Labour springs its well laid trap

Harriet Harman's equality legislation passed this year was passed for a reason, and that reason was not 'love'. Thus The Guardian's report that:

'George Osborne is facing a formal investigation by the equalities watchdog to establish whether the Treasury fulfilled its statutory duty to assess the impact of the spending review on women, disabled and ethnic minority people.'

did not surprise me. Labour knew they would be out of office soon and so left behind all sorts of traps for the incoming government. The fact that the Conservatives have to govern in a coalition with the LibDems means that they cannot repeal these pieces of legislation as easily as they otherwise might thus the impeccably left-of-centre, but statutorily reinforced Equality and Human Rights Commission announced today that it would launch a formal assessment into the Treasury's conduct prior to the spending review last month:

"Under the public sector equality duties, covering race, gender and disability, the Treasury, like all public bodies, has a legal duty to pay 'due regard' to equality and consider any disproportionate impact on protected groups when making decisions, including decisions about the budget. Where decisions are found to have a disproportionate impact on a particular group protected by the legislation, public bodies must consider what actions can be taken to avoid, mitigate or justify that impact."

This week we've seen this 'equalities' legislation and Alistair Darling's EU crisis sign up emerge as well laid traps, what others will follow?