Thread by @JasonBraier

Liz Truss gave her speech on the concepts underlying the Equality Act at 2pm today. It's available here: cps.org.uk. I thought I'd tweet on it in real time (albeit an hour or so after delivered.

She starts by talking up the notion of what I suppose you'd call the British dream. She acknowledges though the equality journey isn't finished, with diminished opportunities.

It's a speech which starts from the point of geographical discrimination - opportunity in the south east, lack of opportunity elsewhere. She hails the current government as being elected on a mandate to sort that out - thanks to the knocking down of the 'red wall'.

She promises to outline a new conservative approach to equality (gulp) founded in dignity and humanity rather than quotas & equality of outcome [NOTE: that's a wholly false equivalence as if the latter are inconsistent with the former]

She derides the left as being captured by identity politics, whereas she'll fix geographic equality and 'real problems' in people's lives, especially those poor people from Wolverhampton & Darlington, as they have apparently been particularly ill-served.

The new approach is a 'moral & practical mission'. She says it's not right having a particular surname may make it harder to get a job or that pregnant women are treated badly [Good news - there's something called the Equality Act which can help those affected]

It's outrageous LGBT people face harassment & some employers overlook the disabled. [Again, we're not in disagreement about that]

The new approach to equality will apparently operate on the basis of freedom, opportunity, choice, dignity & humanity. [I'm struggling to see how that is new, but I fear I'm about to find out and not like it]

3 ways: 1) Fairness through modernisation, increased & openness; 2) Focus on data rather than campaigning by those with loud faces; 3) looking at challenges faced including geographic inequality.

She says it's the government's duty to deliver because if "right-thinking people" [right of centre or correct? I'm not sure] don't do so then this debate will be led by those whose ideas don't work [Ah ok, so this is at base an attack on the left]

She criticises the fact that when at school she was taught about racism & sexism but there was too little time teaching children to read & write. [What an odd school she attended - get children to read speeches of Martin Luther King & Female Eunuch & kill 2 birds with 1 stone!]

She's now criticising Foucault as leaving no space for evidence [What?]. She criticises authorities for embracing symbols rather than real change, due to the "soft bigotry of low expectations" [We're clearly building up to denouncing levelling the playing field, aren't we?]

Focussing on groups at the expense of individuals has led to the left turning a blind eye to inequalities, leading to things such as tolerance of antisemitism & the grooming in Rotherham [I'm sorry, who wrote this for her? Can they please look up 'non sequitur' in the dictionary]

Ah - unconscious bias training apparently backfires, exacerbating biases rather than improving equality. Affirmative action also undermines equality - see the Paris Mayor's quota fine.

Hail the Tory party instead who've had 2 female leaders by providing opportunities rather than positive discrimination.

She derides those defining themselves by their protected characteristic rather than their individual character. [This is a denialism of the realities of prejudice & how it works on a generic rather than individual level]

We all should care about equality & all have a stake in it [We agree on this]. She's calling time on 'pink bus feminism' [Harriet Harman is her main target, isn't it?]

She lauds transparency as the way towards equality [we're on the same page for a sentence]. But then she's back to unconscious bias training as her straw man [She obviously had some bad training - if only she'd signed up to the course @daniel_barnett organised]

She lauds various statutory reforms that she says gave people more control over their own lives - Academies Act, Housing Act 1980, for example [she limits herself to legislation passed by Conservative governments].

Opening up opportunity for all is her mantra: that's her level playing field, an agenda to be driven forward by new EHRC Chair & Commissioners, all of whom are ready to challenge "dangerous group think" & "freelance campaigning" [The worries about new commissioners writ large]

The Equality Hub is going to try to identify where people are held back & what the barriers are - not limiting themselves to the EqA protected characteristics. She highlights 3: sex, race, gender reassignment [presumably because people campaign on those with loud voices!]

She derides that the concentration on the protected characteristics means the overlooking of socioeconomic & geographic inequality [if only if there was something in the Equality Act primed & ready to deal with that if the government of the past 10 years brought it into force!!!]

Longitudinal datasets will apparently help the government understand where the real inequalities are - the power of evidence over the power of campaigning.

This is all going to take place from an equality hub moved up north. [It's basically an effort to use equality as a football to help to maintain the red wall.]

The agenda should empower people, using evidence to inform policy to drive change, fixing the system rather than fixing results. [And there the speech ends. She looks pleased with herself, but I'm none the wiser what this means for the EqA.]

So next we're onto questions. 1st, what concrete steps?

The 1st step is moving to the north so that they are closer to the people they want to help. 2nd, a research report tracking barriers to individual lives (a nice flexible, manipulable amount of information)

Next - question about why she wants to pit race and gender campaigning on the opposite side to poverty & socioeconomic/geographic inequality. She gives an answer about intersectionality without seeming to understand the concept.

Social Mobility Foundation asks whether there should be a requirement to publish class pay gaps alongside gender pay gaps. Liz Truss isn't so fussed - she wants to fix the broken system rather than the broken outcome [isn't the broken outcome the light shining on the cracks?]

A question about whether there's incongruence between deriding symbolism & then symbolically moving to the north. She gives an answer that suggests that all the loudest/listened to voices in equality have been in London (what is it about our diverse capital she finds problematic?

She tries finally to reassure people with protected characteristics it isn't her intention to undermine them. She tries to give that reassurance by saying that everyone has protected characteristics & wants a focus on individual character more than protected characteristics.

The minister doesn't seem to understand that the focus under the EqA on protected characteristics is because that's the focus of the discriminator. Those discriminated against would love it if they were seen through the content of their character (as someone famous once said!).

The final question is the key one - whether the agenda has a legislative component. Gulp - step 1 is the research; step 2 will be to look at how to make it happen. Let's hope she's removed well before step 2!