Aviva has exposed the rotten truth about ‘diversity’.
Its CEO has admitted no white male hire is made without her approval. Many would call it discrimination
ANNABEL DENHAM14 December 2023 • 
So there we have it. Laid bare for all to see, the pernicious effect of our national fixation with “diversity, equality and inclusion” (DEI). Aviva’s chief executive Amanda Blanc this week told MPs on the Treasury Select Committee that there is no senior “non-diverse” (white male) hire made at the company without her personal approval. There is no need, she implicitly admitted, to sign off on the appointments of non-white people and women. Most people would call that clear evidence of discrimination.
But don’t expect the Left-wing mob, usually so vocal in its condemnation of racism and sexism in all its ugly forms, to sharpen its pitchforks this time. Social media is not awash with calls for Blanc’s resignation, nor have demands for a boycott been issued. Others have suffered obloquy for far less: advertisers refused to be associated with GB News due to concerns over “bias”. McDonald’s was targeted after a location offered free food for the Israeli military.
Performative progressivism, as has long been suspected, doesn’t extend to campaigning against discrimination against white people or men. Perhaps we should thank the exquisitely named Blanc for giving the game away: rarely is the true purpose of DEI – not to, rightly, fight against hateful racism and sexism, but to position us all on an intersectional pyramid of victimhood, white men placed bottom – put so bluntly.
We have been drip-fed stories about “values” and “diversity”, when really those espousing it mean “conformity” with a particular worldview. Underpinned by the Equality Act, arguably one of the worst pieces of legislation foisted on the British public, DEI has marched through our institutions, stifling freedom of expression and stymieing economic growth along the way. Entire sections of annual reports are now devoted towards these activities: HS2’s 2022 statement was 52 pages long, much of it keenly explaining how many men had been excluded from the doomed project.
And make no mistake: the DEI industry is doing all it can to avoid becoming a victim of its own success. Thus, despite the clear evidence of the massive progress made in recent decades, we are warned ad nauseam that the country has never been so bigoted: English cricket is systemically racist, along with constabularies, the fire brigade, our criminal justice system and virtually any other area of public life. Women are still widely described as victims of the patriarchy.
Often, this is based on demonstrably false assumptions. Feminist activists noisily complain that the gender pay gap is widening, while other groups try to steal their oxygen with such absurdities as the “gender obesity penalty gap”, the “gender sleep gap” and the “gender play gap”.
Anyone who bothered to look at the gender pay gap data would observe that it is now negligible for those aged 22-39, with men pulling away later in life largely because of compensating differentials and free choice. Some women go part-time when they become mothers, many opt for less dangerous work, which is why workplace injuries are suffered overwhelmingly by men.
The average male life expectancy is 79 years, compared to 82.6 years for women. Less than 5 per cent of those in prison in the UK are female. When Tory MP Ben Bradley tried to ask an “equalities” question about white working-class boys in Parliament in 2020, he was warned that it may be turned down because it did not appear to be a question about protected characteristics. Yet this group are more likely than any of their peers to achieve less in school, less likely to go on to higher or further education and less likely to secure a well-paid career.
And now we discover that those who do buck the trend might not make it past the filters of the Diversity Queen at Aviva. This isn’t to argue that we should extend equality legislation to take in ever-wider groups, though the DEI gang are certainly trying, with “neuro-diversity” and “social class” their newest frontiers. Rather to insist that companies stop the smug virtue signalling and focus on the bottom line.
One could ask whether such granular involvement in recruitment is the best use of Blanc’s time, as boss of a FTSE 100 company. Is this the level of commitment to shareholder returns they were expecting, given there is little evidence of a causal link between diversity and profit?
Neither skin colour nor reproductive organs determine business acumen. Bosses should hire the best people for the role, irrespective of identity. Those who don’t are in the wrong job.
