harman got her job under a special quota scheme which requires a certain proportion of duh-brains in government.

Chris lancashire

'Arriet's quite right. Being from oop north I'm prepared to take the chairmanship of British Gas, Shell or any other Footsie 100 company.

Can she get any dafter?

Chris

This from a member of Brown's "British jobs for British workers" government, the people who have made extreme racial hatred respectable in Britain. This woman is very dim and doesn't have a moral bone in her body. It's a particularly obnoxious combination.

TrevorsDen

Lets cut out the number of Jocks in government and the number of posh former head girls in Cabinet.

salieri

Wot, all 16 "comments" censored? Maybe that cretin was right after all last week when he opined that all Harridan's critics were full of self-loathing bile.

Nicholas

The testicle-chopping Red Queen up to her bullying barminess again. Utterly ridiculous and where should the line be drawn? By her own mouth she condemns her own bigotry and prejudice. A thoroughly nasty piece of work who deserves to be prosecuted for New Labour's own insane hate crime for her verbal violence against the white male population of London and the South-East.

It's time these unwanted tyrants were hounded from office. How much longer is this ridiculous charade going to be played out?

Christopher Bowring

"Labour's deputy leader wants to get more people from the regions on to the boards of major public bodies."

I thought the EU had carved the entire country up into regions. So everyone comes from a 'region'. Harriet's sloppiness with her language reflect the sloppy thinking of this dying government.

dearieme

The way to stop the absurd Londoncentrism that bedevils us is to move the capital to Berwick.

Hawkeye

Labour don't do "Equality of opportunity" so I doubt she'll be othered by anything you write

john miller

I used to be like Harmperson.

Only with tubes of Smarties. I used to bawl my eyes out if there wasn't a blue one in there.

So I know the hell the poor woman is going through.

biiggestaspidistra

can I still hate southerners?

HFC

I hope the batty woman is also pushing for a quota of London & S Easterners to be imposed on the N Irish, Scottish and Welsh talking shops/parliaments.

And there will need to be quotas imposed on our Olympic teams, won't there?

Andy Carpark

'Appen, you don't get owt for nowt and there's none so blind as 'em that can't see. Brass bands.

Moraymint

What an utterly dire way to run a country. It's both pathetic and sad. Has this woman ever lived or done anything out here in the real world?

James J

The inevitable result of Equality of Output is rule by the Average.Do we want “Averagely” talented people running our public bodies? Is the attempt to achieve this why our present government is so useless: average people trying to do extraordinary jobs?

Sheila

This dreadful woman has this morning been given The Full Melanie:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1199298/MELANIE-PHILLIPS-Rights-Northerners-A-PC-honours-list-What-deserve-Harriet-Harperson-equality-maniacs.html

Go Mel!

The Preston Park Panther

Speaking as an (expatriate) Geordie, who is not completely sold on the the notions of hard work and long hours, I can only say I'm delighted that this daft upper class bint is going to get me onto the board of a decent major company. Well done mad Hattie! Party donation in the post.

Verity

Nicholas, yes, a thorough nasty piece of work and I wish her great ill. In fact, on the scale of people I feel pitiless malice against, she is on a level, on my meter, with Tony Blair, and had she been as powerful as him, she would have laid about her and done as much damage to our country and our civil society as he did.

This move is more subtle than appears on the surface. Of course, it has nothing to do with our "discriminating" against our own people. The malice behind it is, she is downgrading groups among our own native Britons, whose forebears have owned this soil for well over a thousand years, to put them on a par with Muslim immigrant welfare dependents and Somalia "asylum seekers".

The woman's criminally insane and should be in a straitjacket with tape over her fat mouth. (At least with her mouth taped, she might drop some of that lard she lumbers around with.)

Michael Taylor

What on earth makes Ms Harman think she'll be able to persuade Yorkshiremen to run her nasty little quangos? Does it involve venturing beyond the (per-72) borders? Where's the upside?

Cjamesk

No form of discrimination is positive.

When will this madness end.

Chris

I can only imagine this is a wind up. No-one in their right mind would try and implement a system like this.

How come no mention of the south west - not enough labour voters there I imagine.

Verity

Let's hope William Hague has a question or two at PMQs on Wed. The only problem with Hague is, he's too self-assured and good-humoured.

Isn't that Bercow individual from the south somewhere? His new job should be taken away from him and given to a Northerner - Ken Dodd for preference.

De Rigueur

Nothing wrong with discrimination. I prefer beef tomatoes to the ordinary round ones. I prefer lamb to mutton. I prefer Turner's paintings to Picasso's. I prefer brunettes to blonds. And if I run my own company, I shall damn well employ who I like - and if it happens that I prefer the southern chap to the other chap from up north (Or vice versa) the harperson can shove it up her fundament. It's simply none of her business.
Or would she care to pay his salary?

Slim Jim

What annoys me is the pretence that blatant vindictive social engineering is 'equalities'. Mind you, I thought I caught a piece on the Today programme about a new 'drive' to 'redress the imbalance' in primary education. Will they really try to ensure that more men (or should I say rapists, paedophiles and sperm donors) get into primary teaching? What about the Probation Service? Nursing? They're top-heavy with wimmin. Do you think they will? No, I thought not either.

Ian Walker

She doesn't go far enough in my opinion. How can we have ended up with the terrible situation that there are so many humans in charge of major corporations.

A survey of the boardrooms of the FTSE 100 companies revealed the shocking truth - not a single dolphin, dog, elephant, blue whale, flea or amoeba to be found anywhere. The only concession to the wider animal kingdom was a handful of donkeys, a few worms and the odd snake here and there.

Verity

Patronising cow.

David Burns

Born and lived in Lancashire for 21 years, a year in Brum and thirty odd years in London!

Help!

Hysteria

Verity - Ken Dodd for Speaker - now THAT would liven things up - what a delightful, mad thought !!!!

Scottish Cheeselog

Odd definition of "northerners". Why Yorkshire but not Lancashire? Why Geordies but not Northumbrians? What happened to Cumbria? And anyway, from here in the Borders, Geordies and Scousers are both southern. As for Yorkshire, it's near enough half way to London. And if you're in Kent, where I lived for 8 years, practically everything is north, including London.

And what a patronising attitude ... words fail me.

Minnie Ovens

The mad hatter's tea party.

logdon

"Verity
July 13th, 2009 1:18pm

Nicholas, yes, a thorough nasty piece of work and I wish her great ill."

Priceless! Yet another gem of unrelenting and unrepentant honesty in a bleak wasteland of PC and hypocrisy.

pat

hahahaha, you got me their hoskin! lol, wot a funny joke!

Bob

Forgive me but were'nt all those banks that collapsed from the North and Scotland?

anne allan

What about East Anglia? Think of all those poor people who are the butt of NFN jokes.
The woman is beyond satire.

anne allan

What about East Anglia? Think of all those poor people who are the butt of NFN jokes.
The woman is beyond satire.

john miller

Ahh, I think Verity has hit on half the raison d'etre.

Aristos like Harmperson love sticking it to the middle classes.

But it has the wonderful added side effect that Harmperson could arrest Verity under any combination of the new 3,500 crimes that this socialist "government" has created.

But if you hunt with hounds, Verity, you may just be OK. Several of Harmpersons close family hunt, so you could be fixed there.

Fearless Frank

I'm white, middle class, male, middle aged, hetero, able bodied, and from the home counties - I have no boxes to tick.
Does that put me in a disadvantaged minority?

Major Plonquer

Wait a minute. Does that mean fewer Scots running London and teh South East? Three cheers for Mad Hattie....

John Lea

This is directly in relation to Major Plonquer (very well named in my view): Why is it anti-Scots comments - like anti-American comments - are seen as acceptable, yet any other discriminatory comments are pounced on and villified? I'm not an overly sensitive PC-obsessed new-Labourite, but it is starting to annoy me that such comments are happening with ever more frequency on these threads and seem to go unnoticed.

Oh, and Plonquer, if you're going to say this sort of rubbish, at least have the guts to use your own name and not hide behind a silly alias (that happens all too frequently on this site).

logdon

John Lea
July 14th, 2009 9:38am

I'm not an overly sensitive PC-obsessed new-Labourite, but it is starting to annoy me that every time I switch on my TV a Scottish politician is telling me things he has no mandate over back home in Jockshire.

Is British politics now a golden sunny days retirement home for Scottish shop stewards promoted beyond their station. Or is some cases, language??