With Microsoft scrapping a DEI team and Elon Musk moving to Texas, is the tide turning on the ‘woke’ agenda – and should businesses pay attention? Asks Eliot Wilson

When America sneezes, Britain catches a cold. It is an idea that became popular after the Wall Street Crash of 1929, when the fall in New York share prices caused a savage depression in the United Kingdom. Our close dependence on the United States – the necessary but unequal “special relationship” – means we remain at the mercy of events in America and we should always monitor changes in habit, practice and culture there. They will reach us before too long.

In that context, a leaked email last week revealing that Microsoft was scrapping a diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) team on the grounds that it was “no longer business-critical” is significant. The tech giant insists that its “D&I commitments remain unchanged” but the scope and grandeur of some diversity efforts have come under more and more exacting scrutiny in recent years.

After the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020 and........

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