When rights are wrong

When the European Union drafted its Charter of Fundamental Rights at Nice three years ago, it wasn’t immediately obvious that among the first beneficiaries would be testosterone-charged male drivers bullying their way along the autobahn. But it is they, conclude lawyers working for British insurers, who have the most reason to celebrate the new diktats on sexual equality. A proposed European directive will, it seems, outlaw differential pricing of insurance policies according to sex. Women, in other words, will be denied the lower premiums they have long enjoyed in Britain and, in effect, be forced to subsidise male drivers.

Is this really how the bra-burners of old intended the war of the sexes to end: in a transfer of wealth from level-headed shopgirls pottering to work in their Metros to boy-racers screeching away from the traffic lights in Beamers with low-profile tyres? It is hard to believe, either, that this was the intention of high-minded EU officials when drawing up their charter.