Cllr. Gavin Ayling

I said, in the Moral Compass survey, that charity-giving was a personal matter.

And now I am going to share a recommendation with you: NACC.

The NACC fund research and provide assistance for the cruel symptom which is Ulcerative Colitis. I have coeliac disease which is highly controllable; colitis is subject to guesswork and while the ’cause’ (which is not a cause, only a trigger of course) is sought the victim must suffer indignity, pain and the ill effects of many other unpleasantries.

I urge you, if you are seeking a good cause for your hard-earned money, to make that the NACC

Just thought you’d all like to know that polling stations in the local elections will be open 7am to 10pm this year and from now on.

This part-post was made a while ago and was appended to the end of another post. I’m repeating it here because I don’t know that it was read by many and I think its points remain true:

If there are fewer suitable applicants who happen to have one skin colour or another it is completely acceptable that there be different proportions of each ethnicity. What possible benefit can there be in ensuring a ethnically representative civil service? Do all black people have a particular take on filing that we cannot possibly do without? Is there something that Asian’s can bring to the Freedom of Information Act that a white person cannot fulfil? Of course not. Ethnicity has nothing whatsoever to do with competence and, if it did, it would come out of a meritocratic interviewing process, not out of quotas.

And the generalisations have another dimension too. Immigrants from Jamaica may share a cultural attitude but it is unlikely that their English-born children will. But the quota would not make that distinction anyway because it is based on skin colour. If you’re from Tooting, Delhi, Leicester or Addis Ababa you’ll be treated the same - more valuable to the Civil Service than someone of ‘native’ colouring (even if that means they’re Polish or Greek).

Discuss.