Think as you are told

This evening’s Panorama reports on ageism in the workplace:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcone/listings/programme.shtml?day=today&service_id=4223&filename=20060409/20060409_2215_4223_53515_40

Being a BBC programme it naturally takes as its starting point the assumption that ageism is A Bad Thing and that there is nothing to be said against it, that there is nothing to consider other than how to eradicate it.

“It’s clear that there aren’t as many over fifties in the workplace as there should be”. Says who? Says the hack presenting the programme, who gets to use my hard-earned to promote his political agenda.

Interestingly, a couple of the cod academics he gets in to confirm his bias comment that older people are just as much, if not more, able than their younger counterparts in the workplace.

Which begs the question: if business is so wicked and greedy, so efficiently selfish, why does it not hire more of the more able (i.e. older) people?

And before any of the Trots claim that this represents a ‘failure of the free market in employment’, they might wish to explain just where is this ‘free market’ in employment? Where, anywhere, in this country, is there a free market in anything?

But don't worry about it. Just think as the BBC tells you.