James Cartlidge

How to win votes for the BNP

James Cartlidge says that positive discrimination is negatively discriminating against a whole generation of non-racist whites

issue 14 June 2003

The following statement appears on the website of Carlton, owners of ITV: ‘The company does not discriminate between employees or potential employees on grounds of sex, sexual orientation, marital status, religion, colour, race, ethnic origin, age or disability.’ Unless, it would appear, you happen to be white.

As a freelance print journalist with an eye on one day moving into the broadcasting side, my attention was grabbed when I recently saw a recruitment advertisement for a funded training scheme in television news. The scheme sounded like a pretty good way in: it was the ‘award-winning TV training scheme for news journalists’ provided by London News Network (LNN), maker of London Tonight, the flagship regional news programme for Carlton. Three posts were on offer.

But there was a caveat. LNN had specified that it was looking for applicants only from the following ethnic groups: African, Caribbean, Indian, Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Chinese.

Comments

Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months

Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.

Already a subscriber? Log in