THE former high sheriff of Cumbria has written to the chancellor to criticise his language about 'diversity, equality and inclusion' (DEI) jobs in government.

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s decision to cut funding for ‘woke’ DEI jobs in local councils across the UK has been welcomed by conservatives who believe the concept is a waste of money and offers little benefit to people.

Such jobs include making sure government policy is representative of all people, that government departments are functioning well in terms of equality, and reducing discrimination.

Critics argue this job could be done by managers and doesn’t need to be a separate position, while others argue the job shouldn’t exist at all.

However, Marcia Fotheringham, former high sheriff of Cumbria, the first black person to hold the position, and the county’s first black magistrate and first black chairman of the bench, believes the subtext of the slash - which Tory MP for Don Valley called ‘ridiculous woke spending that actually creates division’ and ‘wasteful’ - brings great harm to people of different backgrounds.

Ms Fotheringham said the chancellor was wrong and his statements on the ‘uselessness and high cost' of DEI initiatives have given many in the UK ‘reason to pause and permission to say’ that nothing needs to be done in the name of diversity and equality.

“Since Monday, I have spent too much time defending the need (my need) to openly exist in a welcomed, un-harassed way in what is my county," Ms Fotheringham wrote in a letter to Mr Hunt last week.

“My county is similar, in this respect, to other UK counties.

“You and the UK’s majority do not have to cope with the difficulty of being anything other than white, heterosexual, Christian people.

“For those who do not have these characteristics, you do not demonstrate any care.”

She added that, as a black woman who has given ‘all 27 of the years’ she’s lived in Cumbria supporting DEI initiatives, ‘I am afraid that you have taken the UK backwards’.

She said that DEI initiatives ‘are the only ones supporting the very real, subtle, and disempowering impact that less-than-welcoming people have on us’.

“To say I am disappointed by your words is an understatement,” she wrote.

“I am tired of being complicit with the lack of attention given to improving lives.

“Can you not see the increased level of disrespect, disharmony and outright threats demonstrated by politicians and leaders?

“Such behaviour will be successfully imitated by ‘regular’ people (including children) in our communities.

“Based on your comments – and the lack of useful action, even with pleas of wanting change, conditions for too many negatively affected people and our communities will suffer.

“You have helped this happen.”