Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Equal opportunities.
The Times reports here on another example of Labour stacking a board with it's own supporters. Yesterday there was a report of the Big Lottery Board (gives out lottery cash) where 5 out of 12 members of the board are members of the Labour Party.
This time with true irony, it's the Equal Opportunities Board, with 4 out of 10 members being members of the Labour Party, so it's good to see it living up to its name. Strangely the board seems to have two chairmen (both men), but don't worry as they are both Labour supporters: "A spokeswoman for the Culture Department admitted that Ms Jowell “may have been aware” of the party affiliation of Sir Clive Booth, the new chairman, before he was appointed." and "The chairman of the board will be Trevor Phillips, the former head of the Commission for Racial Equality, who wanted to be Labour’s candidate for London mayor in 1999." I can't work out just precisely who will be the chairman, unless it genuinely will have two (nothing's impossible under Labour).
I just love that "may have been aware"; the reality is if she wasn't aware then she must be incompetent.
Of course we have the platitudes: "A spokesman for Ms Kelly said that the appointments were in line with the rules ..." Oh well that's OK then, nothing to see here, move along now please.
From the article: "Applicants for jobs on public bodies are not required to declare their membership of a political party — only whether they have engaged in “political activity”. But, under the rules set out by the Office for the Commissioner for Public Appointments, information about political activity is withheld from the shortlisting panel and the minister making the final decision." Oh well then the minister can't possibly know, I imagine they have some set procedure where the applicant writes to the minister to "check if Labour membership is compatible with the role" just to be on the safe side. In any event we're not talking about ordinary people you're likely to find at your local working mans club, they are all public figures, so they'll mix together at conferences and party organised things etc. I fairly confident the minister will know.
"Labour Party membership - in tests 8 out of 10 board selectors who expressed a preference said their boards preferred it."
This time with true irony, it's the Equal Opportunities Board, with 4 out of 10 members being members of the Labour Party, so it's good to see it living up to its name. Strangely the board seems to have two chairmen (both men), but don't worry as they are both Labour supporters: "A spokeswoman for the Culture Department admitted that Ms Jowell “may have been aware” of the party affiliation of Sir Clive Booth, the new chairman, before he was appointed." and "The chairman of the board will be Trevor Phillips, the former head of the Commission for Racial Equality, who wanted to be Labour’s candidate for London mayor in 1999." I can't work out just precisely who will be the chairman, unless it genuinely will have two (nothing's impossible under Labour).
I just love that "may have been aware"; the reality is if she wasn't aware then she must be incompetent.
Of course we have the platitudes: "A spokesman for Ms Kelly said that the appointments were in line with the rules ..." Oh well that's OK then, nothing to see here, move along now please.
From the article: "Applicants for jobs on public bodies are not required to declare their membership of a political party — only whether they have engaged in “political activity”. But, under the rules set out by the Office for the Commissioner for Public Appointments, information about political activity is withheld from the shortlisting panel and the minister making the final decision." Oh well then the minister can't possibly know, I imagine they have some set procedure where the applicant writes to the minister to "check if Labour membership is compatible with the role" just to be on the safe side. In any event we're not talking about ordinary people you're likely to find at your local working mans club, they are all public figures, so they'll mix together at conferences and party organised things etc. I fairly confident the minister will know.
"Labour Party membership - in tests 8 out of 10 board selectors who expressed a preference said their boards preferred it."
Tags: corruption, Labour, favouritism
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.
Labels: corruption, Labour
