Lord's Reform and equal marriage: A reminder for the Conservatives

Whilst I was trying to be connected to the Inside Politics studio at BBC Radio Ulster I heard the chair of the Northern Ireland Conservative Party, Irwin Armstrong, say that nobody wants Lord's reform. It was a sentiment also expressed by Nadine Dorries MP on ConservativeHome earlier today.

May I just refer them and all other members of the Conservative party who think like that to page 67 of the Conservative Party Manifesto in 2010.b Where it says:

"We will work to build a consensus for a mainly-elected second chamber to replace the current House of Lords, recognising that an efficient and effective second chamber should play an important role in our democracy and requires both legitimacy and public confidence."

So you see this isn't a matter of the coalition agreement, this was in both parties' manifestos, as well as that of Labour. If Tories are calling this back they are calling back their own manifesto pledge.

Then there is the issue of equal marriage again raised by both Mr Armstrong and Ms Dorries. In the Conservative's Contract for Equality published on the Monday of election week in 2010 it said:

"We will ... consider the case for changing the law to allow civil partnerships to be called and classified as marriage."

So again though not in their manifesto, although in a last ditch addition, it was something that the current Home Secretary signed off on and spoke highly off in the campaign. Irwin Armstrong may not have seen a need to change the word to marriage, but his Home Secretary does, the reason is equality.

Equality because people out there don't see Civil Partnerships as legal. Guesthouse landlords think they can turn away legally partnered couples because they are not 'married'. There is a difference which unfortunately homophobes will continue to attack so long as the language is different. Labour failed to make things totally equal, even though the rights are there, because they failed to deal with people's prejudices by creating room for another one.

I'd just like to thank Mark Devenport and his production team for trying to get me on to the show this afternoon to put the Lib Dem point of view against the Labour and Conservative ones. Sadly timing and technical issues made this not possible today.

Response from the office of Mark Garnier regarding wreath laying

Further to my response to the Conservative Home post by Tim Montgomerie, "Please tell us that Conservatives don't do this", in which I took the first picture that appeared in a Google Images search.

I have since received a phone call and this follow up email from Mark Garnier's office. as promised I am printing the response in full.

Dear Stephen, Further to our conversation earlier I would like to confirm that the photo currently on your Liberal Journal was taken in November 2009 when Mark Garnier was a Parliamentary Candidate for Wyre Forest Conservatives. He laid his wreath as a representative of the local the Conservative Association, hence why it bears the Conservative logo. The image can still be found on Mark’s website here and here. This year Mark visited St Anne’s Church in Bewdley where he laid a wreath paying tribute to those in Wyre Forest who have died, and been wounded, whilst serving in the armed forces. The wreath held the portcullis symbol to represent Mark’s role as the Member of Parliament. He sympathises with the view that MPs should not be party political about Remembrance Sunday.” It would be great if you wanted to replace your previous blog with this. Thank you for your understanding, Best wishes, Teresa Teresa FitzherbertParliamentary Researcher Office of Mark Garnier MPMember of Parliament for Wyre ForestHouse of Commons

I wish to apologise to Mark Garnier for mistakenly implying that the picture was taken this year. Having found it through the first of the above links where there is no date stamp on the page I made an honest mistake. Although I have not replaced the previous blog post I have updated it to point to this blog post, as it acts as a reminder to both Tim Montgomerie of the Conservatives and Jessica Asato of Labour to check how clean their own houses are before saber rattling over such a sensitive issue on such a sensitive day. 

However, I will leave one comment that I hope clarifies the issue from a Tory commentator on the original post.

I was fairly disturbed by this story, so imagine my horror when I walked passed our local War Memorial this morning en route to my office to see our own wreath emblazoned with the Conservative logo.

I immediately phoned my local Chairman who had organised and laid the wreath to ask why we had done this. Apparently, when he called the Royal British Legion in Maidstone who manufacture and dispatch the wreaths, he was asked, "do you want the usual wreath ordered by political parties?" to which he replied "yes". When the wreath arrived, the logo had been pre printed by the RBL.

I have subsequently circulated a note to the three Associations I advise as agent suggesting that in future plain wreaths should be ordered to avoid any accusation of us politicising Remembrance Day. However, this issue might not be as clear cut as it first appears.

Looking at the Royal British legion website a wreath with just such a personalised logo is actually one of either the top two donations via wreath purchase to the cause. So maybe we should also accept that like regiments, Scout or Boy Brigade groups or whatever organisation that Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat local organisations also lost members in one or other or both of the World Wars.