Left speechless

As you're all aware, I'm not a great fan of certain groups of people. I believe in equality, rather then feminism for example.

Which leads me to this...quoted from the Guardian due to the pay wall at the Times.

The coalition government's emergency budget could be branded unlawful after a groundbreaking legal case was launched in the high court. Papers filed on Friday claim that Treasury officials broke the law by failing to carry out an assessment of whether the plans for heavy spending cuts would hit women hardest.

.....

"There is a point of principle here. The question is – had the government followed the proper process, would parliament have voted for the budget? If they had known that 72% of the cuts would be borne by women, would they have voted for the budget?"

I'd strongly urge you to read the whole article, but the gist is contained above.

So, the accusation is two fold, that the government failed to check to see that the budget was gender neutral and that it will primarily affect women.

The first thing is a sign of the problem - that the last government changed the law to require an assessment on the effect of changes in policy on groups such as women and the disabled. Sound like a massive bureaucratic waste of time that could be scrapped in a heart beat? This is the sort of thing that is costing a fortune. "Oh no, we've made a decision! Lets quickly check it doesn't disadvantage HALF THE POPULATION".

Secondly, they say that the cuts will primarily effect women. Now, given the Fawcett society didn't say that the cuts were targeted against women, they aren't. They'd be screaming from the roofs if this was the case.

But if you remember the budget, one of the points was increasing the rate that retirement age would increase to 66.

Critically, women currently retire at 60, rather then 65. So the biggest gender specific measure was to cut five years of paying a pension to women while their male counterpart worked.

Isn't equality such a terrible thing?

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And a side note, since they've never complained about the budget before, does that mean all the rest were either neutral or pro-women?