Disinvestors in People

My spies tell me that Nick Clegg intends to upstage David Cameron with a new workplace equality scheme.

Called Disinvestors in People, the rationale is that people are not economic units requiring investment but real people with a basic right to equal treatment. From an internal Lib Dem white paper we have this resounding paragraph.

People are not machines or items of plant, buildings, vehicles or production lines. People are living, breathing human beings. We do not and should not treat ourselves as investments, but should claw back our human dignity by disinvesting ourselves from this bleak, soulless and distorted obsession with money.

Disinvestors in People is remarkably ingenious. Any student who fails to earn a qualification at the end of a registered course or study programme will be given top-up qualifications from the Disinvestors in People scheme – or DiP as it is called among Nick’s bright young things.

So once DiP is implemented, people who apply for a job will start on an equal footing with those who on paper have better qualifications. It will of course be illegal to discriminate against candidates with DiP qualifications.

Ultimately, DiP will be applied to employment experience too, thus helping young people and those who for no fault of their own are regarded as unemployable. Discrimination on the basis of experience will become illegal because candidates with no experience will be able to apply for a DiP experience top-up certificate – or DiPe.

Nick thinks this one will revive Lib Dem fortunes.