Regular visitors to this blog will be aware that we’ve emailed Viviane Reding, an EC Commissioner and the prime mover behind the EC’s drive to introduce legislation to force companies to have minimum female representation on their boards, seeking evidence of a positive link with enhanced  corporate performance. Given that no such evidence exists, we shouldn’t be too surprised that she hasn’t responded. But nothing, it seems, will stop her promoting this nonsensical claim to further her ideological aims. The British press has reported that her proposal to enforce EU-level quotas are unlikely to succeed, given the opposition of many EU countries. Even the DBIS, with Vince Cable at its head, is against EU-imposed quotas. But in her customary undemocratic way, Ms Reding rolls on.

My thanks to our Research Director, Michael Klein, for pointing me towards some interesting material. The first is a press release:

http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_AGENDA-12-36_en.htm

We see from this document that next Tuesday, 23 October, the following will be put forward:

Tuesday 23 October: Boosting gender balance on corporate boards

The news:

The Commission will present a legal instrument aimed at increasing gender balance on company boards in the EU.

The background:

Across the EU, company boards are currently dominated by one gender: 86.5% of board members are men while women represent just 13.5% (8.9% of executive members and 15% of non-executive members). 97.5% of the chairpersons are men and only 2.5% are women.

Promoting more equality in decision-making is one of the goals in the Women’s Charter (see IP/10/237), which was initiated by President José Manuel Barroso and Vice-President Reding in March 2010. The Commission then followed these commitments by adopting a Gender Equality Strategy in September 2010 for the next five years (see IP/10/1149 and MEMO/10/430), which includes exploring targeted initiatives to get more women into top jobs in economic decision-making.

The event:

Vice-President Viviane Reding will give a press conference in Strasbourg. Details to be announced.

In late November Ms Reding and her colleagues will be attending a two-day summit in Cyprus. Presumably all the meeting rooms in Brussels were already booked. The summit is titled, ‘Promoting Equality for Growth’:

http://ec.europa.eu/justice/discrimination/files/equality_summit_2012_agenda_provisional_en.pdf

The document about the event remarkably doesn’t contain the words ‘gender’ or ‘women’. Let’s focus on the first session on the second day:

Friday 23 November – Economic case and benefits of anti-discrimination policies and diversity strategies for governments, businesses and persons

09:00 – 10:30 Plenary Session 3 – Business case for diversity

Objective: Diversity policies in companies make good business sense. This session will illustrate this fact with examples of companies adopting successfully diversity strategies generating more productivity, creativeness and innovation, and/or broadening the customer base.

Hmm… it’s apparently a fact that, ‘Diversity policies in companies make good business sense.’ No mention of more profitability, you might have noticed. Doubtless ‘the examples’ will be drawn from studies or even anecdotes from left-leaning sociologists and social psychologists, and correlation will be presented as causation. It’s a strategy that goes back a very long way in this area. Politicians and journalists are collectively utterly unaware of the deception. With the exception of Quentin Letts, obviously.

 

 

 

 

The gender-related aspects of the following press release, just issued by DBIS, hardly need any comments from me.

http://news.bis.gov.uk/Press-Releases/Simpler-company-reporting-to-focus-on-transparency-and-gender-balance-681d5.aspx

 

I was so impressed with the contribution of the journalist and broadcaster Angela Epstein to yesterday’s BBC1 programme Sunday Morning Live that I felt inclined to offer her a coveted ‘Maggie’ award immediately afterwards, but I forced myself to reflect calmly on the matter. ‘Maggie’ awards aren’t handed out lightly. Today I discussed the matter at length with my colleagues here in the Bath campaign headquarters, and we reviewed the many emails about the programme sent by the campaign’s supporters. I’m delighted to report that all were as impressed by Mrs E’s contribution to the programme as I was. So here’s the second ‘Maggie’ awarded by C4MB, we hope to hear a lot more from this lady in the coming months and years:

121015 Maggie award for Angela Epstein

This morning I was interviewed for the first time on national television about women’s quotas in the boardroom – albeit briefly – for the BBC1 programme Sunday Morning Live. The section started with an excellent introduction by Angela Epstein, a journalist and broadcaster, a regular contributor to (among other publications) The Daily Mail and The Jewish Chronicle.

The link on BBC iPlayer has now lapsed, and a video file is now available on my Facebook page. My thanks to the gentleman who runs the excellent website http://www.manwomanmyth.com for preparing the file, and for uploading it. The link:

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=281131805332249&saved

The issues of sexual harassment and discrimination against women in the workplace were raised before I spoke, so I had to deal with them in the short time I expected to have available. Unfortunately the BBC wouldn’t agree to put ‘Campaign for Merit in Business’ on the screen while I was speaking, nor would they permit me to use the campaign name in my contribution, which was limited to the following:

I worked in a number of major businesses for over 30 years after 1979, the year that Margaret Thatcher was first elected as prime minister. In all those years I never once encountered a case of a woman facing sexual harassment or discrimination in the workplace. I believe they’ve been hugely exaggerated as problems, and you have to ask yourself why that is.

The idea of an improvement in ‘climate’ is just one of many self-serving arguments used to justify positive discrimination for women in the workplace. Another is that baseless conspiracy theory, the ‘glass ceiling’. A third argument is that when more women get onto company boards, performance improves. But the truth is that academic studies clearly show that performance declines when more women are appointed onto boards.

In the studio (unlike myself) was the aforementioned pro-quotas militant feminist, Julie Bindel, the charming woman who referred to me as ‘Buchanan’ (36:04). She writes for The Guardian – what are the chances? Being sneered at on national television by a militant feminist journalist at The Guardian. Life really doesn’t get much better, does it? A google search quickly led me to a few details on Ms Bindel:

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/julie-bindel/

I’d have liked more time to outline our arguments, particularly the argument that the mere threat of quotas has caused the proportion of FTSE100 new directorships going to women to rise from 13% (2010) to 55% (March – August 2012), and that all the women appointed in 2012 were appointed as non-executive directors, while all the 18 new executive directors were men. I’d like to have challenged Julie Bindel on that gender gap. Maybe, one day, I shall… but you can only do so much in 75 seconds.

I’m grateful to BBC television for giving some national exposure to our arguments. It’s already led to people emailing me and offering support, as did the recent Martha Kearney radio interview on BBC Radio 4. Happy days.

My thanks to Dorothea for pointing me towards a piece in today’s issue of The Independent. The Saturday edition has a column in which prominent figures answer ‘This Week’s Big Questions’. I must have been out of the house this week when the paper called me for my contribution, because they’ve turned instead to the acceptable face of an unacceptable initiative. It could only be… yes, of course… Helena Morrissey. She obviously found herself with some time on her hands earlier this week. One assumes she survives on five minutes’ sleep per night, her husband likewise, given they have almost four times more children than the recommended quota of 2.4.

I shall email Ms Morrissey a copy of this piece, and ask her to respond to my comments and queries (in italics). Don’t hold your breath. The only thing she doesn’t normally manage to fit into her week is to answer emails from C4MB.

A section from the article in the paper:

This week Helena Morrissey, the CEO of Newton Investment Management and founder of the 30 Per Cent Club answers our questions on equality in the boardroom, employment rights and more

Are Cameron/Osborne out of touch with the “strivers” and “struggling middle classes”?

I don’t know Osborne but I’ve met David Cameron a few times, and from all his interactions with the people around him, including his wife, I believe he’s a genuine person who should be judged on his actions, not his accent.

Ms Morrissey, I agree Dave should be judged on his actions. Unfortunately his actions are invariably (whenever presented with the opportunity) pro-women and anti-men, and usually pro-feminist too. Is he sponsored by the Fawcett Society, do you think? Even by his low standards, a particularly deplorable decision was to appoint a Labour MP, Lord Davies of Abersoch, to write a report into how to increase the number of women in boardrooms.  

The ongoing insinuation that because he’s an Old Etonian he must be out of touch is very prejudiced. I went to a comprehensive school and my son’s an Etonian…

Oh, no… 9–1 = 8… are there eight miniature Helenas due to be unleashed on the world in the fullness of time? We’re all doomed…

…and our respective attitudes are much more to do with what we’re like as people than our schooling. Cameron’s been mocked for the line “I’m here to spread privilege”, but we do need to regain a sense that it’s good to be aspirational if we’re going to overcome our current economic malaise. That will ultimately help the many people who are struggling today much more than a culture which decries success.

Does it matter that so few women are on the boards of top companies?

Better balanced boardrooms just make more sense.

They ‘just makes more sense’. Er… how, precisely? Still, at least you’re not peddling that tired old nonsense (in this piece, anyway) about how corporate performance will improve if more women are on boards. We’ve just publicised the fifth study showing the exact opposite is true.

It seems so old-fashioned to have male-dominated boards.

I’m starting to lose the will to live now… it also seems ‘so old-fashioned’ to survive by eating food and breathing oxygen, but if it’s OK with you, I’ll stick with these commendable habits.

While there are still relatively few women on boards, the pace of change in the FTSE100 is striking. Since 1 March this year, 55 per cent of FTSE100 non-executive director appointments have gone to women, a rate that surely can’t be bettered if you believe as I do that appointments must be on merit.

The proportion of new FTSE100 directors who are women has increased more than fourfold, under the threat of legislated quotas, from its pre-quota threat level of 13% (2010) to 55% (March – August 2012). Do you really think the readers of your piece will believe that the high intake of women onto FTSE100 boards in 2012 got onto those boards through merit?

I’m vehemently anti-quotas to force change; they are a form of discrimination and don’t work.

If you’re against quotas, are you also against the threat of quotas, which is the real driver of the 55% figure? How can quotas be wrong, but the threat of them right? There’s nothing voluntary about what FTSE100 companies are doing here. They’re adopting the same strategy – appointing women as non-executive directors – which has been so damaging to Norwegian publicly-listed companies.

People cite Norway as a case for quotas but in fact Norway still has very few female CEOs and top managers – even below the European average. Quotas are a lazy, short-term fix.

And the threat of quotas is, conversely… ?

I’m interested in a sustainable increase in the pipeline, which will take longer but deliver real benefits to businesses that currently lose so much female talent.

They only ‘lose so much female talent’ because women prefer the alternatives to the stress and effort of ascending corporate hierarchies. What woman, saying she wanted a ‘better’ work/life balance, means she wanted more work?

Why are there no female frontrunners for the governorship of the Bank of England?

Perhaps women are smart enough to realise that might be an impossible job! There are probably only a handful of genuine candidates – male or female – with broad enough market and economic experience who could really do and want that job. We shouldn’t get too hung up on the fact that there isn’t an obvious woman candidate for this unique role. The reality is that there is a much smaller pool of very senior female executives in today’s world.

My understanding is that a woman was in contention for the governorship, but she made it clear she didn’t want the job. I’ll bet she came under a lot of pressure to put herself forward for it. The woman clearly has integrity, wouldn’t you agree?

Regular visitors to this blog will be aware that we’ve already provided links to four robust studies concerning decline in corporate performance following the appointment of more women onto boards. Perhaps the best-known is the Ahern/Dittmar study on the negative impact of legislated quotas on the performance of Norwegian publicly-listed companies. Proponents of ‘improved’ gender diversity on boards have failed to cite even one paper with such robust evidence to support their position.

I’ve just learnt of another academic paper on the Norwegian social engineering experiment, this one written by two American professors, David A Matsa (Northwestern University – Kellogg School of Management), and a professor of the female persuasion, Amalia R Miller (University of Virginia). The paper’s title is ‘A Female Style in Corporate Leadership? Evidence from Quotas’, and it was published in 2011. The  full Abstract:

This paper studies the impact of gender quotas for corporate board seats on corporate policy decisions. We examine the introduction of Norway’s 2006 quota, comparing affected firms to other Scandinavian companies, public and private, that were unaffected by the rule. Based on differences-in-differences and triple-difference models, we find that firms affected by the quota undertook fewer workforce reductions than comparison firms, increasing relative labor costs and employment levels and reducing short-term profits. The effects are strongest among firms that had no female board members before the quota was introduced and present even for boards with older and more experienced members. The boards appear to be affecting corporate strategy in part by selecting like-minded executives.

A link to the study (it’s downloadable at no cost):

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1636047

The finding that women influence boards to undertake ‘fewer workforce reductions’ will, of course, be welcomed by proponents of Corporate Social Responsibility, or as we term it here at C4MB headquarters, Corporate Social Engineering. What follows from this paper’s findings? It’s simple. Companies which recruit more women onto their boards will be at a competitive disadvantage compared with those which don’t. It’s hardly surprising their financial performance declines, is it? These companies are trying to act like public sector organisations. Hmm… now how might that end up?

I leave you with some immortal words penned by the Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman 50 years ago. From his book Capitalism and Freedom:

Few trends could so thoroughly undermine the very foundations of our free society as the acceptance by corporate officials of a social responsibility other than to make as much money for their stockholders as possible.

 

 

 

 

Yesterday morning I took my Rottweiler – Harriet – out for her customary walk in Royal Victoria Park in Bath. It was rather earlier than usual, so Harriet was even more grumpy than usual. As usual she snarled at any men who walked near us, whilst being happy for women to approach her. We had to take the walk earlier than usual because I had to travel to Birmingham to attend a fringe meeting organised by the think tank Politeia http://politeia.co.uk, the meeting mentioned by Quentin Letts in his Daily Mail column last Saturday. The meeting was titled, ‘Women in the Boardroom: Good for Recovery, Good for Growth!’

Shortly after arriving at the hotel I spotted a couple in the lobby, an attractive slim lady I recognised instantly, and a gentleman. I introduced myself to them. The lady was Helena Morrissey (30% club, CEO of Newton Investment Management, mother of a gerzillion kids…), the gentleman her lucky husband, Richard. Both of them were charm personified. I’d feared I might not be permitted into the meeting, but my fears evaporated.

Shortly before the meeting I introduced myself to Sheila Lawlor, Director of Politeia, who also was charming, and likewise the Conservative MP Helen Grant, to whom I wished to pose a question at the meeting.

Also attending the event was a lady with a familiar face, so I introduced myself to Professor Susan Vinnicombe (Cranfield). She was clearly delighted to note my presence at the event. The meeting room was duly filled to capacity, perhaps 80+ people in the audience, 60+ of them being of the female persuasion.

Helen Grant MP was on the panel, but unfortunately she disappeared shortly after the start of the meeting, and on Newsnight last night I found out why. It has become the custom for David Cameron to walk to the conference centre in the company of a woman, and Helen was performing this vital service for humanity, at the expense of engaging properly with the Politeia meeting. Thanks, Dave.

The panel consisted of the following:

Sarah Sands – Editor, London Evening Standard.

Helena Morrissey

Helen Brand – Chief Executive, ACCA

Stephen Haddrill – CEO, Financial Reporting Council

To respond from the UK and EU parliaments were:

Marina Yannakoudakis MEP

Harriet Baldwin MP – Work and Pensions Select Committee

The panelists each took five minutes to talk, the MEP and MP likewise. To my astonishment the lady from ACCA mentioned some of Catalyst’s ‘Bottom Line’ claims of improved corporate performance when women are on boards, conveniently not mentioning that Catalyst stopped making such claims over a year ago. Or maybe she was simply unaware of that minor detail.

Sheila Lawlor asked for questions in the audience, my arm shot up, and she kindly asked my to pose the first question, which follows. The ‘lady on the panel’ was Helena Morrissey, the ‘professor’ Susan Vinnicombe, but I thought I’d spare naming them. I stood up and cleared my throat.

‘Mike Buchanan of the Campaign for Merit. I was hoping to put a question to Helen Grant, but in her absence I shall address it to Harriet Baldwin. (Mrs Baldwin smiled weakly, clearly grateful for the opportunity). Independent studies show that increasing female representation on boards causes corporate performance to decline (groans at this point from a number of the ladies in the room) and I have some of the evidence for that assertion in handouts I’ll be distributing at the end of this meeting. We’ve challenged a lady on the panel, and a professor in the audience, for evidence that higher female representation on boards leads to enhanced corporate performance, and they’ve supplied nothing. Why is a Conservative-led coalition driving a left-wing social engineering initiative which can only harm British business? And if we’re all agreed that legislated quotas for women on boards are wrong, how can the threat of such quotas be right?’

Mrs Baldwin switched on her politician’s auto-pilot and said she’d be grateful to have sight of the research evidence I was citing. No mention of the threat of quotas. Helena Morrissey then confessed to being the ‘lady on the panel’ and said that showing causation was very difficult. A fair point, but of course she’s aware that we have four studies with strong evidence that increased female representation on boards causes a decline in corporate performance, and she has pointed to no studies of equal rigour showing corporate performance improves. She mentioned the recent Credit Suisse report. I wanted to point out that the report clearly states there’s no evidence of a positive causal link – we have a blog post on the report – but by this time other people wanted to pose questions.

The meeting was sponsored by ACCA, a body representing accountants worldwide. Some light refreshments were served, and I enjoyed a glass or two of a very sound Italian Cabernet Sauvignon. The only time in my life I’ve enjoyed something paid for by accountants.

I gave away 50+ handouts after the meeting to members of the audience. Several ladies, with clenched jaws, declined to accept one. They clearly didn’t wish to expose themselves to research evidence showing that what they fondly believe in may be a myth.

The handout:

121009 Politeia handout draft

My thanks to Sheila Lawlor for being a gracious host, and for permitting me to ask my question. I offered to present my IEA lecture to her colleagues and herself at Politeia.

On my way out of the hotel I spotted that a meeting of the Centre for Policy Studies was ending. I introduced myself to Tim Knox, CPS’s Head Honcho – that may not be his official title – gave him a copy of my handout, and asked if I might present my IEA lecture to them too.

One of the tactics used by proponents of ‘improved’ gender diversity is to relentlessly cite examples of men heading major organisations, including businesses, which fail. ‘Fred the Shred’ of RBS comes to mind.  In a recent BBC Radio 4 interview I had with Martha Kearney, the other interviewee (a woman) commented that there hadn’t been a ‘Freda the Shred’. My groan was edited out of the interview, to my regret.

It’s a simple shaming tactic. Such examples are cited however miniscule a proportion of ‘men at the top’ they represent. At the same time these women ignore examples of women in senior positions failing or being corrupt. A recent example of such a woman who comes to mind was the female CEO of Trinity MIrror. During her tenure the value of the business fell by over 90%. Another example  was a major bank’s Head of Fraud. She was recently convicted for… er… fraud. Examples of incompetent or corrupt women are never seen as illustrating gender-related failings. It’s just another example of the double standards of which most people – men and women – are unaware.

There are of course examples of successful female CEOs – Marjorie Scardino of Pearson plc comes to mind – and they’re mentioned so frequently you have to keep reminding yourself how few women manage to ‘cut the mustard’ at the top of major businesses.

Let’s play the same game, shall we? Let’s look at a recent startling example of female incompetence, the recent West Coast rail fiasco. From Simon Heffer’s column in today’s Daily Mail, a section titled, ‘Take the blame, Justine’:

Who can be surprised that civil servants were at fault for the rail franchise scandal which could cost taxpayers up to £80 million? Whitehall used to be an elite. It is now a swamp of social engineering and political correctness. But I don’t like ministers who blame their officials – in our political system, ministers ought always to take the rap. I trust we shall be told exactly how the ministers responsible – the then Transport Secretary Justine Greening and ex-rail minister Therese Villiers – allowed this fiasco to happen.

As usual with Mr Heffer, good points, well made. Three civil servants have been suspended in connection with this costly fiasco. In one of today’s broadsheets I noted that one’s been named as Kate Mingay, who was in charge of commercial contracts at the Department of Transport. A former Goldman Sachs banker, she was thought to be earning £140,000 p.a. at the Department of Transport. Almost exactly the same as the prime minister, in fact. The article went on to say that Ms Mingay has instructed the law firm Mishcon de Reya ‘to help defend her professional reputation and win back her job’.

Hmm. Now I don’t know the extent of Ms Mingay’s personal responsibility for this fiasco, but from her job title I’d assume it could be substantial. In the private sector it would undoubtedly be so for someone with a job title of this sort, and such a substantial salary. There’s a pattern becoming clear over time, as more and more women take senior positions. Women want jobs which high salaries, but high salaries are associated with major responsibilities. There is, in a sense, a combination of risk and reward – or there should be.

I suggest that men in Ms Mingay’s position would accept responsibility for the fiasco, and resign… or expect to be fired, and not win back their jobs. It’s a simple question of honour. With Ms Mingay being a woman and a civil servant – she holds two trump cards – I should be amazed if she doesn’t retain her job. Or if she leaves, it would be with a substantial financial package. We keep seeing the same thing happening, in the public sector in particular. Female Heads of Social Services – also very highly paid – perform the same magic trick with monotonous regularity. Remind me again, why are our major organisations – in both the public and private sectors – positively discriminating for women in their senior reaches? It’s little less than collective insanity.

Little more than five months after its launch, this campaign is going from strength to strength. A few measures of our success:

1. There’s a growing acceptance of the robustness of our key arguments, notably that claims of causal links between ‘improved’ gender diversity in boardrooms and enhanced corporate performance aren’t supported up by any evidence. We’ve challenged dozens of organisations (30% club, Professional Boards Forum, Catalyst, EHRC, DBIS, IEDP…) which campaign and/or working for ‘improved’ gender diversity on boards, as well as hundreds of individual proponents, and collectively they’ve provided us with not a shred of evidence in support of a causal link. By way of contrast, we’ve posted details of four rigorous studies linking ‘improved’ gender diversity on boards to declines in corporate performance. The most comprehensive of the four studies is the Ahern/Dittmar study which describes the impact of legislated quotas on Norwegian publicly-listed companies.

2. Our campaign is attracting ever more exposure in the media – most recently Daily Mail, Evening Standard, interviews with BBC Radio 4, Voice of Russia…

3. ‘Hits’ on the C4MB blog have grown exponentially over time. On a month-by–month basis ‘hits’ have been increasing more than tenfold. The rate of increase shows no sign of slowing down.

4. Possibly because of the exposure and impact we’re achieving, the flow of donations to support our campaign has been increasing month by month. 100% of all donations are used exclusively to offset costs incurred in campaigning.

5. We’re getting an increasing number of expressions of support, sometimes from men who are angry that they’ve been passed over for promotion in favour of women with markedly less merit. I don’t think it will be long before a number of these men take their employers to court over illegal – but widespread – positive discrimination for women.

One of our key success factors has been the investment of significant time and effort in analysing – and, where appropriate, challenging – claims (and inferences) of causal links between increased gender diversity on boards and enhanced corporate performance. All such claims have been shown to be unsound, and most have turned out to be misrepresentations of correlation as causation. Often the original studies make it perfectly clear they’re reporting correlation, not causation, yet proponents of ‘improved’ gender diversity misrepresent those studies and take excerpts out of context. McKinsey reports are a prime example. We’re not aware of a single McKinsey study in this area which doesn’t make it perfectly clear that causation isn’t being claimed or implied, and nor should it be inferred. Despite this, McKinsey reports continue to be presented as containing evidence of positive causal links.

It’s critical that we continue to base our arguments upon intellectually rigorous and highly defendable positions. We recently decided the campaign would benefit from the appointment of a Research Director, and considered numerous candidates for the position. It’s a very challenging position to fill due to the multi-disciplinary nature of some of the arguments with which we need to engage. Our own arguments are sometimes multi-disciplinary in nature too.

After an exhaustive review of potential candidates for the position, one stood out head and shoulders above the rest. Since the launch of this campaign, Michael Klein of http://sciencefiles.org has made a valuable contribution. His reviews of research studies – many of them clearly ideological in both origin and purpose – have been insightful, and attracted considerable favourable comment. Not one of his reviews has been challenged in any way by the writers of the studies in question.

Michael has a considerable depth and breadth of understanding of numerous disciplines including economics, business, social sciences, politics and philosophy. We offered him the position of Research Director recently, and I’m delighted to report that he’s accepted the offer.

Regular visitors to this blog will be aware that Michael recently wrote a lengthy and devastating critique of a recently-published book described by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (in a response to our Freedom of Information Act enquiry) as an ‘authoritative’ guide to the impact of gender diversity in the boardroom. The critique is here:

120928 Michael Klein’s critique of Fagan et al book

One of the three co-editors of the book (all are women, what are the chances?) is a British academic – Professor Colette Fagan of the University of Manchester – while two are of the Spanish persuasion. Since we posted a piece about the EHRC response and Michael Klein’s critique, the number of blog ‘hits’ originating from Spain has increased eightfold.

We wish Michael Klein a long and happy association with Campaign for Merit in Business.

Quentin Letts is without doubt our favourite columnist at the campaign headquarters in Bath. In the past he’s given exposure to both Campaign for Merit in Business and our sister campaign (or should that be brother campaign?), the Anti-Feminism League. In his column in today’s issue of the Daily Mail, in a piece titled, ‘Jobs for the boys in the right-on brigade’, he writes:

The politically-correct tokenism gang is heading to the Tory conference in Birmingham. Politeia, a supposedly Right-of-centre think-tank, is to hold a meeting that will consider quotas of women on company boards.

Dig into the matter and it is surprising how rum it all is. Tuesday’s ‘Women In The Boardroom’ event, which will be attended by Equalities Minister Helen Grant (she occupies Ann Widdecombe’s old seat of Maidstone), will be addressed by six women and just one man. I say, that’s a bit unbalanced, isn’t it?

It has been organised by Politeia’s director, Sheila Lawlor. She is the only woman at the top of her think-tank. Politeia’s ‘patron’ and ‘consultant director’ are both blokes. So are all members of its three ‘advisory councils’ (such grand titles they have!). Trousered Berties all 18 of them.

Another of the speakers at the Tuesday moan-in will be Helena Morrissey, founder of Newton Investment Management. Only two of its six top executives are female. Newton is owned by America’s BNY Mellon bank. Its board of 12 contains just two women.

Let us take another of Politeia’s crusaders for women in boardrooms, Stephen Haddrill, head of the Financial Reporting Council. His executive management (a team of 11) contains only three women. Before these people campaign for a law on female-director quotas, should they not put their own firms in order?

One person most definitely not invited to Tuesday’s event (despite his request to be allowed to speak) is Mike Buchanan. He runs the Campaign for Merit in Business, which argues company directors should be appointed on ability, not gender.

‘This sort of Left-wing social engineering can only harm UK plc,’ says Mr Buchanan. The matter of women in boardrooms is hardly of much concern to the blue-collar voters the Tories need to nurture.

A direct link to the column:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2213541/Jobs-boys-right-brigade.html

Another journalist we admire is the Mail columnist Amanda Platell. From her column today:

The two Transport ministers at the heart of the West Coast Mainline fiasco are both Dave’s Babes. Justine Greening and Theresa Villiers were promoted above more able and experienced men, so the PM could keep up his diversity quota. Their incompetence will cost the nation as much as £100 million. It’s a high price to pay for a couple of faded tweed skirts and fake pearls around the Cabinet table, Dave.

A direct link to the column:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2213651/Two-words-haunt-mum–If—.html

Our warmest thanks to both Quentin Letts and Amanda Platell, as well as another excellent Mail columnist, Simon Heffer, who has a short piece in today’s paper about the sorry impact of equality drives in Whitehall. So, that’s three mentions of the topic closest to our hearts in one popular newspaper in one day. Life doesn’t get much better than this…