It’s been over a year since Boris Johnson was elected Mayor of London. Now the first loud calls from grassroots Conservatives urging Boris to roll back the “pernicious” equalities agenda set by the previous Mayor are echoing around City Hall
Up to now, the changes in this area have been fairly limited – the renaming and then the scrapping of the RISE anti-racist festival; carnival sound-level restrictions and an earlier closing time; delays putting on the London Schools and the Black Child Conference and continuing doubts about its future.
But there are now more radical demands from the most influential Tory blog, ConservativeHome to completely rewrite London’s race policies.
With echoes of the way that American Republicans have sought to roll back affirmative action, Harry Phibbs, writing in ConservativeHome, has hit out about “irrational targets, burdensome HR practices, the problems with terms like ‘institutional discrimination’, the negative effects of “responsible procurement” on businesses, etc” of the previous Livingstone administration.
He writes: “Nervous about this controversial area, the Conservative administration in City Hall have been shamefully allowing Ken Livingstone’s ideology of quotas, interest groups, thought crime and racial separatism to remain largely intact. So far there has been no serious challenge at City Hall to the ideological assumptions of the past”
The article, which should be taken very seriously, comes just one month after the same blog challenged Boris to “get tough” after it was revealed that City Hall employed eleven equality and diversity officers
In the latest piece, City Hall and London Development Authority targets for employing 25% of staff from BAME communities are also questioned, along with LDA targets which state that programmes should proportionally benefit the local BAME population.
ConservativeHome argue that the London Schools and the Black Child conference, which is led by Diane Abbott MP, should be axed in favour of “a general conference on educational failure.”
And he calls for “a colour blind approach where individuals are judged on merit, not according to race or other arbitrary criteria.”
All this seems to disregard the level of discrimination suffered by groups in the capital, precisely the reason why Livingstone brought in the measures that Tories now want to repeal.
If Cllr Phibbs acknowledged the challenge of overcoming inequality, and recognised the benefits of having a more equal society, he would at least have a small amount of credibility on this issue.
And if he advanced an alternative plan about how to achieve equality, that would be worth debating. Sadly he does neither. He simply calls for the scrapping of race equalities policies on grounds that it offends his own sensibilities.
There is no consideration for the victims of discrimination, no thought given to Race Equality laws that must be observed, no understanding that the “quotas” which he refers to are illegal and therefore not practised in London or anywhere else in Britain.
The trouble is, as misguided, ill-informed and downright insensitive as his blog piece is, we cannot dismiss it as the ravings of a maverick. I fear that his sentiments will be taken seriously in City Hall, and adds to the pressure on Boris to drastically revise policies as much as the law allows.
It’s time for the Boris Johnson who apologised with such sincerity over the offence caused by his past articles to once again appear in order to publicly dismiss calls to reverse progress on equality. That Boris Johnson sounded convincing when he said there was not an iota of racial prejudice in his heart. He must be held to his word.
Lester Holloway
Filed under: Race Policy
London is the most diverse City in Europe if not the world. As the Policy Director of Equalities in the previous administration I assessed and examined the various strategic policy approaches to achieving equality in terms of recruitment, retention and promotion. In 2001 I introduced a comprehensive ‘ Best Value ‘ Review looking at all the GLA group I examined the progress made and budget spend by the group over the previous 5 years.
The facts spoke for themselves equality policies without targets do not produce anything other than marginal rates of progress. Once a clear comprehensive equality monitoring and target framework was introduced and aligned to, and mainstreamed with, the budget setting process we saw real progress being made in terms of increased representation at all levels of the workforce across the GLA group.
That is precisely how we achieved a 50% increase in the number of black and ethnic minority recruits in to the Metropolitan Police Service. The GLA was the most diverse administration of any local or regional authority in the UK.
We began to make year in year progress in improving levels of representation.
Tory Cllr Harry Phibbs should let us know which Conservative administration anywhere in the UK employing the approach suggested by him has achieved anything like the equality workforce profile achieved by the GLA under Ken Livingstone. He can’t because they do not exist.
The Tory party general approach to everything is again revealed as a ‘ stop that don’t do this’ philosophy. Phibbs and other right wing commentators condemn the equality policies we introduced, that were clearly and demonstrable effective whilst being incapable of offering any effective alternative. That’s because they are ideologically opposed to the principle of equality root and branch.
The fact is that this Tory hatred of equality policies reflects their ideological hatred of the principle of equality in all but words. This is starkly illustrtated by their derisory record on employment promotion and retention of black people, women, people with disabilities and lesbian and gay communities all of whom at least in London make up the majority of the population.
Given we published our performance on in this area on a 6 monthly and annual basis it is ought to be very easy to compare the progress made under the current administration and that achieved by us.
I agree with the analysis above. Conservative Home approach to these matters reminds me of the ‘ birthers’ of the US Republican right wing who despite clear facts to the contrary refuse to believe that President Obama is a US citizen. The GLA achieved remarkable equality results with a hugely diverse workforce reflected at all levels throughout the core GLA administration and in the functional bodies that made up he GLA.
In a City like London ensuring that the GLA reflects the diversity of Londoners is an important objective in securing an inclusive democracy and promoting social cohesion. This must be led by the Mayor himself otherwise we will see an administration that looks like the Tory Party itself rather than being reflective of all the residents of London.