Why we don’t need women-only or BME-only shortlists

The statement that “Parliament should reflect the society that it seeks to govern” is a commonplace one, but that does not make it correct. As with all jobs, parliament should be filled with those best suited to legislate.

This is not to say that parliament should be made up of lawyers (in fact, it would probably benefit from fewer lawyers, given the propensity of “learned members”) or other types of expert; we do not want a technocracy. But is should be made up of intelligent, talented individuals with an understanding both of what makes good law and what their constituents want.

Recent comments by Philip Davies MP that having BME-only shortlists or women-only shortlist would be the equivalent of having criminal-only shortlists are confused. As Linda Jack points out “YOU DIDN'T CHOOSE THE COLOUR OF YOUR SKIN, OR THE IMPACT IT HAD ON YOUR LIFE CHANCES...........IF YOU ARE A CRIMINAL, YOU MAY HAVE HAD A MODICUM OF CHOICE IN BECOMING ONE”. This is a liberal distinction that is often lost on Conservatives.

However, in criticising Davies, Linda appears to make a different but no less significant error: that factors that are not the result of choice should be discounted. The role of legislator is filled in the here-and-now, not in the past. If one person is less suited to job than another person, they should not be given the job, whether their inferior skill results from personal choices or factors beyond their control. After all, intellect is as much a function of biology as are race and gender, yet one would not suggest that parliament should reflect the full intellectual range of society, nor suggest shortlists confined to those with IQs less than 100.

(Insert jokes here).

The point about race and gender is not that parliament should reflect society as a whole – heaven forbid! It is that there is no link between race or gender and one’s ability as a candidate or parliamentarian. Thus any discrimination against BME or female candidates (as opposed to discrimination against stupid or antisocial candidates) is unwarranted.

If, however, a particular BME candidate is less suited to the job than a white alternative because of disadvantages inherent in their race (for example, the fact that black families tend to be poorer and therefore black boys tend to perform less well at school) they should not be given an unfair advantage in a particular selection so as to redress the balance. This can only result in a less talented group of MPs. The solution is to break the link between (in the example cited above) economic status and race, and academic performance and race, so that in future this problem does not arise.

Furthermore, even if women and those from ethnic minorities are as likely to make good candidates and MPs but are still not being chosen by parties, this does not automatically justify dedicated shortlists. Society is a self-regulating mechanism, after all, and the system will police itself. Parties that fail to promote BME or female candidates because of prejudice will have a smaller pool of good candidates to choose from, which will make it more difficult for them to win votes. Furthermore, if they discriminate against people with any regularity, they will be seen to be prejudiced, which will further hurt them at the polls.

The real reason that there is a lack of BME candidates for parliament is that there is a lack of BME members of political parties; there are some, just as there are some candidates and even elected officials, but the ranks of all three parties are not reflective of our society as a whole. The answer is not some form of positive discrimination, however, but more open and imaginative efforts to attract members. As a Lib Dem Council Group leader recently remarked to me, too many of our social events (for example) centre around alcohol, which may discourage (for example) Muslim members from joining. Ultimately, if we attract intelligent and talented people into our party, we will get intelligent and talented candidates – no matter what their race or gender.

“Little black boys will join hands with little white boys as brothers.”

British schools face US-style segregation according to Nick Johnson, Director of policy and public sector at the Commission for Racial Equality.

The problem is at its most acute in areas where racial minorities make up a greater proportion of the population than the national average of 8 per cent. Mr. Johnson’s fear is that this will lead to greater alienation, as children grow up never mixing with peers from other races.

Mr. Johnson’s solution is typically Statist. Schools are to be required to have “a balanced and diverse intake”, and the amount of money they receive may be affected by their success in meeting this target. It is sad that Mr. Johnson has not learnt the lessons of the last decade. Government targets do not lead to better public services overall; they merely lead to public services that better meet the targets. Hospitals must see every patient within 18 weeks, so now every patient has to wait 17 weeks to be seen, and may then be seen for a cursory appointment to ensure that the target is met before being referred to the next waiting list. Schools’ incomes are dependent on the number of children getting higher GCSEs, so they concentrate on children on the borderline of grades C and D to the exclusion of those expected to get very low or very high grades.

Hospital and school managers are only human, and are as likely to game the system as anyone else. The result of this scheme is likely to be schools aiming to achieve exactly the amount of racial integration necessary to gain the financial bonus: no less, no more. Whether this is in the interests of the individual child will be less important than whether the school has more money to spend on children in aggregate. And as Simon Burgess, Professor of Economics at Bristol University, notes, there may be benefits for some children in working with peers from the same background.

In fact, schools are already required to promote community cohesion, itself a disturbing piece of social engineering. I still subscribe to the unfashionable view that schools should exist primarily to educate, but I realise that others see school as performing other roles. For some there is nothing unusual about the compulsory sequestering of a portion of our population for long periods of time; it is necessary to keep them off the streets and keep them safe. All well and good, but should we also be using that time to attempt to shape them to be the model citizens we feel they ought to be: complete with citizenship classes and an enforced multiculturalism.

Interestingly, the problem may very well be of the state’s own making, and the solution greater liberalisation. (I have yet to find a problem that cannot be solved by grater liberalisation!). Giving parents the choice as to where to send their children to school has been found to have a positive impact on racial integration: “choice programs … are increasing the integration of whites and nonwhites” notes one study.

If the CRE and Ministers are genuinely committed to greater social cohesion and racial integration in schools, they would better achieve their goals by freeing parents to send their children to school where they see fit. This would be more effective than bribing and cajoling – the usual tools of government – and would remove any opportunity for gaming the system. Real school choice, however – which requires allowing parents to move their children at will in the same way that they move their bank account – is not on the cards. For the government it would require releasing control and trusting the people; for the CRE it needs a change of mindset from protecting specific groups to freeing everybody.

In the meantime, the CRE will continue to urge Ministers to meddle, and Ministers – as ever – will need little persuasion. It is unlikely to create the socially cohesive Britain they desire, but in the process unintended consequences will manifest themselves. Such is the price of government intervention.

School discipline to be influenced by race

Racism is racism no matter what form it takes. Discrimination is not defined by treating members of a group worse than others, but by treating them differently. Irrespective of the fact that to treat one group better is to treat another less well, it remains discrimination even if the treatment of two groups is equal, but distinct. “Separate but equal” were the watchwords of American segregation (though in practice there was precious little equality).

So it is with shock and surprise that I discovered that the latest guidance on school discipline published by the Department for Education and Skills specifically advises schools to “take account of a range of individual pupil needs when developing and implementing their behaviour policies” including “groups defined by Ofsted as ‘at risk’ within the education system [such as] minority ethnic and faith groups [and] travellers”.

The whole subject of defining entire races or religious groups as ‘at risk’ is deeply troubling, not least because nobody ever seems to define what they are ‘at risk’ of suffering, doing or becoming. The underlying suggestion is that they are at risk of not fitting into the round hole drilled for their square bodies by policy-makers and the intellectuals who influence them.

How is this to be put into practice? On the one hand, the DfES guidance emphasises “the importance of sensitivity to individual needs”, as though teachers are unaware that their charges are individuals as opposed to homogenous automata. This patronising advice reiterates the belief that Whitehall bureaucrats are needed to tell teachers and nurses how to deliver their service. One wonders what the point of all that training and education was!

On the other hand, a series of warnings are given to take account of “cultural norms” and to avoid discomfort to children whose cultures take great offence at public humiliation. This is a very dangerous precedent. School rules are a form of law, and for them to have any meaning they must be applied fairly. To allow one child to get away with being loud while another is disciplined is discriminatory – especially so if it is based not on the child’s uniqueness but upon views of how a child of that “culture” is expected to behave. To discipline children in different ways because of preconceived notions of how children of a certain type (colour, faith) might react is racism.

This issue goes to the heart of the “multicultural society”. Being multicultural is a recognition that a hundred different languages are spoken in the home; a hundred different forms of dress are worn in the street. Different gods are worshipped and different festivals celebrated, and they are they are worshipped and celebrated in different ways. But if a society is to be fair, its members must be treated equally; the law – even local laws of public institutions – applied irrespective of race or religion. This is not the Middle Ages, where Jews were subject to a different law from Christians, and the religious from the secular. The law is blind for a reason. It is blind so that even though individuals might discriminate, the law never does. For all our sakes let it remain so.

Our blackest hour?

The bitterness of political rivalry can sometimes carry us away, and opportunism is devilishly tempting. So when Brian Gordon , the Conservative councillor for Hale Ward, Barnet, decided to “black up” so as to attend a fancy dress party as Nelson Mandela, he was asking for trouble. And the local Liberal Democrats were quick to make it. Now the authorities and the supposed victim have poured a lot of ice-cold water onto the row. Scorn might have been more appropriate.

When the news first broke I was very sceptical. Blacking up may be a rather stupid thing to do, but it pales into insignificance compared to the gibbering idiocy that would be required to publicise your own racism. That Mr. Gordon himself sent the picture to his local paper clearly suggests that he saw nothing wrong in what he had done. One might argue that he may be blind to the offence it could cause. However, offence is taken rather than given, and I doubt very much that he would be prepared to risk his political career and public vilification just to stick two fingers up at the black community. There may be a fine line between being “not politically correct” and being racist, but Mr. Gordon was very firmly on the unfashionable (as opposed to the unconscionable) side of that line.

The opportunity to score a political point was too great for some, however. Local activist Stieve de Lance pounced, telling journalists that “It is thinly veiled racism; you cannot make jokes like this.” In fact, the only thing that was thinly veiled was Ms. De Lance’s opportunism. The Commission for Racial Equality, to whom she referred the incident, suggested that “celebrities and politicians engage their brains before they walk out of the door?” but do not appear to consider this a serious incident.

Now the alleged victim of the racial abuse has made his feelings clear. Nelson Mandela’s spokesman has said that the only offence Mr. Gordon has caused was in suggesting that Mr. Mandela would wear such as dull shirt. “We don’t see any harm in this whatsoever,” she explained. “If it was a fancy-dress party and people were expected to arrive as a character or famous person, we are convinced there was no ill intent behind this.”

She then went on to add “We are not oversensitive about matters like these. We should try not to read racism into actions which may be completely innocent.” That is a lesson that many in the media and in local politics need to learn.

This whole, sorry affair has raised a another point, though, beyond the over-sensitivity of some people (often not, themselves, from ethnic minorities) to perceived racial slurs. Mr. Gordon is not a member of parliament – he is not even a candidate. He is not a career politician who has chosen a path that inevitably will lead to vicious personal attacks from journalists and opponents alike. Personally, I rue the passing of the more gentlemanly style of politics, where public debate was limited to such mundane things as policy. But at parliamentary level that is now par for the course; the price career politicians pay.

Mr. Gordon, however, was something very different: a local councillor. It is not easy these days to find people who are prepared to run for office, putting in a huge amount of effort with no guarantee that in the end that work will be rewarded (Mr. Gordon barely won his seat in 2002 and shared the ward with two Labour colleagues – never an easy task). Neither is it easy to find people who – if successful – will happily give up 20 hours a week, generally their evenings and weekends, to attend planning meetings, discuss licensing applications and read local authority accounts. The job does not even pay well.

Local councillors are one of three breeds. Some are aspiring politicians on the first rung of the ladder. Others are accidentally successful paper candidates. But most are committed local residents who want to do something for their area. They do not deserve to be dragged through the mud in this callous and opportunist manner. If we want to continue – to increase – the number of talented, local people who are willing to take on the work and the responsibility (and the unlimited financial liability) that this post requires, we need to avoid this sort of crass, calculated negative campaigning.

If Mr. Gordon is a bad councillor, attack him on his record. If the Liberal Democrats can do better, persuade voters with policies. This incident may have made Mr. Gordon look silly, but it reflects worse on those that have sought to make capital from it.

Freedom of speech includes freedom to be wrong

Another day, another race row. Poor Channel 4 seems to be mired in bigotry at present. How will it cope?

After the furore of the Big Brother Race Row (which I feel now warrants the use of capital letters), it now appears that a contestant on Shipwrecked: Battle of the Islands has made some daft and probably offensive comments supporting slavery. She has also condemned fat people and called for a return to the British Empire, which suggests that she may not be all there, but it is the former comment – along with various anti-immigrant sentiments – that has caused the greatest uproar. In light of the BBRR, that is unsurprising.

Not having dipped my visual toes into this particular (cess-) pool of entertainment, I don’t know what she said, but if the transcript on BBC Online is accurate it looks like a tirade of idiocy rather than hate.

The question is, however, should Shipwrecked now be removed from the air? Should the offending contestant be throw off the island? Or reprimanded by producers and hauled into line? (Note that she already has been confronted by other contestants.)

I think not. As I commented before in another context, freedom of expression is most easily threatened when we seek to curtail expressions of opinion that are abhorrent or threaten our treasured beliefs. It is easy to rebuff the suggestion that Brian Haw or Behzti should be censored, but harder to defend David Irving or Vybz Kartel when they air their opinions. So too with the Shipwrecked contestant.

Appalling though we may feel her views are, I find more appalling the thought that media outlets might vet people against standards of opinion. It reminds me of an excellent posting by a fellow blogger (I’m afraid I forget who) arguing that while Simone Clarke’s membership of the British National Party might make most people’s stomach’s turn, it would be wrong to exclude her from employment with the English National Ballet merely because of her politics.

Let’s remember, this is supposed to be “reality TV”. Should we not allow these “real” opinions to be aired, taking the rough with the smooth, rather than hiding the seedy underbelly of British opinion away from the public eye? Is it not better that public debate be provoked rather than that it is avoided at all costs? I suspect that the contestant will learn more by witnessing the shock and opprobrium of her fellow islanders than she will by being hauled in front of the Channel 4 producers and given a dressing down.

Racism is a real part of British culture. It is also, let us be clear, a real part of all cultures. I have heard of no country where foreigners are universally trusted or welcomed. If we are to reduce its influence, or at least pull its sting, we need to witness it and admit the fact of it, and then to debate it – not just in the media, in politics and at great public meetings, but in pubs, at work and even around the camp fire as the sun sets over a glorious tropical beach.