We know from her unfortunate conference speech that it irks Mrs May to hear Labour claiming a monopoly on compassion, and this week’s racial disparity audit is her latest attempt to prove that she is equally concerned about injustice.
The problem is that the disparity audit is based on a colossal intellectual blunder. Disparate outcomes may be the result of discrimination, but there are numerous other valid explanations. When comparing large groups using statistics there are many confounding factors at work. For example, the average age of ethnic minorities is younger than for the white population. This has given them less time to get promotion and increase their earnings. To assume that lower average earnings result from discrimination is a schoolboy error. A far higher proportion of people of Indian origin are doctors by comparison with the white population. Has there been discrimination in favour of Indians or against whites? Or has discrimination got nothing to do with it? And what should we make of occasions when there is a difference within one ethnic group between males and females? Black Caribbean boys, for instance, do less well in the education system than black Caribbean girls.
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