Of course!
Any / all recruitment should be based on MERIT.
But this is exactly my point. For years, minority groups (quite rightly) fought to prevent discrimination against them.
But when that battle was won, the fight didn’t stop.
They then pushed for ‘positive’ discrimination to ‘redress the balance’ (how this was ever allowed is staggering, if discrimination is illegal, then it is illegal in all forms).
When people argued that this was wrong, and that selection should be on merit, they attack merit.
The radical left (not true lefties, just the radicals) are now arguing that a meritocracy itself is discriminatory because the ‘system’ itself creates some with higher merit than others so that system itself is discriminatory.
It’s exactly my previous point, there is no end to radicals always finding ‘the next cause’ to defend.
But… I think (and / or hope) you’re wrong Baz and that there will be a pushback. The trouble is, the pushback might be a successful push from the radical right…