Some are more equal than others

Recently we have had two more examples of social engineering policies from Bottler's lot.

Harriet Harman, who seems so bitterly twisted that we wonder if she should be attempting her job, has decided that discrimination is illegal, except against white males. Companies will not be allowed to appoint the best applicant, in their eyes, while there are members of other groups - the old, women and minority ethnic groups, who are apparently equally qualified. (Many years ago, while we were eating Sunday lunch, a member of one of these groups arrived without prior arrangement, and demanded to inspect our house which was for sale. When we asked if he could return when we had finished lunch, he threatened to report us to......) The (perceived) Victim Society is not above a little blackmail.

There are any number of reasons why an employer would not want to appoint an applicant, like to hairdressing salon, recently required to pay for hurt feelings because it rejected the application of an applicant who insisted on wearing a scarf to obscure her hair at all times!

In Monday's Daily Telegraph we had a different example. Universities will be told to give preferential treatment to applicants from poorer households. The Government is considering this proposal from a commissioned report, but is thought to be likely to adopt it.

Tinkering with arrangements made by private individuals, on the basis of their own judgement, is to be outlawed in the name of social engineering, where one size fits all in crude interference. The so-called positive discrimination is introduced in order to prevent discrimination! This is the result which follows a government hell-bent on engineering in society where the consequences are unpredictable.

The Government does not seem to be able to adopt a hands-off approach, having set in chain broad arrangements to level the playing field. If women are unattractive employees because they are likely to get pregnant, then ease the burden on employers of funding the absence, and if some ethnic groups struggle with English, encourage them to speak English at home, - some groups are extremely well motivated.

I cannot help mischievously pointing out that after 1945 and until towards 1970, a higher proportion of children from poorer families went to Oxbridge, and other universities, than at any time since. The secret, of course, is that the ability they had was developed by the Grammar Schools to which they won places, rather than being discouraged in overlarge and soul-less comprehensives into which their successors were dragooned. But then, of course, the Government of the day was determined that every pupil would start on the same starting line and pass through the same system.

The unforeseen, or overlooked, consequence was that ultimately the change in schools was going to lose the talent from poorer families, to judge from university entrance statistics, and also generally weaken our educational system performance in all interntional comparisons. All in the name of improving the lot of students from poorer homes!