'Equality'

So apparently Trevor Philips is still about, being paid by the rather frivolous 'Equality and Human Rights Commission' to tell us:

'The commission said that on average women earned 16% less than men, widening to 27% for women aged 40'

An average, widening in the older groups...I'm shocked - does this mean it's narrowing in the young?

'When it came to pay, the report said that the gender pay gap was lowest for the under 30s, rising more than five-fold by the time workers reached 40'

Hang on - five-fold? Does that mean it's roughly equivalent to a measly 5% in young people?

I've said before that to compare older workers is ridiculous when there is nothing you can do about their educational prospects thirty years ago - instead what we have is females being given massive advantages to even out the figures, which does nothing for older 'unequal' women, and creates real, state-sponsored inequality in the education and employment sectors

Among other equality issues, it said that girls of all ethnic backgrounds outperformed boys in education.

Essentially they offset older women being held back by deliberately holding young men back, this is 'equality'

Other gems include: 'while one in five people lived in a household with less than 60% of average income.'

Really - 20% live in households more than 40% away from the average? As streams of people have said before - it's relative! If they earned more the average would in turn be higher! The only way of ever lifting people out of 'relative poverty' is to pay everyone the same

Mr Phillips said: "This review holds up the mirror to fairness in Britain. It is the most complete picture of its kind ever compiled.
"It shows that we are a people who have moved light years in our attitudes to all kinds of human difference, and in our desire to be a truly fair society, but that we are still a country where our achievements haven't yet caught up with our aspirations."

Is that code for: we can't catch up with the inequality of generations past? Or is he just bleating that we still haven't met the targets, and reality be damned

There 70 million of cuts right there (operational costs - £175k per employee, nearly twice that of the NHS)

In other news - people who are (about) my age are idiots, they think that of all cuts benefits Jobseekers' Allowance should be cut, many of whom said by 'a lot' - are they aware how tiny JSA is? It's a pittance, equivalent to less than a day's work a week and is heavily restricted - the real benefit money is in housing and income support, not counting disability

However, they did also support benefit capping (again, showing this cap is actually a good, popular idea, despite the Labour howls), but christ..cut the dole - to what? Zero?

Looking forward to 'the cuts' next week...