Equality Industry Update

Trev in Rising Damp

As we've discussed before, Britain's £70m state equality industry is suffering a nasty bout of consolidation: the Commission for Racial Equality, the Disability Rights Commission, and the Equal Opportunities Commission are all being banged together to form Labour's new super equality quango- the Commission for Equality and Human Rights (CEHR). Which is very bad news as regards chiefs' jobs.

The favourite to get the new top job is New Labour's candidate Trevor Phillips, present head of the CRE. Which ought to be surprising, since he's so wildly unpopular among many of the ethnic groups CRE was meant to promote. Black Information Link reckons he's a useless "fat cat" who costs more than the Home Secretary, yet fails to prosecute race cases. And a former Asian CRE commissioner, Dr Raj Chandran, even suggests it would have been better to appoint a whitey, adding 'there are too many racists in the ethnic community'.

But of course, Trev's plugged in where it counts- right down to having Mandelson as best man at his wedding. So you have to guess he's home and dry.

Which leaves us with the question of why we need any of this overblown industry at all. We have the law to safeguard against discrimination. Why do we need all these expensive equality bureaucrats as well?

Pic shows Trev with other Presidents of the NUS, Sue Slipman and David Aaronowitch (in supercool tanktop): see list of NUS Presidents since 1922.