Shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy has always been one to champion equality and diversity, often lamenting over the lack of BAME and female workers various industries. His passion for diversity led him to be invited to deliver a keynote speech for the launch of a firm’s black employees’ resource group in 2020. For which he received the princely sum of £2,050…
Guido took the time to see what Lammy had to say on equality considering he may well be the next Foreign Secretary. It appears his love of getting women into work goes so far that he himself actually refuses to hire any men. He admitted:
“I just had a role in my office that I advertised, and because of the nature the economy, I got 250 applications. I don’t mind saying that I ruled out every man on the list and that was because I was determined to get a woman.”
Under the Equality Act, employers cannot discriminate against anyone because of their sex. Ruling out male applicants for a job just to “get a woman”, therefore, is not just “positive discrimination.” Noticeably, the vast majority of Lammy’s parliamentary staff who don’t already work for the Labour Party are women…
Kemi Badenoch was deployed this morning to sell the Tories’ new pledge to change the law and clearly define “biological sex” in the Equality Act. After 11 days of being benched in the campaign, the Business and Trade and Equalities minister didn’t depart from her usual robust answering style…
When quizzed on the Today Programme on what paperwork (original birth certificate or recently changed) one would need to access a women’s crisis centre or female prison, Kemi didn’t clarify, merely repeating that “biological sex” was what mattered in the law. When pushed further on what legal paperwork was required, a frustrated Kemi hit back: “I’ve answered the question, you just keep repeating it in a different way.” Meanwhile on Sky News, Kemi was asked why the government hadn’t changed the law already. The cabinet minister blamed Sunak’s snap election: “Unfortunately the election was called before we would have been able to lay the legislation out in September”…
Jacob Rees-Mogg has said the Equality Act should be scrapped to tackle “wokery” and restore common sense to the workplace. Speaking on GB News last night he said workers should be allowed to “get on with their jobs, not spend all their time and energy in moralistic progressivism”. He called on ‘common sense’ minister Esther McVey to repeal the bill and the corresponding public sector equality duty (PSED) which adds massive costs to menial bureaucracy. Rees-Mogg claims only “that way taxpayer value can be restored.” That would be one way to stop the gravy train…
