Is Thatchell speaking with forked tongue regarding Ken?

The Peter Tatchell foundation have issued the following statement on Facebook regarding Ken Livingstone's 'riddled' comment about LGBT Tories. Embolding is mine for the purposes laid out below.

Ken Livingstone is not homophobic. His use of the word 'riddled' has to be judged in context. It was clearly not used with any homophobic intent. All parties have lots of gay, bisexual MPs, as Ken noted. He is right to state that there were many gay MPs in the Tory party, from the backbenches to the cabinet. After Labour’s victory in 1997 many gay Labour MPs came out, while gay Tories remained in the closet, continued to vote against gay equality. Ken is correct to suggest that in the 1980s and 90s the Conservative Party was avowedly anti-gay, while having many gay MPs. Lots of Tories opposed gay equality, despite their own homosexuality. They were hypocrites, homophobes. Ken is right to point this out.

In recent years, the Conservative leadership has embraced gay equality, which is commendable. However, only two weeks ago it was reported that 100 Tory MPs intend to block David Cameron’s plan to end the ban on same-sex marriage. They still oppose gay equality.

However, when Livingstone was Mayor in 2005 he invited outspoken Muslim cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi to London. Thatchell himself called him out as being a hypocrite at the time.

he Mayor justifies hosting Qaradawi on the grounds that he wants a dialogue with Muslims. But why is Ken having a dialogue with a reactionary Muslim leader? Why isn’t he meeting liberal Muslims who believe in human rights? Why does he host a homophobe like Qaradawi while ignoring pleas from the Muslim gay group, Imaan?

Ken has been a long-time ally of the lesbian and gay community. He stood up for our rights long before any other major politician. He deserves our respect and appreciation. But on the issue of Qaradawi, Ken has made a major misjudgement.

In the name of fighting Islamophobia the Mayor is colluding with homophobia. He appears to believe that Muslim rights are more important than queer rights, and that it is acceptable to ally himself with fundamentalists who despise gays and want them killed.

Livingstone would never host Catholic extremists like Opus Dei or right-wing Anglicans from the Christian Institute. Why is he rolling out the red carpet for an Islamist hate-monger like Qaradawi? 

Ken seems willing to sacrifice gay rights if it is politically expedient to do so. Does he want Muslim votes? Is that why he is cosying up to Islamic fundamentalists like Qaradawi and the reactionary Muslim Association of Britain (MAB)?

Note at the end of this BBC article that is was the head of the Conservative group in the London Assembly who said "[Qaradawi] is the type of man Mr Livingstone should, like us, be condemning not cosying up to. It's utterly unacceptable." 


At that point it was the So why then does the Peter Thatchell foundation now back his use of the word, when in the past he has condemned him as willing to sacrifice gay rights for political expediency. Does raising the issue of previous LGBT closeted Conservatives in the run up to an election campaign not count as political expediency.

Does using a word like riddled, which I notice has casued outrage from with LGBT members of all parties (not just the Conservatives), not warrant an apology. The above which is not condemned, but put into context by the Thatchell Foundation. How come formerly it was a major misjudgement and yet not it is something that Thatchell has to jump in to explain. 

Clearly the use of the word was a misjudgement, although the Thatchell Foundation have refused to say that is it. But they are jumping in to defend one candidate, while there are another seven.

It is a political expediency that Livingstone has gone running to the best known LGBT rights campaigner to get him out of this jam following this faux pas of his own making?

Dear Ken, I'm not susceptible to bribery nor a sub-species

Venal adj
1 : capable of being bought or obtained for money or other valuable consideration : purchasable; especially : open to corrupt influence and especially bribery : mercenary venal legislator;

2 : originating in, characterized by, or associated with corrupt bribery venal arrangement with the police;

Definition for the Merriam-Webster dictionary

Now this may be news to London Mayoral candidate Ken Livingstone, but I am not for sale. Nor are the values of the Liberal Democrats. Nor am I a sub-species, he should ask Michael Connarty if he considers me to a political sub species or not.

Look at the situation that the country faced last May. Labour could have formed an administration with the Liberal Democrats, it still wouldn't have had the number of MPs to force through any legislation so would have had to have bribed Northern Irish Unionist, all the Nationalists and whoever to get anything done.

Would such a government have been stable?

Looking at what the SNP seem to be demanding up in Scotland where they have a majority Government the answer would be no. We would now be finding ourselves highly unpopular with overseas investors and without the support of the Eurozone to even be forced to bale us out, who knows where our economy would be.

What the Liberal Democrats did by forming a coalition with the Conservatives was create some stability. We don't have an administration that lurches from one bill to the next uncertain of whether they will be able to afford to do anything on the whim of a really small party. If Ken thinks we are being venal for the sake of our own party he should look at the results in the polls last month. People have been punishing our party while we still wait for the medium term results of what we have been seeking to do come into light.

Tough decision have been made, ones that Labour put off until they had hoped to win a fourth term maybe. The problem being that in putting them off the decisions that had to be made got tougher. In the nine months from when the Liberal Democrats approved the pre-manifesto at Autumn conference 2009 until the election the following May, even in the month of the election campaign itself, figures emerged that made things we promised into things we aspired to. That is how bad things were getting, when all the while and even in last week's BBC Question Time Labour were still blaming it solely on a world wide situation and unable to look at the fact that because it was worldwide nobody else was in a fit state to help us out. We had to help ourselves, not simply blame everyone else.

Ken should have taken note that his own party were offering stuff to the Lib Dems last May as well. There is just one thing they were flicking through a catalogue and picking out things that the Lib Dems they knew would like, without wanting to change too much of what they wanted, or being able to ensure that when they placed the order that they would be able to deliver.

Last Thursday on STV Sophie Bridger even got her Tory Opponent in the Inverclyde by election to say that the Lib Dems had secure more fairness that would have been present in a Conservative minority government. As one of the tenets of why I am a Liberal Democrat is to bring fairness (not just when times are good but also when they are bad) I think we are doing things along the right lines. We still have a way to go of course, but soon that too I hope will be visible to all. But people like Ken are still moaning about the problems but incapable of giving coherent solutions, that is the current Labour malaise.