The Tories won't win new friends using the Left's language of diversity Until recently. Her employer, like so many FTSE 100 companies in Britain, operates a bonus scheme for its staff: perform above expectation and you are financially rewarded. Do badly and you're a year from dismissal - and no, you don't get a bonus. The rights and wrongs of such schemes are open to question, in terms of their impact on productivity, but they are common enough. My friend's employer, keen to underline its commitment to "diversity," first of all monitored the ratings awarded to different ethnic categories of staff. And then it went further. This year, after the managers submitted their ratings for their staff, HR intervened: "Do you have any African-American, or, particularly, female African-American staff, whom you might have overlooked? Would you like to think about your ratings again? That's what I call a "nudge." The impact? As my friend put it: "Either they think I'm a sexist, racist pig, deliberately stamping down on non-white talent; or they think black women deserve an extra lift, by virtue of nothing but their skin colour or gender." Recall that this woman isn't a Wasp - though her "minority" identity isn't one prioritised by her employer. Whatever the good intent of such policies, there's a word for this - another ugly one, but accurate none the less: discrimination. I would once have said, steeped in my Tory prejudice, that only a liberal could imagine that deliberate discrimination would bring people closer together. Having watched the genuine rage of this "proud Democrat," I now don't believe that anyone outside the diversity industry thinks that by listing and prioritising certain arbitrary racial differences, we will somehow become a more inclusive society. Coincidentally, another friend, though this one is British and Conservative, said to me recently: "Where do you see the most natural mixing of all ages, races and classes in Britain? In our churches. You don't have to be religious to admit he has a point, though I might have added "as well as in any East End Conservative association." Anywhere, in fact, where individuality is sublimated into common endeavour. That most Tory of concepts - that institutions matter more than our individual, random characteristics - is the engine for harmony. It is natural Tory language to say come together, in churches, PTAs, hiking groups, reading clubs or local political campaigns. That's our future. Quotas, whether legislated or nudged, help no one: least of all Conservatives.