Some facts about the EHRC

• Despite rising unemployment and a 22 percent poverty level, the government has seen fit to spend a further �70 million on its �Race Thoughtcrime� police, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC).
• The cost of the Government�s anti-discrimination watchdog has grown from �22.5 million in 2008 to �70 million in 2009, with salaries for its staff soaring by an inflation-defying 25 percent.
• Staff received an average increase of around �9,000, taking their average salary to �45,920. In 2008/09 - its first full year of operation - it was given a �70 million budget.
• The EHRC was created when the Equal Opportunities Commission, the Commission for Racial Equality and the Disability Rights Commission were merged in October 2007. Even though the Tories are now bleating about the cost of the EHRC, the reality is that they fully supported the creation of the CRE, and its first director was a Conservative MP, David Lane.
• The budget for those three groups in the last year of their existence was �47.5 million. The commission has 514 workers, with projected staff costs for 2008/9 of �23 million.
• The EHRC has become little more than an anti-white lobbying body, with its head, Trevor Philips, continuously refusing to comment on a �black children only� school programme which specifically discriminated against white kids despite receiving direct funding from the government.
• The EHRC has also been criticised for having a disproportionate number of non-indigenous personnel on its staff, again raising the question of whether or not the organisation is really promoting genuine equality, or simply lobbying for �minority� groups.
• In 2008 it was revealed that a private company co-founded by Phillips and in which he owns 70 percent of the shares, the Equate Organisation, had been employed by Channel 4 following the race row involving Shilpa Shetty and Jade Goody during the May 2007 series of Celebrity Big Brother. The undisclosed sum paid by C4 to Phillips and the Commission�s assertion that �Trevor has gone through all the correct processes of declaring his interests, so there is no conflict� provoked widespread criticism.
• According to The Times, 29th May 2003, p. 8� �Trevor Phillips, the head of the Campaign for Racial Equality, has revealed in the Irish Post why a bust of Lenin sits on his desk. �It�s there as a reminder. . . Just because the Soviet experiment failed, we should not throw everything Lenin did out the window�

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