Global Warning
Theodore Dalrymple delivers a global warning
These things are sent to try us: I’m speaking now of circular letters from the General Medical Council.
I recently received a second such letter about the Council’s Ethnicity Census from the president of the Council:
Toward the end of 2007, I wrote asking for your help with an important project designed to help us to understand better the diversity of doctors registered with the GMC. We were hugely encouraged by the response we received and now have ethnicity data for over 60% of all registered doctors in the UK. To complete the picture we still need your support and I would be grateful if you would provide the information we seek.
What is the purpose of the GMC’s racialist project?
We are committed to ensuring that our processes and procedures are fair, objective, transparent and free from unlawful discrimination... That is why we need data for as high a proportion of registered doctors as possible.
There is no explanation as to how such a census will ensure that the deliberations of the Council on individual cases will be rendered fairer by the possession of the data, and to try to find such an explanation on the Council’s website is to enter a world of Kafka-esque euphemism, equivocation and evasion:
We will use the data to analyse diversity issues. This analysis will, among other things, help us understand why proportionately more international medical graduates appear before our Fitness to Practise Panels.
Both in the letter and on the website, doctors are assured that the information gathered will be kept entirely confidential. The GMC seems as blithely unaware of the recent scandals of supposedly confidential and highly sensitive information gathered by the government and left wholesale on trains, as it is unaware of at least two comparatively recent genocidal episodes that were made easier, or even possible, by ethnicity data on 100 per cent of the population. Furthermore, doctors did not cover themselves in ethical glory during either of those episodes, which suggests that prudence might be the better part of impudent busy-bodying.
More articles from: Theodore Dalrymple | this section
Post this entry to: del.icio.us | Digg | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit
Advertisement
Make your excuses and go
The Spectator on the difficulties engulfing the Government
Diary
Tony ParsonsTony Parsons visits Tokyo
Politics
Fraser NelsonFraser Nelson reviews the week in politics
Diary of a Notting Hill Nobody
Tamzin LightwaterTamzin Lightwater's unique take on the week
Mind Your Language
Dot WordsworthDot Wordsworth continues her look at BBC booklets on pronunciation published in the 1930s
In defence of David Southall
Theodore DalrympleTheodore Dalrymple examines the evidence against two much-vilified British paediatricians, Professors Southall and Meadow, and finds it sadly lacking
Family business
Andrew LambirthPainting Family: The De Brays, Master Painters of 17th Century Holland
Dulwich Picture Gallery, until 5 October
Cecil Collins — A Centenary Exhibition
Monnow Valley Arts Centre, Middle Hunt House, Walterstone, Nr Abergavenny, Herefordshire, until 14 September
Russia’s aggression in Georgia is a portent of perils to come
Philip BobbittPhilip Bobbitt says that the crisis reflects Russia’s determination to remain an old-fashioned nation state, dominating its region. Intellectual imagination will be needed to thwart that ambition: a recognition that the post-Cold War world needs new global institutions
America is still the nation whose eyes say ‘yes’
Douglas MurrayDouglas Murray tours a country despondent about its presidential race and increasingly uncertain about Barack Obama. Yet the world still needs America’s strengths
The Spectator's Notes
Charles MooreCharles Moore's reflections on the week
Latest blog posts
sponsored links
Sky TV, Broadband & Talk from £16 a Month
Sky TV & free broadband packages available from £16 a month. Choose from a standard free sky box, sky plus or sky hd.
Sky TV, Broadband & Talk from £16 a Month
Sky TV & free broadband packages available from £16 a month. Choose from a standard free sky box, sky plus...
ROME CENTRE
PORTA METRONIA, ROME Standing high on the top of one of the seven hills of Rome- the Coelian- this unique
City Breaks. ROME and PARIS
ROME and PARIS: over 350 holiday rentals apartments listed: visit www.romanreference.com and www.parisreference.com or call +39 0648 903612.
Jewellery. RUFFS (Estd. 1904).
Goldsmiths by Design Welcome to Ruffs! You have found a company of Goldsmiths that specialises in the manufacture, amongst other
Spectator Business | Apollo Magazine
Corporate | Advertising | Privacy | Terms
Spectator, 22 Old Queen Street, London, SW1H 9HP
All Articles and Content Copyright ©2008 by The Spectator | All Rights Reserved
Nicholas Storey
July 17th, 2008 11:39pmThese sickening exercises proceed upon the basis that most people need to be policed by the state and professional bodies in such respects: quite rebarbative - and so typical of modern Britain.
JohnA
July 18th, 2008 12:29amAsk them the number and date of the amendment to the 1976 Act that 'requires' the GMC to ask for and hold such information. It doesn't exist.
Btw this nonsense started under the Major government, not with Blair.
The information could indeed be perniciously dangerous in the wrong hands. We should all staunchly resist it.
Philoktetes
July 21st, 2008 6:39pmI invite Anglo-Saxons, Cornishman, Welsh, and Scots to come to America and leave that nonsense behind