Equality Madness

I couldn't resist that headline. It reminds me of those alarmist, hysterical, shrieking titles of trashy novelettes and movies of the 40s and 50s, such as "Reefer Madness". And what's that text above the headline? "Government spends £30 million to discover whether preserving fish stocks harm ethnic Chinese, or hovercraft discriminate against gays". Now read on ...

The government has been accused of wasting tens of millions of tasxpayers' money to comply with controversial new equality laws that force organisations to prove they are not discriminating against minority groups.

Whitehall departments have already issued a string of bizarre reports to meet the terms of the Equality Act 2010.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) paid £100,000 to consultants who produced a report investigating how efforts to boost Britain's coastal fish stocks would affect minority communities including the Chines, homosexuals and Welsh speakers.

And the Department for Transport issued a study this month looking at harassment and discrimination on ships and hovercraft. The report covered a range of groups, including transsexuals [referred to as "gays" in the strapline, you'll note.]

There's an in-depth report on a double-page spread inside the paper. Read the full article here (then go take a shower):
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1349691/Governments-30m-equality-discover-hovercrafts-discriminate-gays.html

It's almost Burns Night. As I was writing this blog entry, a few lines from Burns's poem, "To a Louse", came to mind:

O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!