Trevor Phillips: Britain's Greatest Living Idiot?

Well, it's between him and Madeleine Bunting, with Rowan Williams a distant third. In his latest bid for this supreme honour, Trev, as I affectionately call him, has attacked Gordon Brown over the composition of his new cabinet. Well, nothing too wrong with that: they're all a bunch of bloody idiots! But Trev's complaint has nothing to do with the quality of Brown's cabinet. Rather, it is to do with who is in that cabinet.

Specifically, Trev thinks that there are too many of those evil white men in the cabinet. Apparently, the cabinet is now 100% white, and the number of female cabinet ministers has fallen from eight, under the Blessed Tony, to five, under Prime Minister Clunky Fist. Trev, who was described as being "hopping mad about this", has even threatened to resign his position. A nation prepares to mourn...

Really, though, I'm unsure what it is that Trev actually wants. Does he believe that blacks should be guaranteed at least one post in each cabinet, regardless of merit? Because that's what it sounds like.
That would, of course, be idiotic, as would any form of affirmative action programme, in government or anywhere else. What we want from a government is a group of people who will do what is best for Britain. Any policy which required that higher quality candidates for office be passed over because they didn't conform to the requirements of some "equal opportunities" directive would be idiotic in any situation, and potentially disastrous if applied to appointments to the highest governmental posts in the land.

I would add the point that Trev should get his own house in order before he lectures anyone else on diversity and representation. After all, in 2004, when Trev was head of the Commission for Racial Equality (he now heads the Commission for Equality and Human Rights - plus ca change), a mere 38% of CRE staff were white, as against over 90% of the total population. If one didn't know any better, then with under-representation of that degree, one might almost feel that the CRE was "institutionally racist".