The Barber, the Baroness and the Philosopher Fish Fryer

Just when you start to think that just maybe things have bottomed out, that they can't get any worse, under this 'coalition' government they do.

The government has been taking an amphetamine-fuelled Sweeney Todd-like approach to the budget, the role and the staff of the Equality & Human Rights Commission [EHRC].  So deep and brutal are these cuts that some doubt the EHRC will be able to retain its Paris Principles status as a body recognised by the UN as a national institution for the protection and promotion of human rights.

At the same time and since coming to power in 2010, government has been tearing pages out of the Equality Act 2010, with the most recent provisions binned including the protection of workers from 3rd party harassment.  

Trevor Phillips

The Chairperson of the EHRC since 2006, Trevor Phillips, was allowed to leave his job in September 2012, with Home Secretary Theresa May in no way inclined to re-appoint him for another term.

Against this blood-spattered backcloth, who does Culture Secertary & Equalities Minister, Maria Miller, unveil as her preferred successor to Trevor ?  Onora O'Neill, Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve, has emerged to that inevitable chorus of 'Who ?' from those labouring in the parched vine-yards of equality.  A life peer, O'Neill was educated at the fee-paying St Paul's Girls' School in west London, before reading philosophy, psychology and physiology at Somerville College, Oxford. She also studied at Harvard University.  When one examines her various biographies, there is scant reference to activity in or major contributions to what might be recognised as practical work on equalities.

Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve

The decision to ask a Baroness to lead our equalities and human rights independent regulator was subject to pre-appointment scrutiny by the parliament's joint committee on human rights.  A transcript of that session can be found here.

It offers some insight into the insular world of politics and the sharing out of jobs for 'people like us'.  For instance, asked if she was expecting to continue with other work alongside being Chairperson of the EHRC, Baroness O'Neill said : 

"Certainly.  It is a two-day-a-week post and I have plenty of other fish to fry."

For a two-day week job the Baroness will pocket a rather tasty £56,000 a year.  She'll be able to buy shed-loads of chips to go with the fish she plans to fry during the rest of her working week.

When asked to identify the skills she would bring to the job, Baroness O'Neill said : 

"By trade, by training, I am a philosopher. I do a lot of political philosophy. I have written and thought about the arguments for various conceptions of human rights across some decades. I have also written on equality. I have the intellectual background."

First time I have ever heard a philosopher describe themselves as a tradesperson.  Something tells me we would have much more reason to hope for the future of the EHRC and of equalities and human rights if a Polish plumber was asked to lead the organisation.

Baroness O'Neill also went on to claim a practical background : 

"I have chaired a number of middle-sized organisations in the voluntary sector and on the cusp of public and private — in particular, Newnham College, Cambridge; the British Academy; and the Nuffield Foundation —with smaller budgets but not out of range, and I have a very strong commitment to good governance and good collegial relations."

So, practical as in chairing organisations.  No evidence of practice in eliminating discrimination, promoting equality of opportunity or in fostering good relations.  Not much to pick between her fitness in this role and that of the homeopathy loving Jeremy Hunt as Health Secretary.

When asked about the relationship between equalities and human rights, the Baroness, who had previously claimed to "communicate clearly", offered the following response :

"I am not sure I find it useful to talk about a right to equality.  Of course, it comes out as meaning a right to equal respect and equal opportunity, but it is not, so to speak, on a footing with other rights, and it is—what shall I say?—a context without which the very development of human rights would be impossible. My view is that some equalities are impossible: “Which of you by taking thought can add but one cubit to his stature?” Equality of height is not a possible aspiration. Equalities of other sorts are probably undesirable: if all our voices had the same timbre, imagine how difficult it would be for the people listening to this particular hearing.  Other equalities are possible but not very important.  Then there are important equalities, morally important equalities, of which I would put the right to equal respect for all persons absolutely at the top. So we have to distinguish among equalities.  It is why I will always try to talk about equalities in the plural, because it is not just one thing."  

Clear?  As mud.  And she now leads the EHRC.  

At no time does the Committee ask the Baroness how she would, for those people beyond the closed world of Westminster, explain what might be seen as a fundamental contradiction with the idea that a fish-frying member of the anachronism that is the House of Lords should be asked to lead the EHRC.