60 Years ago a Unionist spoke out for homosexuality in Westminster

At 4:44pm on this day 60 years ago the Unionist MP for North Belfast H. Montgomery Hyde rose to speak in the debate on the Homosexual Offences and Prostitution Report (aka the Wolfenden report). Unlike most NI Unionist contributions in the House of Commons since he was in favour of reform in this case the decriminalisation of homosexuality.

Here in full in what he said taken from the archives of Hansard HC Deb 26 November 1958 Cols 390-399.

I am very glad to have caught your eye, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, because when I tried to raise this question last Session, by way of a private Member's
Motion, I succeeded in speaking for only the last minute of the day. I am glad that I have a little longer this afternoon.

At the outset, I would like to join my right hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Rossendale (Mr. Anthony Greenwood) in paying a warm tribute to Sir John Wolfenden and the other members of his Committee—including two Members of this House—for the frank, outspoken, carefully considered and humanitarian document which they have produced. It is a courageous document, which would have been impossible to write not so long ago. We should also remember that this document was motivated by the action of the hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. Donnelly), who originally raised the question of homosexuality in an Adjournment debate in April, 1954, and was supported by the then hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, East, the present Lord Boothby.

The Report is concerned with possible changes in the criminal law. It is not concerned with causes, biological or otherwise, of manifestations of sexual behaviour; it is concerned merely with the criminal law as it affects them today. It is worth while remembering that the Report took three years to produce and, incidentally, cost over £8,000. Nearly 200 witnesses gave evidence, either orally or in writing, including such members of the community as the police, schoolmasters, social workers, magistrates, doctors, psychiatrists, lawyers and others, including homosexuals, but—and this is an interesting point—not one prostitute. The Report was signed in August of last year and was published in the following month, so that the public have had over a year to think about it before it has come here for discussion.

The most controversial proposal in the Report, and the one which has understandably provoked the most discussion, is that embodied in paragraph 62, which recommends that homosexual behaviour between consenting adults in private should no longer be a criminal offence. To some extent this proposal has tended to obscure the other proposals, set out on pages 115 to 117. I would mention particularly the proposal that, except for indecent assaults, all prosecutions for any homosexual offence more than twelve months old should be barred by Statute. In the field of prostitution, too, I see that
there is the proposal, about which we have heard something this afternoon, that it should no longer be necessary to establish annoyance in prosecutions for solicitation.

Whether or not one agrees with these proposals it will be generally conceded by everyone who has read the Report that it is a social document of the highest importance. There are 30 main recommendations in the Report. I do not propose to go through them, but I want to draw attention to the basic philosophy which underlies the Report and which has clearly influenced all these recommendations. It is expressed in paragraphs 13 and 14, where the function of the criminal law is indicated to the extent that it concerns the Committee's inquiry. It is one of the few quotations that I should like to make this afternoon.

Towards the end of paragraph 13 the Committee says, with regard to the function of the criminal law: In this field, its function, as we see it is to preserve public order and decency, to protect the citizen from what is offensive or injurious, and to provide sufficient safeguards against exploitation and corruption of others, particularly those who are specially vulnerable because they are young, weak in body or mind, inexperienced, or in a state of special physical, official or economic dependence.

14. It is not, in our view, the function of the law to intervene in the private lives of citizens, or to seek to enforce any particular pattern or behaviour, further than is necessary to carry out the purposes we have outlined. It follows that we do not believe it to be a function of the law to attempt to cover all the fields of sexual behaviour. Certain forms of sexual behaviour are regarded by many as sinful, morally wrong, or objectionable for reasons of conscience, or of religious or cultural tradition; and such actions may be reprobated on these grounds. But the criminal law does not cover all such actions at the present time; for instance, adultery and fornication are not offences for which a person can be punished by the criminal law. Nor indeed is prostitution as such. Nor, I may add, is lesbianism or homosexual conduct between females, and here, indeed, is an anomaly. If homosexual conduct between consenting adults in private is to continue to be an offence, is homosexual conduct between consenting female adults in private also to continue not to be an offence?

Coming back to the basic philosophy expressed in these two paragraphs, a clear distinction is drawn between crime and
sin. In other words, it is argued that the acts of two people committed together should not come within the purview of the criminal law unless it can be shown these acts are harmful to a third party.

There are two further conceptions brought out in the Report, and I think that they are of the highest importance, namely, that minors must be protected and public decency must not be affronted. If we can accept those propositions—and I for one think that we can—then the way is open to accepting most if not all of the Committee's recommendations or a; least approaching them in a spirit of sympathy.

I think that we must consider, too, how far the State is justified in punishing the sinful but not necessarily socially harmful acts of two private individuals and whether the result of interference with private life and human liberty does not bring about mare evils than it sets out to prevent.

In the matter of homosexual behaviour between consenting adults in private the evidence is almost invariably obtained by one or other of the parties turning what is called Queen's evidence and in consideration for not being himself prosecuted giving evidence against his partner. It may be considered as somewhat objectionable that in these circumstances a conviction should depend upon the evidence of an accomplice.

We have also heard something this afternoon about blackmail. I would only support what has already been said particularly by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Rossendale. In this connection, I should like to quote a letter which I received two or three days ago from a homosexual when he heard that this subject was being debated in the House this afternoon.

This is a man who was a consenting adult. He was convicted some years ago on the evidence of his accomplice for an act committed in private and he received and underwent a sentence of imprisonment. On his release from prison he got a job as a clerk in a solicitor's office. He held that job for two or three years and then someone wrote to his employers, sending a cutting of the trial at which he was convicted, and the result was that he lost his job. This is what he wrote to me: 
I don't wish to pretend I'm good—but I am like many of the homosexuals, cursed with the thing from the beginning. God in heaven only knows the fights I have put up against it—and I'm sure I'm one of many—and have lost each time. It seems so utterly ridiculous for two men, who wish to live together in their own home, to be classed as criminals and 'sex maniacs.' I know men and women who have committed far, far worse acts than homosexuals look upon us as worse than if we were murderers. I do so want to try and make you people look upon this coming debate with kindness and sympathetic consideration and think 'There but for the grace of God go I.' It is all right for people to condemn us so much, but they have no idea of the life of fear and dread we live all the time, in case our friends find out or we are caught. I know I did, and I know the hell I lived in when the police came to me, and I'm still living in hell now! You seem to be 'cut off' from everything, and can get no employment. Just because I was cursed with the homosexual trait, I was no more able to get rid of it than a man could get rid of cancer. It's in you from birth—I feel sure of that. I have studied so many cases and men I have met. When you understand, you feel terribly sorry. I do not think, having read a letter of that kind, that there is anyone who cannot feel the same spirit of sympathy.

I confess to a little disappointment that no specific course has been taken, except purely negative, in regard to paragraph 62 of the Report. We have heard and it was said in another place by the noble Lord the Lord Chancellor, when the subject was debated there, that Her Majesty's Government did not think that the time was opportune for legislation now and there could be no prospect of early legislation on the subject.

Of course, it can be argued that if there is a need to appoint a committee, the whole point of such a committee is that, common opinions on the subject, commonly expressed and canvassed, are often ill-informed and heavily biased by natural repugnance and preconceived moral judgments, and proposals for any change in the law should be based not on popular prejudices, but on accurate information and unbiased consideration of the views of those persons and bodies whose work has brought them into touch with the moral and social issues concerned—in other words, of people who knew what they were talking about. This is what, I think, we have in the Report.

One argument used by the Home Secretary this afternoon which impressed me was that, if there were no change in the law regarding consenting adults, it 
would make the weak or weaker-minded individual less likely than if there were a change to be drawn into the homosexual group because the sanction of the criminal law remains. I would have thought—it is purely my own personal opinion—that, in fact, the continuance of this outmoded piece of legislation makes it more likely for such an individual to be drawn into such a group. When Oscar Wilde was sitting in Reading gaol and meditating on the trouble that brought him there, he wrote in "De Profundis", in regard to his conduct, that it was like "feasting with panthers—the danger was half the excitement."

I believe that when this reform comes, as undoubtedly it will come, the removal of the sanction of the criminal law will make the possibility of corruption less likely than more likely. So far as public opinion is concerned, it seems to be fairly evenly divided. When the Report was published, 14 months ago, public reactions were less violent than they would have been not so very many years ago. In the Press there were seven national newspapers, with a total combined readership estimated at about 61 per cent. of the population above the age of 16, which gave on the whole a favourable verdict. There were two exceptions, with a combined readership of just under 30 per cent. of the population, which were loud in their condemnation.

Perhaps a better clue can be provided by the public opinion polls. While a clear majority of those polls were for driving the prostitutes off the streets, rather more than half gave an opinion against the recommendations on homosexuality as they affected consenting adults; but it was not a great majority, only a little more than 50 per cent. What is remarkable is that so many people should have declared themselves in favour of the main change proposed, and the opponents would not appear to be anything like so considerable in numbers as may have been supposed from reading the two newspapers to which I have referred.

The comparative amount of favourable opinion has undoubtedly been guided, as has been brought out today already, to some extent by the outspoken views of the leading Churches, by the Church of England and the Roman
Catholic Church. I think that that is important. Specifically, these views have been expressed by the two Archbishops, the Church Assembly, the Church of England Moral Welfare Council, and by a Roman Catholic committee, as well as many leading spokesmen of the Free Churches. The Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church have united to say this: It is not the business of the State to interfere in the purely private sphere but to act as the defender of the common good. To conclude what I have to say on this part of the Report I should like to emphasise the fact that three popular fallacies have been exposed by the Report. The first one is that male homosexuality always involves sodomy. In fact, that is far from being so, and the misconception which has arisen is largely due to over-reliance on court cases. Homosexuals who come up in court are not typical, as, indeed, the Report points out. On the contrary, the evidence shows that the great majority of homosexuals merely indulge in an affectionate relationship, conduct which was not criminal in this country before 1885 and which is not criminal in most Continental countries today.

The second fallacy is that homosexuals are necessarily effeminate in appearance and behaviour and can easily be picked out. This, of course, has been disproved over and over again, particularly by the records of some of them in the last war.

The third fallacy is that most cases which come before the courts are of practising male homosexuals in private. The evidence again disproves this. There are two instructive tables in the Report, Tables II and VI. Table II makes it clear that the average number of persons against whom proceedings were taken in respect of homosexual offences in the past three years is between 2,400 and 2,500, and Table VI makes it clear that those who were convicted of offences committed in private with consenting adults numbered only 300 over the last three years. So that, in fact, only about one in eight of those prosecuted for homosexual offences come within this latter category. In other words, the considerable majority now penalised for homosexual offences would continue to be so
penalised if the main proposal of the Committee became law.

I come back to the importance of appreciating this point since the Report places great emphasis, as it rightly should, on the protection of minors, and, indeed, in one instance, which I do not think has been mentioned today, it actually proposes to increase the penalty for this type of sexual offence, in paragraph 91, where it is proposed that for an offence between an adult and a juvenile aged from 16 to 21, in circumstances not amounting to indecent assault, the maximum penalty should be raised from two years' imprisonment to five years'.

When Oscar Wilde came out of prison arid published "The Ballad of Reading Gaol", George Ives, the criminologist and historian of our criminal law, wrote congratulating him on his poem and expressing the view that the law on homosexual offences should be amended. Wilde replied in these words: Yes. I have no doubt we shall win. But the road is long, and red with monstrous martyrdoms. Nothing but the repeal of the Criminal Law Amendment Act would do any goad. That is essential. It is not so much public opinion, as public official, that need educating. I venture to think that those words are as true today as they were when they were written sixty years ago.

Now I want to say just a word or two on Part Three of the Report. Like the homosexual, the prostitute is an outcast in modern society, but with this important difference: she is not a criminal. What the Wolfenden Committee has done is, first, to acknowledge that prostitution is as old as civilisation, and, secondly, to advise that its conduct should be confined to strict privacy. In other words, the Committee accepts the fact that no change in the law, however severe, is likely to abolish prostitution. What can, however, be abolished, or at least mitigated, is the nuisance of public soliciting.

I quoted a letter from a homosexual. Let me quote a letter from a prostitute. It reads as follows: Why do you trouble yourself with long letters'? I want 50 gold pieces but no letters. If, therefore, you love me, pay up; but if you love your money more, then you needn't bother me any more. Goodbye. That was not written yesterday, but 2,500 years ago. It is one of the more interesting but less edifying fragments of Greek literature of that period which has come down to us.

The Report makes two recommendations that the requirement of annoyance be eliminated, and an increased range of penalties for soliciting. Personally, I agree with the hon. Member for Rossendale. I feel very uneasy about the annoyance proposal. As he has very rightly pointed out, it was proposed to drop this requirement at the time of the debates in this House on the Criminal Law Amendment Act in 1885, and it was not proceeded with for the reasons which have been adduced by the hon. Gentleman.

To drop this requirement would, in my opinion, put great powers in the hands of the police, which could be abused, and if it is incorporated in new legislation it could mean that any woman walking up and down Bond Street and looking into the shop windows could be picked up at the whim of a police officer and charged with soliciting. I do not suggest that that is likely to happen very often, but the possibility would be there, and the tendency also to encourage corruption among the police.

I think that we should remember the words of John Stuart Mill when giving evidence before the Royal Commission on the Contagious Diseases Acts, which regulated the activities of prostitutes for a time in the third quarter of the last century and which were later shown to have been abused and were repealed. He said: When power is given which may easily be abused, we ought always to assume that it will he abused, and although it is possible that great precautions will he taken at first, those precautions are likely to be relaxed in time. We should think very carefully before this requirement is allowed to go.

As for new penalties or range of penalties, I think that to increase the fines is reasonable having regard to the changed value of money since the penalties were originally introduced, but again I am very doubtful of the wisdom of giving magistrates powers to pass up to three months' imprisonment for third and subsequent offences. I am doubtful of the efficacy of imprisonment as a remedy for prostitution.

There is also the proposed power that magistrates should be able to remand in custody for a maximum of three weeks a prostitute for social and medical reports. I think that that must be watched very carefully as well. If that proposal is to be put into effect, a prostitute should certainly not be remanded to a prison at all, but to a properly constituted remand centre.

I have spoken long enough already, and I shall say nothing about the other proposals, the very impressive proposals, about premises and living on immoral earnings, which I support. We should remember that in our understandable anxiety to clean up the streets there is a danger that when prostitutes are driven off the streets the process may lead to vice being organised on a more alarming scale. I need not remind the House of the "call-girl" racket, which has developed to such an extent in New York and other North American cities. Nevertheless, I think that the Wolfenden Committee has tried to grapple with this problem of prostitution, which I think we all recognise, especially since some of the streets in our own capital city and some of our provincial cities really are a national disgrace and, to my knowledge, deeply shock foreign visitors who come to our shores.

My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary spoke, as I was very pleased to hear him speak, about his distinguished great aunt, Josephine Butler, who did so much to reclaim women from the streets, and who said: The law shall be equal for all whether it protect or punish. If the Wolfenden Report has done nothing else, it has at least shown that in respect of two members of the community, namely, the male homosexual and the female prostitute, Josephine Butler's dictum still leaves much to be desired.

There is a plain duty cast upon Her Majesty's Government and upon the House by the Wolfenden Report to make an honest attempt to put these grave matters right.

The Sad Ballad of Marine One and Rain #TrumpRain

Once upon a time, not so long ago, Marine One was able to fly through wind and rain.

It wasn't even a Democrat plot even Republican CinCs did it.

Age was also no barrier as the eldest President ever managed rain on Marine One.

But in this day and age, even with a visit to a World War One cemetery at stake, health and security makes this no longer possible...

...hang on isn't that Trump, Marine One and rain?



As five of my relatives' bodies were never recovered from the mud that was France and Flanders in World War I, I consider this excuse for not attending a war cemetery disrespectful to all the war dead, of all nations who fought in World War I. Their names alone are on walls around the battlefields. WE WILL REMEMBER THEM

We Will Remember Them: Edward Launders d. 7 Nov 1918

LAUNDERS EDWARD
United Kingdom Signaller Royal Field Artillery "D" Bty. 162nd Bde. Age: 20 Date of Death: 07/11/1918 Service No: 262577 A.3.

In four days time well be remember all those who fell in both World Wars as we mark the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918 when the Armistice was signed and First World War came to an end. It is possible that in one house in Yorkshire that celebration was the same as the rest of the nation, looking forward to the time that they would see their elder surviving son once again. But is it likely they within days their celebrations we cut shot when the fearful letter came through the door. Like many families while others were celebrating the end of war, they were coming to terms with the fact that their son was so close to seeing the end of the war, only to be cut down. He is the last of those from my family tree that I shall be looking at in this series.

Edward Launders is related though the following connections. His father's sister had married a Jones in Yorkshire. One of the nephews of that aunt was a Prisoner of War in the conflict who was later to marry my great aunt (a lady I was never to meet she dying six years before I was born. That relationship (as with the others I have written about in this series) is graphically shown (right).

Edward was born in Grimesthorpe, Sheffield, Yorkshire in early 1898, to John Thomas Launders and Bessie Cripps. On the 1911 census when he was just 13 he was an apprentice moulder at one of the Iron works in the city. His father on the 1901 census was recorded as a furnace man at steel works, but by 1911 appears to be either a lincekeeper (or maybe timekeeper).  Along with his four sisters (two elder and two younger) and infant brother who at one two would be too young to be involved in the war.

He joined the Royal Field Artillery and was a signalman with the. He would have been involved in the last offensive of his unit the Battle of the Selle, which he returned from, they were relieved by the 38th Welsh Division on the night of the 26th October 1918 after capturing Englefontaine. They spent a period of rest at Troisvilles before re-entering the line on 5 November advancing through Forêt de Mormal. On the 7th November they were on a line east of the Avesnes-Maubeuge road. But one of the victims in achieving this goal was Edward who fell on that day. That evening his Division was relieved again by the Welsh and retired to Sambre valley near Leval. His division never saw active duty again before the Armistice therefore making him one of their last fatalities.

His name is amongst those residents of Grimesthorpe that was listed on the memorial that used to hang in St Thomas' Church, Holywell Street in the town (see above).


Signaller Edward Launders
Born Jan 1898 Grimesthorpe, Sheffield, Yorkshire
Died 7 November 1918 between Maubeuge and Avesnes-sur-Helpe, France

We will remember him.

The real toll of the battle for LGBT+ recognition in Northern Ireland

It has been a tough few days for me at the end of the week. When the UK Supreme Court ruling was made, on International Day for Mental Health Awareness of all days, it was tough mentally to go along with the tough time I've been having physically returning to work after a long time off with sciatica.

It wasn't so much the fact that this time the opinion went in the favour of the McArthur family who run Ashers it was the comments, "celebrations", attack on the Equality Commission and everything else. What was worse is that many of the arguments were being retrod from the 5th or even 6th time since the event.

Now with a court decision in their favour those opposed to LGBT+ equality or even recognition and dignity for LGBT+ people were speaking as if nothing was ever wrong.

The same arguments that Ashers shop on the main shopping street of Belfast had been targeted, when it was merely convenient. That the appellant was only out for money, he wasn't indeed he was shocked to be awarded £500 in the original case, he only wanted the law to be clarified. That somehow promoting LGBT+ Equality is equated with messages of outright hate and should all be lumped up together is one of the hardest hitting.


You see many of us in Northern Ireland have been facing arguments that we are attacking religious freedom, despite many of us coming from a position of faith ourselves. Indeed Marriage Equality legislation and policy formation has consistently recognised that not all faith groups have the same opinion. Indeed we have always ensured that faith groups need freedom under Equal Marriage legislation to take their own positions, nothing should be imposed on them. However, certain faith groups don't envision this and even want to overstep into the civil marriage sphere over which they should have no control.

So when you see LGBT+ people in Northern Ireland showing despair with the interventions of Peter Tatchell it is because his comments gave powder to the Theocrats in Northern Ireland. Sadly although Northern Ireland poses as a democracy, despite the largest party being called the Democratic Unionist Party what we face and they are, are actually Theocrats. God's law by their narrow interpretation has to have authority over everyone else.

Not all Christian politicians take this view Alliance leader Naomi Long and her predecessor David Ford are two prime examples who face attacks from Christians and criticism from LGBT+ people in equal measure. They are an example along with other that having a faith doesn't mean attacking LGBT+ people and that faith and being LGBT+ are not exclusive sets, there is a subset of both.


So faith groups, publications and individuals rejoicing this week has a hard impact on those of us from the LGBT+ community, whether of faith or not, who try to accommodate them.


A bit late in the week but I wasn't in a good place to wish everyone good mental health earlier in the week, But stay strong people others are always there for you to turn to and you know who they are even in your darkest times.

How LGBT+ Servers Should React to the Supreme Court Ruling

So today I read that the photography company that the Christian Institute hired to record their appearance outside the Supreme Court hearing, returned their money £267 and said it was against their morals to complete the job.

Now this may be a good thing to do on the day that the Christian Institute think they have started the fight back against LGBT+ equality but I think it should be the last time we do this to the homophobes and anti-LGBT+ individuals who come to us for service. Here is why.

Most normal people are well aware of how many LGBT+ people are employed the in service sectors. They wait your tables, serve you in a variety of stores, look after you in hospitals and hotels etc. The same applies in Belfast as it does in Manchester. Those of us who work in the service sector are not deaf, we hear conversations our customers have while they wait for our service, or even while we are serving them. Some of those comments are homophobic, transphobic or otherwise anti-LGBT+.

What I am suggesting is this, we say:

"I am L,G,B, T or whatever, so I disagree with your point of view. However, I am here to give you the best and most fabulous service you have ever experienced. If you are not comfortable with me an L,G,B,T or whatever person serving you, you can find another place that doesn't have LGBT+ people employed because all my colleagues here have my back as will those in other establishments who employ people on their ability to provide customer service and not on their sexuality or gender identity.

"Now, how can I be of service?"

It was just like with drafting equal marriage policy and legislation itself. Those of us who had any part in that have always respected all faith groups rights to come to their own view, some are in favour, some vehemently opposed and others are discussing where they should stand and opinions will invariably change with time. It is sad that in some faith groups the same respect for the views of others has not been reciprocated. This is another case of that.

However, to quote Michelle Obama "When they go low, we go high." That is the guiding principle on why I as someone in the service industry think this will have more impact.


Go on then folks, and continue to be fabulous.

Personal Statement is response to Theresa May's Statement

The Prime Minister has just spoken in Downing Street about the status of Brexit after the Salzburg meeting of the EU leaders last night.

This is my personal response and not in connection with my party positions or memberships.

The Prime Minister has continues to ignore the will of the people of Northern Ireland and just now also seems unaware of how the best interests of Northern Ireland people and business can be resolved. She has once again spouted the DUP rhetoric which is the minority opinion both at the time of the referendum and since.


As a result in my opinion Her Majesty's Government does have the concerns of the people of NI to the forefront of their thinking and are listening to a section of little England and not the reality of what her hard Brexit will bring about.

In my opinion now is the time for a poll on the status of Northern Ireland. I call on the Secretary of State to call a poll on the constitution position as set out in the Belfast Agreement before March 2019.

The Ballad of Alexander and Ruslan (Let's Do It)

With apologies to the late, great Victoria Wood.

Alex and Ruslan sat one night.
The sky was clear. The stars were bright.
     The wind was soft. The moon was up.
     Alex drained his vodka cup
He licked his lips. He felt sublime.
He switched off Dacha Gardening Time.
     Ruslan cringed in fear and dread
     As Freda grabbed his tie, and said:

               Let's do it!
               Let's do it,
          Do it while the mood is right!
                    I'm feeling
                    Exploring.
          I've really got an appetite.
          I'm on fire
          With desire.
         To see Salisbury's Cathedral's great big spire.
               Let's do it!
               Let's do it tonight!

     But he said:
               I can't do it.
               I can't do it.
          I believe the weather's just not right.
                    This winter
                    It's sinister
          Turns out it might snow tonight.
          No timetable!
          I'm unstable
          I'd rather watch US Apprentice on the television.
               I can't do it.
               I can't do it tonight.

     So he said:
               Let's do it!
               Let's do it,
          Get the train out there an boom!
                    Old Sarum,
                    Take care, um,
          Don't on any ice go zoom.
          This folly
          Is jolly.
          We not crash the plane like Buddy Holly.
               Let's do it!
               Let's do it tonight!

     But he said:
               I can't do it.
               I can't do it.
          We haven't got the time of trains.
                    I'm older,
                    Feel colder.
          If not snow what happens if it rains.
         Your exploring:
          Get's boring.
          Russians in Salisbury will be left snoring.
               I can't do it.
               I can't do it tonight.

     So he said:
               Let's do it!
               Let's do it,
          Go and take some Novichuk!
                    On some door.
                    We'll ignore
          That's Russians live there bad luck.
          Don't spray it
          Why delay
          Vlad will always find a way to deny it.
               Let's do it!
               Let's do it tonight!

     But he said:
               I can't do it.
               I can't do it.
          I know I'd only get it wrong.
                    Drop bottle
                    Full throttle.
          Someone innocent will come along.
          Stop pressing.
         No messing.
          They might die as well and it'll turn depressing.
               I can't do it.
               I can't do it tonight.

               Let's do it!
               Let's do it,
          Book to nights in London town,
                    Frenetic,
                    Poetic!
          See the sights and lose your frown
          To quote Lenin,
          On bed linen,
          To roll in gay abandon thinking its the London Hilton.
               Let's do it!
               Let's do it tonight!

               I can't do it.
               I can't do it.
          A two day trip would just look strange.
                    Train travel
                    Will unravel.
          Why didn't we just prearrange?
          We journeyed.
          Too hurried.
          You know as well as I do snow is only flurried.
               I can't do it.
               I can't do it tonight.

               Let's do it!
               Let's do it
          While I'm really GRU!
                    Dusputin'
                    Our Putin
          Writen tourist tale will ring so true.
          Live dreams
          New scenes
          Wear your baseball cap with your skinny jeans.
               Let's do it!
               Let's do it tonight!

               I can't do it.
               I can't do it.
          I must refuse under duress
                    I feel silly.
                    It's too chilly
          To go without me thermal vest.
          Don't choose me.
          Don't use me.
          Donald Trump sent a note to say you must excuse me.
               I can't do it.
               I can't do it tonight.

               Let's do it!
               Let's do it!
          I feel I absolutely must.
                    I won't exempt you,
                    Want to tempt you,
          Want to drive you to Stonehenge.
          No cautions,
          Just standing stones!
          Then buy some soup with those little croutons.
               Let's do it!
               Let's do it tonight!

               I can't do it.
               I can't do it.
          It's really not my cup of tea.
                    I'm harassed,
                    Embarrassed.
          I wish you hadn't picked on me.
          No worries!
          Why hurry.
          The only girl I'm mad about's Edwina Currie.
               I can't do it.
               I can't do it tonight.

               Let's do it!
               Let's do it!
          I already have the Novichuk.
                    Let's flyover.
                    Wear pullover.
          We might even get some Blackpool rock.
          Be mighty.
          Not flighty.
          Do it for the good of the people's party.
               Let's do it!
               Let's do it tonight!

               Let's do it!
               Let's do it!
          I really want to feel so brave.
                    Let's go,
                    'Cause I know
          To lose the beard you can just have:
          Not delay,
          What ya say?
          Then we'll slap the "truth" on Russia Today.
               Let's do it!
               Let's do it tonight!.

Brexit Secretary Fails Northern Ireland #PeoplesVote

Brexit Secretary Dominic Rabb has told Northern Ireland businesses that trade across the border that in the event of "no deal" they should "speak to Dublin".

So it appears that individual businesses many of them small and medium sized businesses are going to have to make deals with our nearest EU neighbour. This is a dereliction of duty on behave of Her Majesties Government, it is throwing Northern Ireland and the many hard working entrepreneurs who have flourished since the Good Friday Agreement under the bus. The agri-food industry in particular will be lacking their EU supplements, some in this industry operate on both sides of the border already. But Westminster says talk to Dublin yourself.

This latest announcement about Northern Ireland shows a lack of concern from Westminster for Northern Ireland, for the successes that have come out of the Good Friday Agreement and the state of the Union itself. If we are being advised by London to speak to Dublin is this just code for go and join them?

I wonder what the DUP think of their partners telling Northern Ireland business to be prepared to speak to Dublin about the state of their business, jobs and production from next March?


Theresa May's government continues to show it is failing to understand the nature of Brexit, the damage it is heading towards and this is especially true of Northern. Everyone who is seeing this should now know that is it time to demand a Peoples Vote before this gets out of hand.

What We Really Deserve to be Better #WeDeserveBetter

On Monday I did make some comments on social media about the decision of the We Deserve Better campaign in Belfast disinviting Elaine Crory and John O'Doherty to speak at the end planned for 28th August.

For readers not in Northern Ireland Elaine works for the Belfast Feminist Network and Alliance for Choice, John for the Rainbow Project and Love Equality NI. Therefore the views of a leading feminist arguing for women's reproductive rights and a leading LGBT+ and equal marriage advocate were silenced.

I have taken some time to read through the threads on the We Deserve Better Campaign since Monday to get an idea of why some there have called the inclusion of these speakers "devisive" and feel that such "agendas" should not share the platform next week outside Belfast City Hall.

Firstly from what I have read the aim of the We Deserve Better campaign is simply to have a working Assembly up at Stormont. I agree with that as an aim. We need Ministers able to make policy, budget decisions and MLAs to vote on those decisions. On the face of it this is a noble aim.

The problem is and this is something that the withdrawal of these two speakers has brought to the fore. Health, Education, Infrastructure etc will all be and all have been up and running when we have had an Assembly in the past, even in the gaps when we haven't previously Westminster usually stepped in. On this occasion Westminster has refused to do anything, to make any decision on our behalf, this may or may not have anything to do with the largest party at the last Assembly Elections shortly thereafter entering an arrangement with the Governing party in Westminster to support then on key votes to do with Brexit.


We have not been told the details of that agreement but the inertia that has persisted in Northern Ireland may be as a result of the Prime Minister having to rely on DUP votes to get things done in London leading to a refusal to do anything to change anything in Northern Ireland.

However, the key is to have a working Assembly. The issue that the LGBT+ community and feminists in Northern Ireland have is that simply restoring the Assembly without some sort of reform does not make things better. The people who are part of We Deserve Better seem to think that simply getting the elected MLAs back into their seats in the chamber will allow them to make the decisions that can affect change on LGBT+ and women's issues.

Unfortunately both these groups are well aware of the short comings of the Assembly and have been for years. They have been shouting that we need better from Stormont. They have recognised that their views have for too long been able to be silenced, or debated but effectively stunted by one party using the mechanisms that can even turn a majority vote into a continuation of the status quo. This is the reason that there was anger on Monday when the announcement came about the withdrawal of these two speakers.

The LGBT+ and women's groups are used to and angry about continually being silenced, ignored, sidelined. They are continually used to hearing debates about their rights becoming a slanging match on TV or Radio often more of a hot potato than sectarian issues. They have been shouting for better for years. I have lost count of the number of times we have gathered at City Hall to demand better from our MLAs. We are the forerunners of calling for better governance of Northern Ireland, where minority rights can be trumped by a sectarian head count when those issues have always transcended the traditional sectarian divide.


We the ignored and sidelined minorities of Northern Ireland deserve better. Simply a resumption of the Assembly is not going to achieve that for everyone and therefore the "We" in We Deserve Better in not all inclusive. We appreciate that there are parties in the Assembly who do recognise that there is need for reform. We recognise that not all of the politicians in Stormont are the same. We know that there are some who are fighting for change that will make it easier to make things better.


Maybe this lack of government for all will help to highlight to others how their government which provided things for them when it sat, needs to do better for those of us whose rights are ignored and not advanced in line with the rest of the UK and Ireland, even when we have an Assembly.

We will remember them: Oswald Cawley 22 August 1918

In addition to remembering my family members who died in the Great War, as this is a political blog I shall also be looking at the men who while still Members of Parliament signed up for the war and paid the ultimate sacrifice.

The first in this series is The Hon. Oswald Cawley. He was the fourth and youngest son of Frederick Cawley who in January of 1918 had been elevated to the house of Lords as 1st Baron Cawley after serving as MP for Prestwich since 1895 and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancashire from 1916-18.

His youngest son Oswald had stood as a Liberal in the by election to succeed his father.

The Wisdom of David Davis

In light of the Brexit Secretary's resignation this evening here are his sage words about referendums.

There is a proper role for referendums in constitutional change, but only if done properly. If it is not done properly, it can be a dangerous tool. The Chairman of the Public Administration Committee, who is no longer in the Chamber, said that Clement Attlee—who is, I think, one of the Deputy Prime Minister's heroes—famously described the referendum as the device of demagogues and dictators. We may not always go as far as he did, but what is certain is that pre-legislative referendums of the type the Deputy Prime Minister is proposing are the worst type of all.

Referendums should be held when the electorate are in the best possible position to make a judgment. They should be held when people can view all the arguments for and against and when those arguments have been rigorously tested. In short, referendums should be held when people know exactly what they are getting. So legislation should be debated by Members of Parliament on the Floor of the House, and then put to the electorate for the voters to judge.

We should not ask people to vote on a blank sheet of paper and tell them to trust us to fill in the details afterwards. For referendums to be fair and compatible with our parliamentary process, we need the electors to be as well informed as possible and to know exactly what they are voting for. Referendums need to be treated as an addition to the parliamentary process, not as a substitute for it. 

House of Commons Debates (Hansard), 26 November 2002, column 201


I'm guessing he now knows what he is getting and is voting no. What about the rest of us?

The Fall and Rise of Wendy Milne: Labour PPC for Linlithgow and East Falkirk

It has just been announced via Twitter that Wendy Milne has been selected as the new Prospective Parliamentary Candidate in my old stomping ground of Linlithgow and East Falkirk.

Voters who had the chance to vote for me in 2005 and 2010 or have moved there or turned 18 since then might like to know the background of their new Labour candidate.

In 1990 Wendy Milne was one of those purged from the Labour party as part of Kinnock clearing out Militant.

In 2001 she went on to stand as the Scottish Socialist candidate in Livingston against Robin Cook claiming he was too "right wing" for the people of Livingston. Only 1,110 people agreed with her, 19,108 returned Robin as their MP for what was to be his last full term.

We live in interesting times if in the other half of West Lothian and parts of Falkirk Wendy is now back in the bosom of the Labour Party as their officially recognised candidate.

Dear Arlene Foster, This is Why you Need to Apologise

My current Face profile pic contains the words "I am Repugnant". It was a word a DUP MLA used 6 years ago to describe all involved in Pride.

He is a person I have meet in social and political contexts before and after he was aware of my sexuality. Last night Arlene Foster said that nobody is defined by their sexuality. During the break on the first debate on Marriage Equality in Stormont I was in the queue behind that MLA in the canteen. I greeted him, he turned around recognised me and then noticed the LGBT+ Lib Dem badge on my label.

His response was "Oh, you're one of them" and he turned on his heel. Until now I have not let the BBC journalist who was present 2 metres away use that story.

Today I feel it needs to be told. Jim Wells attitude towards me from the times we meet before he knew my sexuality and after has been markedly different. This is the personal face of the institutional homophobia that the DUP's elected reps present. Many of them block anyone who asks about LGBT+ issues on social media. Many refuse to answer any enquiry we ask as their constituents after we have raised an LGBT+ issue previously.

Arlene Foster has also said there is no need for her to apologise. Sorry Arlene, while many of us have always been respectful to our elected representatives from your party, being nothing but courteous in how we address them, they have blocked, ignored and shunned us in person. I have experienced this face to face on a number of occasions from Mr Wells and others.

THAT IS WHY the LGBT+ community in Northern Ireland NEED AN APOLOGY from the DUP LEADER. The ball is in Arlene's court.