A new "Fairness Act" is to be created to prevent discrimination. However, like everyone is not equal, life isn't fair. People simply aren't equal: some people are better with numbers, some with words, some with their hands, some with their mouths. Some people are good with children, some are good at having children. And so on, as you get what I mean. And life isn't fair, and can't be. No matter what laws are put in place.

One good thing about this "Fairness Act," however, is that it will sweep away "more than 100 Acts, codes and directives introduced since the Sixties to outlaw prejudice based on race, faith, sex and sexuality... in favour of a single requirement for employees to be treated fairly." It just goes to show how good our Parliament is at making laws, really. If nothing else.

But - and there's always a but in these things - the way the new law is to be implemented is to be entirely opposite to the way in which British law is supposed to work. Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, who advised ministers on this new law said:

So instead of saying what we can't do - and allowing everything else - it is telling us what we are allowed to do, by gracious assent on our Lords and Masters.

The clarification and simplification of the 116 different pieces of equality legislation in to one document is a good idea, but not if they plan to either (a) extend the requirements of "equality", or (b) just tell us what they will allow us to do.

Life isn't fair, and people aren't equal. And that is something that no piece of legislation can possibly allow for. So why not just replace all of these "equality" laws with one sentence: Play nice and don't be shitty

This just has to be right at the top my list of the most idiotic thing I have ever heard anyone ever say:

Erm, WTF? How on earth can climate change [it's lucky that they stopped using the term "global warming" because it's bloody freezing at the moment] be the greatest threat to global equality? Surely dictatorship, totalitarian government and PC extremism [as well as the culture of state dependency - on the development of which Theo Spark has a great parable] is a greater threat?

Equality is not prevented by global warming in the slightest. If anything it will do the opposite - if the doomsday claims by eco-fascists is correct - by reducing us all to the same level? If anything under their conditions, us in the developed world would be far more screwed than third world countries.

Climate change is not - and cannot - itself threaten global equality. It might have some impact on it, in a roundabout way, but to claim that it is the "greatest long-term threat" to achieving global equality is utter rubbish, and gives the issue far far more importance than it deserves.

Source: BBC

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

Gender is not the real classroom divide, claims Equal Opportunities Commission:

In fact, they say that instead of helping to narrow to gap
So, predictably, it's class [and race] that is the source of all inequality:
Except, really, it's not because of their class or race that certain kids fall behind, it is either because they are not as intelligent as others or because they don't put the work in.

Class, race, and gender are not the real classroom divides. Ability and application are. This may be reflected along gender, race, and class lines, because they don't exist because of them. They are a symptom, not a cause. Instead of trying to focus on one group, however defined, it would be far better to encourage all school children to work harder, and to encourage their parents to encourage them as well.

General ability and the extent to which that is applied to school work are the divides within the classroom. Nothing else causes them, but they can be seen as areas where extra work needs to be done in order for them to reach their potential. It's not because they are working class, male, or black that are low in the class, but because they either don't have the ability and/or aren't applying it.

Source: The Times

If you live in England, get ready to write yet another blank cheque for Scotland...

So, basically, if you're English [or Welsh] you have to pay tuition fees if you study in Scotland, but not if you're Scottish or from anywhere else in the EU? Thus, English taxpayers are funding Scottish and European student's education - but not that of their own kids.

No matter if Wendy Alexander [Scottish Labour leader] thinks that the English shouldn't complain about Scotland living off of us, we will. Especially when the abuse of our taxes extends to such a level as £1,236 more on every person in Scotland.

As much as Salmond may not like it [politically, though obviously not financially], Scotland is still part of the UK. As such, to discriminate in such a way against students from England is utterly wrong.

This is yet another example of the educational apartheid in Britain. Scottish students shouldn't get university - or any other - education on a different financial basis, such as no Student Loans for Scottish students, to that which exists in the rest of the United Kingdom. We are one state, under one Government, even if Salmond disagrees even on that level with his pronouncement of the "rebranding" of the Scottish Executive as the Scottish Government with £100,000 of English money.

Has Salmond never heard of equality - as in where everyone is equal? Apparently not.

Source: The Telegraph

Why should non-Christians be allowed to join a Christian society - where all of its activities are presumably based around the religion?

The NUS have a slight point - there should be "equal opportunities", and these exist within this society, since meetings are open to all. Why should non-Christians be able to join this sort of Christian society? The next step along this absurd line is to say that Labour Party members should be allowed to join a Conservative Party society, vice-versa, and etc.

I can't see why people who weren't members of a particular religion or party would want to join a student society dedicated to it anyway, so where is the problem to be solved? Have there been complaints from non-Christians that they weren't allowed to join this society? I very much doubt that there has been. There are more than enough societies that most people want to join at a Fresher's Fair. So why the absurd demand?

Religious and political societies in the real world and on campuses operate this sort of "discriminatory" procedures. They always have, and I'm sure they always will. Quite why the Student's Guild at Exeter decided to threaten the loss of it's status is beyond me. Sheer stupidity.

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