Do the Roma really need to improve their ‘resilience skills’?

04 November 2009

Rod Liddle explores the crazy world of Jeanie, a county council officer in Devon who spends her week engaged in fatuous, money-wasting nonsense at our expense

I had a look at one of those ‘toolkits’ Jeanie talks about: I looked at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans (sic) History Month toolkit and you can see why there is no escape, regardless of what party might control the council. The ‘toolkit’ is supported by a bunch of organisations, including something called ‘Intercom’, the ‘Anti-bullying in Cornwall’ group, Devon County Council and the Heritage and Lottery Fund. One section of the briefing deals with arguments as to why there should be a LGBT History Month. Any problems, the toolkit announces, and you should refer people to the following — and then there is a list of no fewer than 18 local, national or supranational guidelines, by-laws or regulations which insist that it is a statutory duty of Devon County Council to employ someone like Jeanie Lynch and, what’s more, to do as she bloody well says. The United Nations Rights of the Child (1990). The European Human Rights Act (1998). The Learning and Skills Act (2000). The Children’s Act. The Sexual Orientation and Religion and Belief Discrimination Regulations (2003). The Race Relations Amendment Act (2000) — and 12 more. Stuff that would take a generation or more to unpick, probably require us to leave the European Union and cause endless expensive litigation. And so, if you’re the newly elected ruling group of Devon County Council you may well be tempted just to sigh and let Jeanie go about her work.

This stuff, this ludicrous nonsense, has become unavoidable. We cannot get rid of it. And my guess is there’s a Jeanie doing her business for every county and borough council up and down the land and a Gypsy, Roma, Traveller Achievement Service in every relevant council up and down the land and a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans (sic) History Month coming to a school near you very soon. They want kids, incidentally, to celebrate the life of a famous LGBT person from history and suggest computer science would be a good place to start. Poor Alan Turing, once known as a brilliant mathematician. Now known as an unhappy homosexual.

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Yam Yam

November 12th, 2009 2:09pm Report this comment

Gramsci is alive and well and dining on clotted cream and strawberries.

Michelle T

November 18th, 2009 7:49pm Report this comment

In her column of 5 February 2009 in "Children & Young People Now", Ms Lynch informs us: "My nickname in my twenties was Millie Tant of Viz magazine fame..." Why am I not in the least surprised?

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