Buggin's Turn

A not much used phrase now, once used to describe the right to promotion of a long-serving employee say, merely because he or she had been waiting a long time. It was subject to criticism, often hypocritically by the liberal Left, who complained it excluded those allegedly better qualified, either from elsewhere, or younger.

It is interesting to read then, that the concept is being resurrected in a new guise by Labour MP Margaret Hodge, who also chairs an important Parliamentary Select Committee, who has decided that 'it is time for London to have a non-white mayor'. I won't go into which racial profile she thinks would be best among the mixed origins of people who now live in London; she has deviously ducked this problem by saying 'non-white'. If it is important to her, she should explain.

She thus attempts to display her ever-so liberal and patronising values by defining people by their colour only, that is as long as it's not white, on the basis that it's 'their turn'.