This was in yesterday's Times:

And this in the Telegraph two days ago:
I think that Vera Baird is completely right. I can see no reason not to change this rule. It is very much out of date and utterly absurd in the modern world.

In its time, the rules were fine and acceptable - if not absolutely necessary. But the time when the monarch was expected to actually run the country and to lead armies in the field is long long gone. There is no need for the monarch to be specifically male. And the past fifty-odd years of Queen Elizabeth IIs reign has proven it.

And as for the restriction over marrying a Catholic? Why do we we have this ridiculous law any more? It is a relic of the Glorious Revolution. It's about time, after 320 years, to repeal it.

How are either of these at all justifiable in the modern world?!

Just a note: This isn't the first time I have supported these modernisation.

WTF?

As far as I am aware, the vast majority of people in Britain are still white. Hence, to have a character that was not white would be the far worse scenario. Ethnic minorities should of course be encouraged to join the police force, but if they felt "isolated" by the use of a white mascot, I'm not convinced that they are the sort of people we want in our police force.

To have had 'Steve' as an Asian or black man or woman would have been the far worse scenario. It would have been caving into the PC fascists. Britain is still vastly white, and so for the police to have a white mascot is simply representative. What I expect they'll end up doing now is introducing an ethnic woman partner for Steve, which I don't really object to. But what i do object to is Metropolitan Police sergeants saying that Asian and woman officers could feel "isolated" by him. What utter bollocks.

Sources: The Telegraph, Mail on Sunday

Who is it that is discriminating - universities or the state school students?

This story is incomplete, and shows how statistics can easily be abused. It says that only 57.9% of Cambridge students and 53.7% of Oxford students come from state schools, leading John Denahm to claim that they are ignoring state school applicants. But what percentage of the applicants to Oxford and Cambridge came from state school pupils? It is the difference between them that matters.

It might be more of a "dog bites man" story to say that "Poor biased against Universities" rather than "man bites dog" type of headline John Denham provided today, but without the other statistics I mentioned above, the ones we are given are meaningless. Just because only 58% of Cambridge's students come from state schools isn't a bad thing in and of itself. If only 58% of it's applicants were from state schools, then it's probably about right. No university is going to deliberately choose less intelligent students simply down to class snobbery. They want the best and brightest that they can get, and since they receive no more money whether or not they take students from state schools, that's who they're going to pick - the best of the applicants.

To say that they are biased against state school students because they form only a slight majority of the students they take in is absurd. They are going to take the best applicants - whoever they be, wherever they are from.

Source: The Telegraph

There is one group which it is still legal to discriminate against in Britain - Catholics. Under the 1701 Act of Settlement, no British monarch may be or marry a Catholic. To do so would require abdication. This has come into the news because Peter Phillips, the Queen's eldest grandson and tenth in line to the throne, may well have to renounce his right to the succession because his fiancée is Catholic.

Why is this acceptable in modern Britain? Even though the monarch may be by right "Supreme Governor of the Church of England" that can, and should be changed anyway - it should be something that the C of E can choose to offer to the monarch if they so wish. Britain is a secular nation now - the Church of England and all other religions should be removed from our governmental system and the C of E should be independent. The right of the Prime Minister to select bishops and archbishops is very much outdated, and the very position of the Church of England is out of sync with our society and laws.

Discrimination is discrimination. Really, the whole hereditary system needs to be overhauled, with women not being automatically discriminated against any more than Catholics. I support the monarchy as a whole, but some changes/modernisations are essential.

Source: The Telegraph

Yet another load of interfering rubbish from this government:

"Muslim or Christian guest house owners who refuse to accept homosexual couples must impose a "sleeping together ban" on all other guests, the Government says.
As the holiday season gets under way, Meg Munn, a junior minister, has emphasised that it is illegal to allow married couples to share a room at a guest house or hotel while not allowing homosexuals the same right.
If gays are turned away, the only way a Christian or Muslim guest house owner can lawfully stay in business is if he or she offers single bedrooms to all guests - straight or gay." (The Telegraph)

To start with, I don't think that hotels or guest houses are at all right to refuse their services to gay couples. But this is a really stupid idea. To say that you won't let a gay couple share a room is as bad to refuse to let a black couple do the same. It is bigotry. But for the government to say that "either you let gay couples share a room, or no-one" is just absurd.

Giles Fraser, the vicar of Putney and a leading Church of England liberal, said:

"It is nonsense for the Government to allow any loopholes for religious homophobia... Bigotry is bigotry whether it's dressed up in the language of faith or not."

This is indeed true - bigotry is bigotry, whether or not based on religion. But I think the demand for what amounts to a sex ban is ridiculous, and taking government interfering to yet another level.

Note: I'm not supporting hotels who refuse to rent rooms to gay couples, but I don't think that it is the government's job to force them to do so or go out of business. Society can, and should, do that by avoiding such hotels and guest houses.

Source: The Telegraph

Gender-equality? Not in Italy, where a beach has now been declared "men free" - bar a hairdresser and a lifeguard:

"Italy’s long-standing tradition of male chauvinism has been delivered a bitter blow with the opening of the country’s first women-only beach.
Visitors to Beach no 134 on the 50-mile stretch of coastline linking Rimini to Riccione on the Adriatic coast are welcomed with a large sign of a macho man covered with a pink cross saying "No Men".
The sandy beach, which is also closed to children, has been dubbed the "Pink Beach"...
The man ban is accompanied by a restriction on loud disco music and traditional beach food such as deep-fried squid and chips. " (The Telegraph)

If a similar sort of area was declared "women free", complete with a sign with a cross over an image of a woman, the outcry would be huge. Gender equality, it seems, only goes one way.

This is an utterly revoting idea. Equality means equality, where people are treated the same, regardless of gender - the sort of thing which a women-only beach blatantly contravenes. Whilst I understand the idea and reasoning behind the idea, its execution is wrong. There should be no public area of this nature where sexual discrimination is practiced - for that is what this is.

Source: The Telegraph, The Times

According to breaking news on the BBC, the Dutch TV programme in which a terminally ill ill woman selects one of three patients to receive her kidneys, with advice being sent in by viewers via text message, which I posted about here, was a hoax designed to raise the issue of the shortage of Dutch donors.

"The "donor" in the show was in fact an actress - though the three people vying for an organ were real patients in need of a kidney transplant.
The three knew that The Big Donor Show, which aired on Friday, was not real. The producers say it was made to highlight the shortage of Dutch donors." (BBC)

I'm glad that it was a hoax. To actually have a game show on that would be taking reality TV a step way too far. But it certainly did raise the profile of the lack of organ donors, even though it was quite an unconventional way to go about it.

Hopefully due to this more people will be willing to sign up as donors and to give blood. Human life should not be wasted when there are ways of saving it. When we die, our organs just rot in the ground. If we act as donors and let our death allow others to live, we are doing good even after we have died. No-one can possibly say that that is not something that we should not want to do. Life is sacred, after all.

The issue should be seized on over here as much as in Holland. And go beyond signing up as donors for when we die, but giving blood whilst we live - unless you're gay in which case the National Blood Service doesn't want your blood. Truly ridiculous in my opinion. Why cut around 10% of the population out immediately? If they're concerned, why not put the blood through extra tests? If you refuse to allow gay people from giving blood, then don't complain that there isn't enough in the banks. But that's off the point.

The donor system should be reformed - it should be a opt-out rather than opt-in system. If you have a religious, moral or any other objection to donating organs after death, fine. The vast majority don't have any objection, but can't be bothered to sign up - just like I was (but no longer). That would be solved by the adaption of the system, and more would people be able to live.

Conservative MP Anthony Steen has been castigated by disabled groups for complaining that there are too many disabled parking spaces. A photo of Steen's car parked in a disabled parking space at Newton Abbot railway station was sent to a local newspaper, a sapce in which he parked because the rest of the car park was full and all of the disabled parking spaces were empty. Anthony Steen said that:

"I should not have parked there and I am sorry for that but there was nowhere else I could go.
There were no cars in any of the disabled bays so I parked in the one nearest to the non-disabled parking spaces.
The number of disabled bays is disproportionate to the number of handicapped people living in the area.
I support making the life of every handicapped person easier, but we should not discriminate against the able-bodied."

He is right that there appears to be disproportionate numbers of disabled parking spaces. Whilst some must be supplied, the number always seems to be too high. I have never seen all disabled parking spaces used by disabled people. When the number of parking spaces themselves is limited, like it is especially at railway stations, the number of disabled spaces always seems excessive to me.

Yes, disabled people have a right to go out, and not, as Douglas Campbell, a spokeman from disabled transport group Mobilise, put it: "sit at home twiddle their thumbs, not have a job, and perhaps just do to the day centre in an ambulance every day." But that doesn't mean that their needs should be met at the excessive detriment of able-bodied people. Do they need some specialist parking spaces? Yes. Do they need so many? No. Especially since the amount of disabled badge fraud, particularly in London, it isn't even possible to know that all the cars parked in these spaces are in fact being used by disabled people.

Sources: BBC, The Telegraph