MUTAZ AHMED

Comment Journalist

Let’s indulge the BBC’s tick-box exercise just this once. At 14 I was splitting my time between learning and caring for my single mother, a political refugee suffering the consequences of having been a journalist in a dictatorial country. I was on free school meals out of necessity. I lived in one of the poorest council wards in London – and still do. I knew boys who were stabbed to death.

Our household income, excluding benefits, was approximately zero. Yes, I am working class.

But telling this story is not how I got my job in the media. I got that by starting a political blog aged 16 which went viral, graduating twice before 21 and breaking stories as a freelancer. It is a testament to social mobility and equality of opportunity in this country that I was able to do all these things without the patronising discrimination of a quota scheme.

Some diversity programmes are designed in good faith, but all ultimately negate a person’s innate abilities, and leave a cloud marked “positive discrimination” hanging over the heads of every professional from a working-class background. Is that not the opposite of equality?

If the problem is that BBC recruiters cannot be trusted not to judge on the basis of accent or skin colour, then the answer is to introduce more meritocracy, not less. Nameless CVs would be a good start.