Who'd have thought South Africa would be trail blazing with it's affirmative action laws? I certainly didn't, but given the news today, it looks like the UK will be adopting a page from the South African book in the newly announced "Equalities Bill".

Whilst most of the bill is designed to rule out discrimination and bring a whole lot of older laws under a single bill, it has a "positive" discrimination clause in it which will "allow firms to discriminate in favour of female and ethnic minority job candidates".

Surely this is hypocritical, and leaves a nice gap in the law for abuse. You either condone discrimination, or you don't. This isn't something that should be conditional. I'm very much of opinion that fair's fair. If you're perfect for the job, you should get it, regardless of your race, sex, class or creed.