ASPIRE VENTURE CAPITAL FUND DISCRIMINATES AGAINST MALE ENTREPRENEURS

Is there no area in life that this Government hasn't either ignored men or introduced measures that are deliberately anti-men.

In these times, small businesses and entrepreneurs find it difficult to get credit and access capital.

So to help, the Government has launched a fund called Aspire which is Government run £25m venture capital fund for women (link). £12.5m is bona fide taxpayers money which is matched by private sector investment. As reported in the Telegraph (link), the Government has realised that such a blatant anti-male fund would be discriminatory so men can apply but only if they meet other criteria such as having 30% women on their board. It would be good to have this tested in court as it is discriminatory come what may.

The bias is clear. It gives people cheaper access to taxpayer funded venture capital on the sole basis that they are women. This is discrimination and will give a woman a competitive advantage against a man especially if looking to start up similar enterprises.

Also with capital so tight, not allowing people equal access to it, shows how gender politics is more important than fairness.

Llastly, there is no evidence that women need a special venture capital fund because they cannot obtain access elsewhere. For example women run 700,000 companies; they now sit on 78 of the FTSE-100's boardrooms; they are more female millionaires than male millionaire's between 18-44 (47,000 women / 38,000 men. But hey, lets not put facts in the way of a bit of anti-male discrimination.

Comments

[Nigel]

This case is related to the proposed Equality Bill. There have been a number of cases where attempts at "positive" discrimination such as above have been diverted by current legislation. It is just such cases that drive the drafting to alow such overt discrimination as was originally intended in "Aspire". The Bill needs to be closely watched as there will be such clauses hidden within what most people will see as a worthy simplification of the current laws. I doubt Ms Harman will make the mistake made this summer again , in being up front about the intention to promote positive discrimination she rightly brought criticism from even those who would normally be allies.