Quota farce

The idea of artificially adjusting the gender balance of company boards and political assemblies to achieve a 50/50 split (your report, 24 December, and Letters, 26 December) is just another pathetic example of how so-called political correctness (PC) is 
slowly but surely replacing common sense nowadays.

This ridiculous notion, in the case of the company boardroom, is patently not prudent business practice, and, even worse, in the world of politics it flies in the face of the basic principle of our democratic system.

Personally, I would not 
mind if every single member 
in either case happened to be 
exclusively female or male, as long as they were there on merit, and, for posts that required election, there was no restriction on candidacy.

I am only surprised that the PC lobby has not yet launched a similar campaign to include members of other groups, on the basis of, say, ethnicity, sexuality or disablement which, as a recent correspondent correctly observed, would be equally insulting to them.

Walter J Allan

Colinton Mains Drive

Edinburgh

The self-evident logic espoused by Nicola Sturgeon of an equal gender balance in boardrooms must surely persuade businesses of the need to have equal numbers of men and women guiding commercial businesses.

How else will they manage to make profits? Men alone clearly are incapable of doing so.

Why, one would think that this would have become blindingly obvious to stupid men (probably unionists as well) who have only been running companies since La Sturgeon was in nappies?

In pursuance of the same logic, the requirement to balance boardrooms between blue-eyed and brown-eyed directors clearly needs addressing.

Andrew HN Gray

Craiglea Drive

Edinburgh