Hypocrisy

Now there's a word we see all the time, where members of one political party will accuse one or more members of an opposing party of hypocrisy.

Sometimes it's a valid claim, often it isn't when one looks closely, and sometimes it falls into a bit of a grey area and is difficult (if not impossible) to decide with any degree of certainty. Occasionally, though, something quite clear-cut emerges, and when that happens it is nearly always concerning the actions and attitudes of a Labour politician or staffer.

Today's (near-enough impossible to refute) such claim revolves around "Penny Red" (real name Laurie Penny, of the New Statesman) and an advert for a "female preferred" recruit to be an intern who would be paid below the minimum wage - something that Labour themselves introduced in order to prevent this kind exploitation as they saw it.

Several commentators have been running with this story today, but Guido has the definitive story. As the job advert has now been amended, I hope that someone took a copy of the original - something I'd have done myself (and posted here) if I had heard about this before the change was made.

UPDATE 21 Jan: Mark "Crash! Bang!" Wallace has been conducting a little research and found that Jobs Direct wouldn't have accepted that job advertisement.