So was Mr Dobson pushed, or was he lured by a promise of future preferment?

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Colleagues vie with each other for preferment, yet must collaborate closely to fend off competition from without.

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But, once entrenched, job-preferment policies tend to benefit the better off, become meaninglessly broad and hard to undo.

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For every company that discriminates against Gypsies, others are trying out job preferment.

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IPAN's Mr Desai says that they would be unworkable, but that some managers are beginning to see job-preferment as good for business.

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Amit Mitra, of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, supports similar schemes, as well as preferment schemes by banks.

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Mr Qarase favours preferment programmes for indigenous Fijians, the transfer of state lands to native landowners and the cancellation of compensation to evicted Indian sugarcane farmers.

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Mr Graglia, who has taught at the university for 30 years, issued a semi-retraction, emphasising the importance of equal opportunity but standing by his opposition to racial preferment.

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There are a significant number of Labour AMs who have little chance of - or interest in - ministerial preferment and every intention of ensuring that they're not cast in the position of defending what they would see as the indefensible for their local hospital.

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