Too White for Their Own Good
From the desk of The Brussels Journal on Wed, 2007-03-07 10:16
A quote from The Daily Telegraph, 2 March 2007
Corby in Northamptonshire has become the first town in the country to be deemed too white for its own good. The Prison Service has decided to transfer one of its offices (and 80 jobs) from the town to nearby Leicester. One of the reasons for the move, according to a leaked letter from the Prison Service's finance director, Ann Beasley, is that this will make it easier for the service to hit its target for employing ethnic-minority workers - or, in New Labour Orwell-speak, to "attract a more diverse workforce". With refreshing candour, Mrs Beasley points out that "93.7 per cent of the population of Corby are white British, compared to 59.6 per cent in Leicester".
A quote from Pub Philosopher on his blog, 2 March 2007
This is an odd decision, given that the government is currently trying to persuade other employers to move to Corby. As part of a long-term strategy to regenerate the former steel town, the state-funded North Northants Development Company launched a £1.2m campaign in October, featuring actor Stephen Fry, to promote Corby as a great place to live and work. The company's website boasts about "Corby's skilled and adaptable workforce".
Not skilled and adaptable enough for the Prison Service though. While moving to Corby might be fine for other employers it seems that the place just isn't good enough for the government. So, while it spends taxpayers' money to induce firms to move their employees into the town, it spends more taxpayers' money to move its own employees out.
@markpetens
Submitted by Kapitein Andre on Thu, 2007-03-08 08:30.
Unfortunately, this is an unintended consequence. Some months ago, prison officers were prohibited from wearing button pins depicting the English flag on their lapels. Although the prison service explained that this prohibition was because Muslim inmates associated the cross of St. George with the Crusades and that it brought back latent ancestral memories of invasion, conquest, oppression, etc; perhaps the decision had something to do with undermining English nationalism.
prison population
Submitted by markpetens on Thu, 2007-03-08 07:50.
Maybe the British government is just trying to make sure that their prison employees reflect the prison population at large?
Affirmative Action at Work
Submitted by Kapitein Andre on Thu, 2007-03-08 07:37.
The British government is pursuing programmes deliberately designed to result in disproportionate numbers of ethnic and other minorities serving in its civil service; not only will this ensure a bureaucracy dedicated to multiculturalism, political correctness and the welfare state, it will ensure that the bureaucracy identifies itself as British (as non-Whites identify with Britain as opposed to its constituent indigenous nations), and can therefore be seen as another attempt at disrupting the ethnic nationalism resurging in England and Scotland. However, this system relies upon taxpayers who are increasingly opposed to immigration, multiculturalism and political correctness, even if many of these are in favor of greater efforts at income redistribution.