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 FOR GOODNESS SAKE, USE COMMON SENSE
Wednesday February 3,2010 By Anne WiddecombeSO it was a “mistake” for a job centre to refuse an advertisement for reliable and hard-working staff in case it offended the unreliable and workshy. Yet I have no doubt that the idiot who took this crazy decision is still employed by the Department for Work and Pensions and probably does not even understand the crassness of it all even now.
In a sane world this would be a wake-up call for government but instead Harriet Harperson is about to inflict as much “equality” legislation as possible on us before the electors finally get a chance to throw this daft Government on the scrapheap. But then in a sane world we would never have tolerated a situation in which an employer is not allowed to specify good English in an advertisement, no matter how necessary it is for the job. One wonders where it will end. Will we reach a point where a hospital cannot advertise for a qualified doctor in case it upsets the unqualified? An advertisement may not specify able-bodiedness even if it is for a steeplejack or religion even if it is for a church. Advertisements are screened not so much for accuracy of job description as for its likelihood to give offence to the easily offended. Common sense says that this is a waste of everybody’s time. The chap who turns up at an interview unable to speak intelligible English with clarity will not get the job at the call centre so he would have been better off saving himself the nerves and the fare in the first place. The blind lady will not get the job of art critic. None of that is insulting, it is merely practical. There are many jobs I could not do and that I would not waste my time applying for if I were job-seeking. People can only make those decisions if they know from the outset what the employer is looking for. T here is an enormous difference in moral quantity between an advertisement saying “whites only” and one saying “good English needed” yet the two are now merged and confused in official minds and the resultant silliness for the rest of us somehow passes them by. When I was shadow health secretary the government announced a programme of importing doctors. We had no objection in principle but my deputy Alan Duncan asked innocently what the arrangements were for making sure they spoke English well enough to communicate with patients. He found himself engulfed in a storm about racism. So now a public employee, brainwashed with the idea that he or she is some sort of school monitor trying to catch employers out as if they were naughty children, has taken the view that the lazy and unreliable must not be offended. It would be a just punishment to leave that silly little numbskull at the mercy of unreliable layabouts for a month and to hold him accountable financially for their failures. That after all is the situation of an employer.
I bet such officials would be the first to complain when a workman has not turned up at their homes at the appointed time and the first to moan at shoddy service in a shop. Just occasionally I feel like forming the Common Sense Party with just one promise: to tear it all up and start again. Now that would put some life into an election and more importantly would restore normal life to Britain. You can almost hear the sighs of relief which would follow or maybe even the sounds of dancing in the streets.
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FOR GOODNESS SAKE, USE COMMON SENSE
08.02.10, 5:16pm
I think Anne, that if you were to form a party of common sense you would have an enormous following. The electorate do not have a viable choice other than the Lib/Lab/Con three headed monster.
• Posted by: valiantscorpio • Report Comment
FOR GOODNESS SAKE, USE COMMON SENSE
06.02.10, 10:02am
Although somewhat naive at the time, I do remember the world when I was a youngster 45 years ago and things seemed very sensible and logical - most of the time...now, at 59, and not so naive, and when I thought I should feel at one with the world - perhaps - I feel like an alien as I don't understand the authoritarian creatures. They're really stupid and silly (or is it me?), even the supposedly smart ones that run the country are incredibly idiotic. The only hope is that a couple of decades from now common sense will have reappeared but I'm not holding my breath!
• Posted by: skyguy • Report Comment
FOR GOODNESS SAKE, USE COMMON SENSE
06.02.10, 10:02am
Although somewhat naive at the time, I do remember the world when I was a youngster 45 years ago and things seemed very sensible and logical - most of the time...now, at 59, and not so naive, and when I thought I should feel at one with the world - perhaps - I feel like an alien as I don't understand the authoritarian creatures. They're really stupid and silly (or is it me?), even the supposedly smart ones that run the country are incredibly idiotic. The only hope is that a couple of decades from now common sense will have reappeared but I'm not holding my breath!
• Posted by: skyguy • Report Comment
COMMON SENSE PARTY
05.02.10, 9:53am
We already have a common sense party! they're called the British National Party!
• Posted by: basenji • Report Comment
"FOR GOODNESS SAKE USE COMMON SENSE"
03.02.10, 1:33pm
A lot of the current problems that beset this country can be found in those words "cause offence". What I would like to know is why so many people are allowed to 'take offence' at such trivial matters. Taking offence is another way of saying 'showing a lack of tolerance' in many cases. Britain has become weirdly skewed in its administration of the law, extreme tolerance is shown to career criminals who show no signs of reforming except those seen by their representing legal council, and heavy handed sentencing is used in the cases of hitherto law abiding and upstanding community members who transgress the micro-management laws of the local beaurocracies.
• Posted by: moonlighter • Report Comment
VACANCY £60,000-£100,000 P.A
03.02.10, 5:11am
The successful candidate will be able to talk at length on any subject without any understanding of the matter in hand.
A knowledge of civic responsibility, law, history, the English Language, British Heritage and the plight of the elderly, the poor and the disadvantaged is not required for the post.
An inability to understand the most basic accounting principles is an advantage as is a selective memory.
The successful candidate must be prepared to attend the head office at least once per week for at least twenty weeks of the year and undertake onerous responsibilies as a paid non-executive director of various companies.
In additional to the salary, there is a generous non-contributory pension, a subsidised canteen, many opportunities for free overseas travel and paid television appearances.
Apply in confidence to your nearest Political Party Constituency Office fr an exciting opportunity as a Westminster MP
• Posted by: Foxpitt • Report Comment
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