So no Haass agreement

Dr. Richard Haass the American diplomat who was chairing talks in Northern Ireland is flying home after another all night session on the 7th draft of his proposals to deal with Northern Ireland's past, parades and flags.

After seven drafts the DUP came away saying that they agreed with the "broad architecture" of the agreement, but that ""some of the language and detail is not what we would have chosen and in some cases we strongly disapprove of the language".

So what did the other parties think:

Sinn Féin thought there was a "basis for a deal in the proposals put forward".

Alliance said ""We have seen a huge sea change in the level of political agreement which has exceeded public expectation, particularly in delivering for the victims and the reconciliation process." But that there were still major challenges over the issues of parades and flags.

The SDLP said "We would anticipate a general endorsement from the SDLP in due course, that's not to say we're entirely happy... but we do welcome it as far as it goes."

The UUP appear to not be prepared to make a statement at this time before presenting it to their party.

The comment from the SDLP shows something in contrast with the DUPs. Both mentioned that they were not entirely happy. But one was prepared to realise that they weren't going to get everything and where happy with where things had got, the other seemed to lack compromise.

I'm someone who although never involved in talks have been involved in endorsing those agreements. First in the 2003 Scottish Programme for Government and again in the 2010 Coalition Agreement. On both occasions not everything that I would have liked to see was there, but there was enough of key elements in there for me to support the process.

In Northern Ireland we have a statutory coalition so parties have to work together without coming to an agreement as to what that work will entail. The end is that they are in Government together and opposition at the same time, it means that things don't get done as the parties haven't really hashed out those agreements and compromises.

Yesterday as I was watching the news coverage of the talks teams entering the Stormont hotel I heard some of the Protestant Unionist Loyalist community shouting to the DUP "No compromises". It makes me wonder what his, as it was a male voice, married life is like. The thing is to learn to work together, life together and move on together you have to make some compromises and whether that is over some of the language in some areas to get a broad agreement on things that need to be done so be it. I've also seen a comment today which read:

"Nothing in it again for the PUL people, and you can only ignore and walk over people for so long. It cannot be at any price. We deserve better than that."

Now as always that comment ignores the fact that the PUL people used to ignore and walk over those who weren't, the fact is that now we, whoever we are, cannot ignores others. We have to work with each other to work things out. And in working things out we get to a point where normality can come to our wee country, leading to people being prepared to invest in us, employ us and give us security of a financial rather than a military variety.

Talk Talk filter is not politically neutral

I was doing some late night checking of Twitter in relation to the fact that the LGBT+ Lib Dems Website was blocked under Talk Talk's porn filter and came across this converstation.

Fortunately for Talk Talk we are outside an election period at the moment or else there could be implications from the fact that they are blocking both the Lib Dems and UKIP's LGBT websites but not that of Labour or the Conservatives. It means that they are able to differentiate sites and someone should have spotted this for the other political parties assuming that the Conservative and Labour sites had to be exceptions for the use of the language especially in relation to same-sex marriage, transgender issues and the like which are the key words that would automatically have been flagged up.



Of course the issue is far wider than this, these filters by the ISP providers are not good enough to differentiate what is health, education and public awareness sites and what is pornography etc. This was the crus of the debate at Lib Dem conference in Glasgow this September when we referenced back the motion on internet safety as it failed to address these issues in a way that the majority of the internet literate members of our party were already aware. The fact that our LGBT+ website is now parked behind such a porn filter is a case in point.

Earlier today someone else Tweeted this showing the BT definitions of what is blocked:

Some of the implications of this especially in relation to sex education have implications that some of our young people may be kept in ignorance as a result of parents not lifting the filter. This is especially true of LGBT youth whose parents are opposed to their child being LGBT and don't want them to find out about help that can be provided for them.


As a Liberal Democrat I don't believe that anyone should be enslaved by ignorance. But when the filters by two of the largest internet providers in this country can block access to some of the LGBT groups of our political parties, or information on sex education, including respect for a partner, STDs and LGBT lifestyle then there clearly is an issue. Thankfully the mainstream media are catching up with something that I know many Lib Dems have been shouting about for years. Some of our LGBT bloggers have found our own websites blocked on certain connections in internet cafes or wifi hotspots.All we are doing is talking about the issues, using language that can be used in good as well as for porn.



On an issue of porn, even notice that the emails selling you sex good get around your spam filter in your email by not using the actual words in full, but use punctuation and spaces to get around this. Guess what some porn does exactly the same.

Read also Alistair MacGregor's piece on Lib Dem Voice about this.

DUP take the tortoise and the hare too far

Today in the Northern Ireland Assembly in their final plenary session of 2013 discussed this Alliance Party motion:

That this Assembly notes that a sexual orientation strategy was subject to consultation in 2006; further notes that public commitments to publish a document by the end of 2013 were made by the Office of the First Minister and deputy First Minister in Together: Building a United Community; expresses its deep concern that this document does not appear to have progressed to date; and calls on the First Minister and deputy First Minister to publish a cross-departmental sexual orientation strategy as a matter of priority.

Now you'd have thought that seven years after consultation would be enough time to bring forward any strategy document. I know that when I was working in the Department of Enterprise Trade and Investment my branch was responsible for the economic strategy document going forward 10 years. It was published in 1999 less than a year after devolution and was covering all the complex issues of Northern Ireland's economy going forward. One of its recommendations was to produce and Information Age Initiative, this was done in 2000 less than a year later. Both documents were critically received and although some felt they could have gone further in certain directions they were a path finder for what was arguably the most important of the devolved departments.

Now this brings us to the issue of the Sexual Orientation Strategy (SOS). As Anna Lo said when moving the motion:

A consultation took place in 2006, and a strategic action plan was drafted to identify and tackle human rights issues relating to sexual orientation.  Following devolution, it was shelved in 2007, along with the shared future and racial equality strategies.  It is not unreasonable for OFMDFM to want to take ownership of these strategies under devolution, but seven years is too long to produce our own version.  Let me explain.

In 2010, the cohesion, sharing and integration strategy consultation indicated that Ministers were fully committed to publishing a sexual orientation strategy.  At the end of that year, it was confirmed by junior Minister Newton that a strategy would be published.  In 2011, junior Minister Bell told the Assembly that the final consultation process would take place in early 2012, with a view to publishing a strategy before the end of 2012.  In October 2012, the Department outlined that a draft public consultation document was under consideration and would be published in the near future.  In February 2013, Minister Bell outlined to the Assembly that the Department remained committed to publishing a strategy and that it was currently under consideration.  The announcement of the Together: Building a United Community strategy committed OFMDFM to publishing a sexual orientation strategy once the consultation process had been completed.

However, the only speakers and in the end the only MLAs who had objections to publishing a strategy were the DUPO. First Stephen Moutray said:

It is simple:  consultation must take place before the strategy can be brought forward.

Now forgive me for being dumb but the consultation started in 2006. In both 2012 and 2013 we were promised by the Junior Minister for OFMDFM at the time from his own party that the SOS would be published by the end of the year. On both those occasions it was implied that consultation was complete and it was down to drafting. So why has the strategy not been brought forward?

He went on to say:

if the Alliance Party cared to speak with the sector, it would ascertain that that sector is broadly content with the way in which the Assembly is dealing with the matter.

 Now I wonder has Mr Moutray spoken to the LGBT sector, he certainly hasn't been at any of the LGBT consultative forum meetings that have time and time again talked about the frustration that the assembly have failed to publish a SOS. Now was he there when they discussed the lack of SOS being mentioned but in passing in the ludicrous Draft Cohesion Sharing and Integration strategy, which has also since to resurface in the light of day since 2010.

His colleague George Robinson said:

I hope that those who tabled the motion will see the benefit of supporting the current work in progress to achieve the workable solution that I see as critical to a successful outcome.  Clarity, not haste, is the essential factor in producing a workable strategy.  It is for those reasons that I cannot support the motion.

The LGBT do not want a work in progress. Nor do we want a document that has been promised take over what would have been two terms to come to the table if it not published within the next twelve months. The delay in publishing this is already longer than the period that an LGBT teenager is expected to spend in secondary school, without any consideration, nor any mention of homophobic bullying. As we heard in the debate 85% of LGBT youth in Northern Ireland contemplate suicide and 35% have attempted it.

Is it really so awkward to develop a strategy especially when documents exist in the rest of the UK already laying out best practices in the workplace, accommodation, health care and education that can be adapted to the Northern Irish situations? Or is it just awkward for the DUP to face up to their Section 75 obligations and acknowledge that something needs to be done of the LGBT people in Northern Ireland who do not feel save to outwardly express their love for a partner in public as they would do in Glasgow, London, Cardiff and even small provincial towns.

Nelson Mandela's long walk on earth is over

***Breaking*** Former South African President Nelson Mandela has passed on this evening.

The former South African President was born in the last year of the First World War and almost survived to the centenary year of it's beginning. Many will no doubt write full biographical remembrances of his life but I'm going to go through the points that his life bisected with my consciousness. 

One of the first international politicians to grab my attention was Nelson Mandela. of course at the time he was still in prison. His image and presence touched my life in many ways along the way.

In 1984 of course there was the Special A.K.A. song Free Nelson Mandela which was one of the first protest songs that I actually purchased.

When I went on a tour of my first university my introduction to student politics probably came from an induction meeting in the Mandela Hall at QUB. Even though I didn't go there the fact that students in Belfast and as I later learnt up and down the country had gone to such length to make a statement of support for such a great man meant that I had to get involved in student politics and speak in Union meetings.

My first job after graduation saw me walking from Waterloo across the Hungerford Bridge and on to Piccadilly Circus. At that time it meant that every day I passed the statue to Nelson Mandela outside the National Gallery.

Of course before that on 2 February 1990 I watched as he walked to his freedom and the birth of a new South Africa, one of reconciliation. It gave me hope that possibly the same could happen in my own Northern Ireland. Together with F.W. de Klerk who had decided to unban the ANC and allow Mandela to be released he went on the win the Nobel Peace Prize, a echo of John Hume and David Trimble doing the same later for the similar peace established in Northern Ireland. Indeed  the Northern Ireland conflict was something he took an interest in and he helped leaders here to learn reconciliation towards each other.

After graduation I came the closest I ever came to the man in person. When I played for Surbiton Chess Club there was a man across the board from me at time with a South African accent. There was one week that he said he would not be available for the low rating league match that week. It was later that night when I got home from the chess match that I saw Donald Woods, who live is portrayed in the movie Cry Freedom greeting the then South African President.

I bought my first TV on the morning of the first match of the 1995 World Cup match, when I came home to watch the recording of the first match of course there was Mandela in that colourful shirt. For the final he was wearing a Springbok shirt, once a shirt of oppression of the black population of his nation, but by then embraced by the rainbow nation.

Of course I have also read his autobiography Long Walk to Freedom. And his walk was indeed long indeed he married his third wife Graça Machel aged 80 after his marriage to Winnie, who was famous for her support of him while he was incarcerated, had broken down. He died today aged 95 having enjoyed a family life denied him due to incarceration and then the political change and presidential period with her children and his own grandchildren and great grandchildren. But of course as with his own children, one daughter died at 9 months and his first born son at the age of 23, there was tragedy when one of them died returning from the opening of the 2010 World Cup died in a car crash returning to the Mandela compound.

It was a long walk for Madiba and now it has run its course.

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela OM AC CC OJ GCStJ QC GCH BR RSO NPK 18 July 1918 - 5 December 2013

The best YouTube reations to Tom Daley

After seeing some of my YouTube subscriptions respond to the Tom Daley news, some good and one extremely inappropriate I decided to see how else people responded to the news. Here are xxx of the best:



This is someone I hadn't come across but makes some really good points. Here is another person who gets the fact that currently the lack of label is down to the diversity of human attraction. Chris Thompson is someone that I do follow, and apart from his putting a label on Tom that he didn't put on himself this is a good comment about honesty in public forums.

Some thoughts on the Tom Daley reactions

So Tom Daley has admitted that he is dating a man. He has also said that he still fancies girls.


However, as a gay sportsman I cannot believe some of the comments I have seen online since Tom courageously told us this very personal news.

So some of the negative comments that are out there.

How will this affect him in the locker room? Hardly at all, there is already an openly gay man in international diving the 2008 Olympic Champion, Matthew Mitcham, so in his sport at the top level the rest of the guys already have no issue. Indeed this is an issue I addressed some 3 years ago.

Will it affect his training? No, well at least not in an adverse way. Being in a stable relationship, if that is what this is, is actually likely to enhance his training as he has some that will enable him to relax in his down time. Also the fact this he is being honest about himself means he doesn't have to worry about people disclosing details of his personal life before he is able to. So that is possibly one thing that he is now able to put behind him.

Why is he not naming his boyfriend is he ashamed of him? Actually no. As Tom says he likes to have some personal life. Just because someone is in the public eye doesn't mean that their partner either wants to be, or desires to be. Tom is the one in this relationship who is in the public eye, so we should respect the privacy that he is wanting for his partner. On the news earlier Tom was quite rightly called the pop star of British sport, he was on posters for London 2012 in nothing more than his speedo. Anyone either male or female would take some time adjusting to being the partner of that sort of public figure.

Tom Daley is gay! Actually no he hasn't said that. He said above that he still fancies girls but that the person he is currently dating is another man. Tom himself hasn't put a label on his sexuality and for all the bisexuals out there, as Tom says, it shouldn't really matter. He is in love with someone and that is all that is important, the gender of the other person in his eyes is not significant. He says he couldn't be happier and all of us who have like him had to make some sort of announcement about our own sexuality not being heterosexual we are happy for him too. Tom doesn't want any label other than that he is in a relationship.

He's just greedy! I sadly have seen this biphopic comment from a number of gay men. Tom is not greedy he is in a relationship with one person. Even if he was poly that wouldn't make him greedy, he would only be providing the amount of love that he felt he could give and receive the amount he was able to. Thirteen years ago, after I had come out, I fell in love. The individual in question just happened to be female. So I can fully understand that Tom has fallen in love with the person, I can also understand that he is in a relationship and still fancy people of the opposite gender to that partner, I've been there and worn the t-shirt. My partner at the time did not feel insecure about that, but it allowed us to have a lot of honest conversations. Tom is in a monogamous relationship, he is therefore not greedy and gay men (as invariably it is they) who say this are being biphopic and should think about how excluded they feel at times.

As for the way Tom made the announcement it was through his own YouTube channel. It was a way he has spoken to his fans who have followed him for years. It was there that he told us about Splash, recently shared his first experience of an American Football game. In other words it was where like many YouTubers you consider your subscribers as friends. Which is why at the time of writing Tom's "coming out" vlog has over 40,000 likes and only 650 dislikes. People who support Tom don't care.

Sports Personality of the Year: Announcement live blog #SPOTY

From 7pm this evening I will live blogging the BBC Sports personalities of the year as they are announced. However, after last years highs and trying to work out who would make the final 10 from the wealth of achievements this year it may be somewhat easier.

But who is likely to be in the list.

Well Wimbledon has a British gentlemen's singles champion so Andy Murray is bound to be there. Chris Froome won everything that last year's winner Bradley Wiggins did so expect him there too. Also from the world of cycling there is Becky James who rose from being the understudy for Victoria Pendleton to winning the World Championships in the sprint and keirin. AP McCoy has reached the landmark of 4000 national hunt winners and having been nominated numerous times in the past he is likely to feature again. There was success as the World Athletics Championships with Mo Farah repeating his Olympic golden double and Christine Ohuruogu setting the national record and one again showing she is a big stage competitor. Sir Ben Ainslie may not have brought the America's Cup back to Great Britain but he instrumental in the turnaround that saw Oracle Team USA retain the trophy when he came onboard as tactician. Max Whitlock was second in the all around European Gymnastics Championships and took silver in the Pommel at the worlds as well as being just off the podium in the all around missing out by 0.3 marks from a podium.

More to come from 7pm when we know who is actually there.

19:01 The first names to be announced are:

Sir Ben Ainslie: Sir Ben left behind his Olympic Career last year as a nominee in the 2012 SPOTY awards. He was initially only part of Team Oracle USA as the skipper of the test boat to race against the holders to gain race craft in the speedy catamarans that swept across San Francisco Bay. But from race 6 with the holders having lost five of the first six races he was brought into the crew as the new tactician. They lost the next two but were more competitive and then won two which because of a 2 point penalty meant they were only on 1 to the challengers 6 before Team New Zealand took another two wins, leaving them on the cusp of victory. But then in one of the greatest comebacks in sporting history 8 successive wins saw the team that Ben was now part of win the series.

Ian Bell: The England Cricketer scored centuries in the second innings of the first Ashes Test in the Summer and in the first innings of the second test. This made him only the fourth English batsman to score hundreds in 3 consecutive Ashes tests. He missed out on one in the thrid test but got another in the fourth. He was top scorer of the series with 582 and 75 fours in that number with an average of 62.44. None of the Australians managed more than one century

Hannah Cockcroft: Despite a brilliant Paralympics in 2012 Hannah didn't make the 12 strong short list for last year's SPOTYs. But in the World Paralympian Championships in Lyon she retained her T34 100m and 200m titles (the ones she had won in London 2012) from the 2011 Worlds. She has now gone double gold at the last three major championships at these distances as well as the holding the 100m world record (which she took in the Olympic Stadium and bettered later in 2012).

Mo Farah: How can someone follow two memorable Saturday nights in the Olympic Stadium in London. Well if your name is Mo Farah you do it by becoming only the second many in history to hold both the Olympic and World Championship double of 5000m and 10,000m. One other thing he also did this year was take away the 28 year old British 1500m record while the holder Steve Cram was commentating and a previous fastest Brit Seb Coe was watching.

Chris Froome: This year was the year for Chris Froome to emerge from the shadows of his team mate and last year's SPOTY winner Bradley Wiggins. He followed Brad as the winner of the Critérium du Dauphiné, Tour de Romandie, Tour de France, he also won the Critérium International in the year to match the Paris-Nice title that Wiggins also won last year. But a poor performance in the World Championships where not a single British cyclist finished may have knocked some of the lustre of his glorious emergence from the shadows. However, the winner of the 100th Tour de France did so with more individual flare than his predecessor winning on the road and having to defend his first day in yellow on his own.

19:23 and the rest are:

Leigh Halfpenny: The Welsh Full Back scared a try in the opening game defeat to Ireland. But was named man of the match in the six nations tests against France and Italy and with 40% of the international panels vote was name man of the tournament. He went on to the British Lions Tour of Australia where he appeared in all three tests. He scored 49 of the Lions 79, a record for a series and his 21 points in the third test is a record for a single Lions test. He was again named player of the series, but isn't solely looking for SPOTY glory he is also on the shortlist of 5 for IRB international player of the year.

AP McCoy: The jockey from Moneyglass is a previous SPOTY winner, in 2010 the year that he finally won his first Grand National. But that is only one race on the way to the record that he broke earlier this month. On 7 November he was saddled up in his retainer JP McManus's colours on Mountain Tunes at Weatherby it may have only been a novices hurdle race, but when the famous green and yellow colours crossed the line their jockey became the first national hunt jockey to record 4000 wins.

Andy Murray: His tennis year started at the Australian Open by making his third consequtive Grand Slam final recording his first Grand Slam win over Roger Federer in the semi-finals. But he lost to Novak Djokovic in the final to ominously tie Stefan Edberg's record of being three time runner up on the open era. But he is on the list for what he did in the grass court season, he was out with injury for the French Open but came back to win his third title at Queen's but it was at Wimbledon that he ended 83 years of waiting for a home grown men's singles champion that probably makes him favourite for this years award.

Christine Ohuruogu:While Mo Farah may have taken a 28 year old British record Christine went one further in the World Championships. Last year she only managed silver in the Olympics while trying to defend her title. But she came out strong this year and breaking 50 seconds outside of major championships. The record finally came in the World Final and the 49.41s with a dip for the line was enough to give her a second World Championship title some six years after her previous one a feat never before emulated by a British woman.

 

Justin Rose: Becoming the third US Open champion golfer to be nominated for SPOTY in four years. He is the first English player to win a golf major since 1996. But golfers have not been able to stir the SPOTY voters enough to win since 1989.