{"id":7598,"date":"2018-06-10T11:14:33","date_gmt":"2018-06-10T09:14:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/?p=7598"},"modified":"2018-06-10T11:16:51","modified_gmt":"2018-06-10T09:16:51","slug":"some-more-equal-than-others","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/7598\/","title":{"rendered":"Some More Equal Than Others"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There&#8217;s a certain irony about this tweet:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">AP grabbed this shot of Trump walking in late to the gender equality breakfast at the G7 summit <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/ZBR3dcXGcG\">pic.twitter.com\/ZBR3dcXGcG<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Katie Watson (@kathrynw5) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/kathrynw5\/status\/1005439952723873793?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 9, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>I have no idea what a gender equality breakfast entails, but I wasn&#8217;t surprised to learn this particular one featured a commencement speech by Canadian man-child Justin Trudeau. I also don&#8217;t know what the purpose of the tweet was, but many responses believe it shows Trump, by arriving late, is a misogynist who has no respect for those present. Which is probably true, especially that last bit.<\/p>\n<p>The irony, though, is that extremely privileged and wealthy men and women in positions of great power and influence held this breakfast in the name of <em>gender<\/em> equality. Now I would have thought the very presence around the table of Theresa May, Angela Merkel, and Christine Lagarde would have rendered the entire purpose moot, but apparently not. If there is an inequality that needs addressing in most if not all the societies represented at the G7 it is that which exists between the ruling classes and everyone else. Nowhere is this yawning chasm better demonstrated than by Christine Lagarde herself; she is the\u00a0woman with the pink handkerchief in her blazer in the photo above, and head of the IMF. Here&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/news\/world\/europe\/christine-lagarde-convicted-imf-head-found-guilty-of-negligence-in-fraud-trial-a7484586.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">an article<\/a> from 2016:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde has been convicted over her role in a controversial \u20ac400m (\u00a3355m) payment to a businessman.<\/p>\n<p>French judges found Ms Lagarde guilty of negligence for failing to challenge the state arbitration payout to the friend of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Yes, that&#8217;s right: she has a criminal conviction after passing a bung.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The Court of Justice of the Republic, a special tribunal for ministers, could have given\u00a0Ms Lagarde up to one-year in prison\u00a0and a \u20ac13,000 fine.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>But they didn&#8217;t. Instead:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The 60-year-old, following a week-long trial in Paris, was not given any sentence and will not be punished.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Oh. How fortunate for Ms Lagarde!<\/p>\n<p>I remember when this happened, and the authorities were almost apologetic in their treatment of this pillar of the French elite. It explains why the charge was one of negligence and not the more serious corruption, and why she walked away scot-free, smiles and handshakes all-round despite having been found guilty. And here she is, this convicted criminal whose privileged position allowed her to evade punishment and even keep her job at the IMF, hosting an &#8220;equality&#8221; breakfast.<\/p>\n<p>Let me ask, if it were you or I who&#8217;d done what she&#8217;d done, do you think we&#8217;d have kept our jobs and be attending breakfasts at jamborees? Or would be languishing in a jail somewhere? Equality, indeed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There&#8217;s a certain irony about this tweet: AP grabbed this shot of Trump walking in late to the gender equality breakfast at the G7 summit pic.twitter.com\/ZBR3dcXGcG \u2014 Katie Watson (@kathrynw5) June 9, 2018 I have no idea what a gender &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/7598\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[67,28],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7598"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7598"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7600,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7598\/revisions\/7600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}