So when all those politicians were banging on about how the Catholic Church
could not possibly be exempt because equality from discrimination was universal
and applied to everyone, what they actually meant was everyone except
them.
Friday, February 09, 2007
How Politicians Get a Bad Name: No 94
Dizzy has an excellent post HERE on the exemptions from the Equality Act 2006 following an article from DOMINIC LAWSON in the Indy. Unbelievably it applies to virtually everyone except the House of Commons and the House of Lords and the officers of either House of Parliament and the Security Services. Disgraceful. It's the ultimate example of 'don't do as I do, do as I say'. How on earth do we let them get away with it? As Dizzy says...
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Yes, indeed. It is precisely such legislation that would eventually have forced female vicars upon the Church of England (irrespective of consent), while perpetuating eternal masculinity at Westminster. It is even possible that the 'equality' legislation has not yet finished with the Church of Rome (which does not entertain female priests).
The exemption of the House of Commons is what permitted Labour's imposition of 'all women shortlists' upon constituencies. Having seen how many of 'Blair's babes' rose to the highest ranks (or even junior ranks!), it is proof positive that social engineering is not merely detrimental to good government, it is antithetical to the meritocratic principles which are fundamental to Conservative philosophy.
It is in fact linked to the 1688 Bill of Rights. There was no need to explicitly except Parliament as the courts are kept out anyway.
Sorry to be pedantic, but Cranmer is incorrect. It is not the exemption of the House of Commons from the Equality Act that made possible Labour's all-women shortlists. That was made possible by a separate Act and followed the decision of an employment tribunal on the original use of all-women shortlists.
Ditto smoking. They really are the biggest bunch of hypocrites.
Sack them all, without redundancy payments then cut the pensions.
Dizzy is a marvel isn`t he. I `m to scared to post on his site......
BTW I recently posted on the exemption ,,....
* This post is exempt under Section 38 of the Race Relations Act (1976) and Section 48 of the Sex
Discrimination Act (1975).
This is used for recruting 40 Black Teachers by Islington Coucil. I`d like to see them use this to recruit 40 teaches who must be white
Yet more evidence of the terminal decline of this immoral, deceitful cabal of political spivs, thugs, failures and nonentities. How do they get away with it? Let's hope those who bother to turn out at forthcoming elections manage to work that one out...
Before anybody gets too fired up about this, Dominic Lawson and Dizzy seem to have missed the point: section 52 relates only to Part 2 of the Act which is just the part about religious discrimination (or at least the term "discrimination" is defined for the purposes of part 2 in section 45 as religious discriination). It does not apply to discrinmination on grounds of sexual orientation, disability etc which are covered in other parts of the act. There are similar exemptions for religious establishments and religious scholls in the Act. It is sensible to exempt a lot of Parliament because of the established church. Other religions could be claim discrimination if they were not put on an equal footing in the Houses of Parliament. There may be arguments for disestablishment, but until disestablishment happens the exceptions seem reasonable. On the other hand I don't pretend to understand why there should be an exemption for the Security Services, but life seems to be that way these days.
Except that the House Of Commons is submissive to the European Court on such things.
Nice to test that theory one day
why do you choose no. 94 all the time?
You need to read Private Eye to understand. They use it all the time.
Thanks Iain that was puzzling me , especially as both you and Croydonian seem to be addicted to it .
A similar exemption for MPs for another Act is going through Parliament right now.
The Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill is going through the house very very quickly.
The Bill was brought by David Maclean (Con) with the SOLE purpose of exempting MPs' Correspondence and other Commons matters from public access rights to official documents given under the original Freedom of Information Act.
The 2nd reading went through the Commons 3 weeks ago totally on the nod. When the speaker proposed it and said "all those agreeing say aye" and "all those agree say "no"
- NOBODY said "no" - a unique occurrence in the history of the Commons. No debate therefore had to occur (there was no time allocated if ANY MP had objected and the Bill would have been killed by timing it out.
On Wednesday, the Bill spent only 55 minutes being discussed at the Committee stage. Again an unprecedented short time.
MPs have therefore played fast and loose in pushing through a Bill that exempts them from a law that they have imposed on the rest of the government sector.
I'm not sure why MPs feel they have earned this exemption, and why they feel entitled to it without proper debate in the house.
Was there something in my earlier comment that wasn't fit to print Ian?
Equality means that, as far as I am concerned. In all areas of life.
Chris, I don't recall seeing another comment from you. Post itagain. Although I will be off air for most of the day and my Blackberry doesn;t seem to be able to approve comments now I have switched to the new version of Blogger,.
Do yo honestly believe Iain that it is the "same" politicians who voted against allowing the catholic church an opt out that are voting to keep the exemptions for the Houses of Parliament or are you in danger or tarrng everyone with the same brush.
Politicians I know and speak to in the main support efforts to bring the Houses of Parliament up to the same standards and laws as the rest of the country.
You forget to mention the dangers of the Houses having different laws from the reat of us in terms of health and safety. it has often been remarked that the houses of parliament is s disaster waiting to happen as it does not comply with modern rules on saftey and fire protection and prevention.
Oh dear !! Such is the way of progress. I am a bit of a techno sceptic, if not quite a full blown luddite.
However the Blackberry does sound interesting, and being Canadian has probably been designed for normal people, rather than IT geeks.
Does it 'sync' into your PC diary as well ?
I heard on the radio today they are proposing to exempt their expenses & some letters from the FoI Act as well. This being a result of Westminster MPs being astonished & scared that the Scottish Tory leader was forced to resign over having claimed taxi bills when visiting clients (he is a lawyer).
Its when you have an unwritten constitution and an overlapped political culture that has grown over 1,000 years of history
A certain Cabinet Minister looks like getting a "bad name" after today's double page spread on the late Fiona Jones MP in the Daily Mail.
More tomorrow I guess.
Candidates for Labour's Deputy Leadership may soon be reduced by one.
Talking of the Deputy Leadership contest - Hazel 'chipmunk' Blears' name appears to have disappeared off the 'betting odds' ticker listed on the Political Betting site. She hasn't had cold feet now has she ?
One of the reasons they get a bad name is because so many cynics are prepared to allege hypocrisy, self-interest etc with the minimum of evidence. I don't know much about this discrimination exemption and so can't comment (not a restriction that some other posters put on themselves) but I did hear that the smoking ban couldn't be applied to the Commons etc because of it is a royal palace. Nonetheless I think the MPs who make the "house rules" have voted to ban smoking in the Commons so it is just like elsewhere. So, on that count at least, the charge of hypocrisy is unfounded.
Hmm..You make a fair point here, Iain, but isn't the reason for this linked to the 'excuse' that the Smoking Ban does not apply in the Houses of Parliament ?
My understanding on that one was that they are 'Royal Palaces' [?] and so have some form of exemption, though I have no expertise in this area.
If so, then they may not really have the power to 'opt in/out' - unless they decide to abolish the monarchy...
Quite likely that I'm barking up the wrong tree, but Parliamentary Privilege does have important uses and I would hate to see that baby disappearing with the bathwater.
Any thoughts ???
If there is some technical hitch around the Royal Palace thing - surely the Queen can say "These rules apply in my drawing room"?
Or maybe they just like it the way it is....
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