Monthly Archives: June 2009

Anonymous job applications – ending discrimination

Blog, Equality, Race relations

I have blogged several times about my idea to make use of anonymous job applications – so as to end the subliminal discrimination that creeps in with some applications being discarded because of the names on them.

I floated my idea during the Second Reading of the Equality Bill and it caused quite a hoo ha. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development waded in to support the idea – albeit they didn’t think it should be mandatory. Some Human Resource departments were less happy and thought it a stupid idea. Well – it will be interesting to see what they say in response to the evidence that’s now been gathered.
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Why is George Osborne still in shadow cabinet?

Blog, Conservative Party, Realpolitik, Westminster

David Cameron may have given the impression he intends to reprimand MPs who made seriously large expense claims, but in fact this has not applied to his close coterie of chums in the shadow cabinet. Of these, shadow chancellor George Osborne is perhaps the biggest offender.

And even though Cameron’s has talked tough, as the timeline below shows, he has done nothing about Osborne. And yet our media fails to ask him why Osborne still remains in office.
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#MichaelJacksonRIP vs #IranElection

Arts, Blog, Media, Middle East, Technology

Evenin’ all. I wanted to make a quick point about certain global news stories, and the relative amount of news coverage given to each.

Its fashionable, yet incredibly easy to complain that the Michael Jackson death has crowded out news of other more pressing matters. Shawn Micallef sounded an early word of warning about this attitude:

There is no need to compare MJ & Iran – completely dif, just intersect on same medium, not a social/moral lesson to be learned.

Then (again via Twitter, though the link is now lost in the maelstrom) I came across this MJ/Election mash-up, and it occurred to me that coverage (be it on Twitter, blogs or the international MSM) is not a zero-sum game, and that coverage of one piece of news could promote awareness of another.
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Do we need an ‘Armed Forces Day’?

Blog

Saturday, I learnt from watching the news yesterday, was our first ever Armed Forces Day. According to the official website “The first Armed Forces Day is 27 June 2009, and is an opportunity for the nation to show our support for the men and women who make up the Armed Forces community”

The tradition in the United Kingdom has always been that we do not celebrate the military or have parades of armed men in our town centres if we can help it – unless we are in Northern Ireland. We conquered, or not, when duty called, and commemorated the actions and their dead.
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Gove MP makes £1,250 an hour on the side

Blog, Conservative Party, Westminster

Who says second jobs aren’t lucrative? Tory shadow cabinet minister Michael Gove should certainly fall into that category. According to information revealed by the Conservatives today, this is his rough second-income from a column at the The Times newspaper.

London Evening Standard’s Paul Waugh writes on his blog:

Govey gets £5,000 a month but reveals that “the number of hours worked for that payment” is “1 hour a week or so”. Nice work if you can get it. He was obviously torn between telling The Times that he worked really, really hard for his money and telling the voters that he doesn’t spend all that much time on his journalism. As a result, his hourly rate looks like something a corporate lawyer would drool over.

That’s not to mention the erudite columns for Building Magazine, Scotland on Sunday etc.

This whole second jobs scheme was working out quite nicely for the Tories.

Can Labour learn the lessons?

Blog, Equality, Labour party, Westminster

Ann Black sent round an e-mail to Labour Party members with five questions which she will feed back at Labour’s next National Executive meeting. It’s a discussion which I hope as many members as possible will contribute to, but also might be of interest to Labour supporters who aren’t members.

So here’s the questions and my answers – do reply to Ann’s e-mail or leave your own thoughts in the comments and I’ll pass them on…
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Selling abortion

Blog, Equality, Feminism, Health, Religion

A revised broadcast advertising code will force anti-abortionists to make their dangerous bias clear:

We pro-choicers were happy to note that the BCAP’s just-closed consultation on a revised advertising code included a proposal to allow abortion providers to advertise abortion services on radio and TV.

Equally cheering was the news that the code would include this new rule (11.11 in the code):

‘Advertisements for post-conception pregnancy advice services must make clear in the advertisement if the service does not refer women directly for abortion.’

BCAP’s argument – rightly – is that there ain’t time to waste if you’re thinking of getting an abortion: the longer you leave it, the riskier the procedure is likely to be (the BCAP reference is the renowned 2004 Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists’ paper on abortion safety and standards).

In other words – you need to know immediately if the ad you’re seeing is for a provider who offers balanced, accurate, post-conception information and abortion (or a referral for one) if that is what you want, or if you’re about to be drafted by an outfit that hopes to pull one back for Jesus Christ by neglecting to mention safe, legal abortion is available, and pumping you full of romantic notions about the realities of an unwanted child. Continue reading →

Miliband should avoid falling for Ahmedinijad’s trap

Blog, Foreign affairs, Middle East

If your authority was being undermined by street protests and an election widely seen as rigged – what’s the best way of uniting people behind you? Why, starting a diplomatic row of course, with the hope it will escalate into a bigger show of force.

And this is Ahmedinijad’s obvious gambit as Iran arrested nine staff working at the UK embassy on suspicion they took part in the recent street protests. The EU has now threatened a “strong response” to Iranian harassment of EU staff. Which is obviously what Ahmedinijad wants.

This is a diplomatic headache because escalating the war of words helps Ahmedinijad. At the same time, not many of the protesters are likely to believe Ahmedinijad’s latest attempt at diverting attention. We can play this in two ways: by not making a big fuss and denying Ahmedinijad what he wants. He may then try and escalate the situation and will shoot himself in the foot or quietly release the staff. Or the EU could escalate this massively with a real threat of war very quickly, and asking him for evidence of his claims. That would force Ahmedinijad to back down and expose his stupid gambit. I prefer the first option. But a muddle of the two is unlikely to work.

Should religion have a role in British politics?

Blog, Our democracy, Religion

Last week Michael Sandel delivered his second Reith Lecture and looked at the relationship between morality and politics, more specifically the interaction between religiously inspired morality and politics.

He argued, correctly in my view, that you cannot remove morality from political discourse and so it is far better to have it out in public.

In the UK we tend to discourage our politicians from talking about faith, we famously ‘don’t do God.’ Why?
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Will they really hand back power to the people?

Blog, Labour party, Local Government, Our democracy, Westminster

Last week I attended a Fabian round-table debate with Liam Byrne MP leading a discussion on the Equality Bill. Bryne talked of how we wanted to build a more civic identity and give power back to the people and let them make the decisions. He saw that as a solidarity building exercise. He quoted a book that made my ears perked up – Rules For Radicals, by Saul Alinsky.

As a disciple of the book I had to get my two-pence in. So at the end I made two points.
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