Some Good News for David Laws

There is some good news for David Laws following the rather forced and sudden nature of his coming out over the weekend his family have accepted his sexuality and welcomed James his partner into their lives. Speaking to the Western Daily News he said:

"I guess it was pretty stupid really, because all of the people I have spoken to since Friday have accepted it without hesitation: my parents, family and friends. Not being honest with them has meant a huge price over recent years. I have had to keep a large part of my life secret."

"I have heard from lots of friends over the past few days who said it didn't matter to them, or they didn't care about my sexuality, and to be able to meet them in the future, to be honest with them, to meet them with James, will be a huge relief."

I'm glad it went well, it is just a pity that four years ago or earlier he didn't take the plunge, then we'd propably still have him as Chief Secretary to the Treasury as he'd have been claiming for his share of a joint mortgage rather than paying rent to a 'partner'.

Brick for Brick: Just Not in this Parliament - SNP

With the Westminster elections out of the way and with Holyrood selections heading ahead at full steam it is time to look at some of those promises that the SNP made. On school building they said that they would match brick for brick the money for the proposed school building programme that the Labour/Lib Dem administration were proposing before the 2007 election.

 

So yesterday's announcement, once again, a re-announcement of the words still lacking the action that actually does match brick for brick of new schools none of which will be completed before 5 May 2011 is a sensational admission of failure. It's not like education is an area you'd think that the SNP Government could have worked on some sort of agreement with other parties, after all it is something that we all agree on. But their grand scheme for Scottish Futures Trust really has proven to be a white elephant.

 

Liberal Democrat education spokesperson Margaret Smith has said:

 

"Dozens of schools in Scotland are in a poor state of repair and new buildings are desperately required.

"The SNP pledged to match the school building achievements of the previous Liberal Democrat-Labour Executive 'brick for brick'. But this re-announcement represents the first schools planned by the SNP, and building hasn't even started yet.

"Children will be lucky if their school is built before the SNP leave office.

"The Scottish Futures Trust has been a major disappointment and the SNP have completely failed to keep their school building promise."

In Edinburgh James Gillespie High School is scheduled for 2014-15 which means it may not be complete until AFTER the 2015 Scottish elections. Falkirk will be getting a new Roman Catholic Primary School in 2010-11, in Midlothian Lasswade High School is looking at 2011-12 while West Lothian is not a beneficiary at all of the 'new' building scheme.

This post has been sent via email therefore spacing and fonts may not appear at my usual standard. Also there may be links to other relevant blog entries or other content added later today along with adding the correct tagging.

The People Respect Privacy So How Do We Support the Private?

According to a YouGov poll 73% of the population believe that politicians should not have to be open about their sexuality, providing they do not lie or 'behave hypocritically'.

This finding does of course come in the week after it was revealed and since been surmised that if David Laws had changed his accommodation claims at the time of the rule change he would have been 'outing' his relationship. Caron ran through the various options he was facing on Saturday, which outline the difficult choices he had if he were to remain in a private relationship.

Only one in twenty 5% think it is a bad thing that the cabinet contains gay minister, whereas 13% consider it a good thing. However, while 3% say they would be more likely to vote for their constituency MP if they were gay 9% say they would be less likely to do so. Although I guess we can just take that to mean the the liberal minded will merely be voting for the best candidate irrespective of sexuality while the homophobes are set in their ways. Indeed a staggering 86% said that if the party that they normally supported fielded a gay candidate it would make absolutely no difference to their voting intention.

The one issue is not the sexuality but the lying and hypocrisy of some. If a gay MP has voted against gay rights legislation consistently that would be seen by many as an issue. The bigger issue comes with defining lying.

If they don't care if someone is out of not, don't each of those non-corrections of pronouns in conversation count as a lie, admittedly not a big lie just a little white one. Of course sometimes it is difficult to keep correcting for those, everyone misses the odd one or two and sometimes the circumstances do not allow for the full truth even a partial revealing of the truth.

There has been discussion amongst the out Lib Dem candidates since the weekend about what we can do to support our closeted or out candidates. The consensus is that that our sexuality by in large is not something that we wear on our sleeves it is just part of who we are. It is also something that so far many of us have no issue with being open about. On the other hand you have the stories like David, Simon Hughes and Mark Oaten through the years of those who seek to lead the party, contest our winnable seats etc who are seem less willing to be open.

The party of course is supportive of all minority groups. We have programmes in place to support women candidates, ethnic candidates but how can do the same for LGBT candidates? The other issue is that unlike gender or ethnicity this is not a minority group that is visibly recognisable as distinct. So is there a need to provide LGBT support to all candidates to ensure we capture the closeted as well as the out? To do otherwise would mean that the people who may most need such support are the ones who are missing out as they wish to retain their privacy.

In this day and age it appears the people, the voters don't care one way or another. Of course that doesn't take away the fear of some to be honest with those closest to them. Until they are able to do that they are less likely to be open with those that may impinge on that world.

Cumbria

Yesterday afternoon when I heard that a gunman was shooting people in Whitehaven, my first thoughts were of my cousin who works in the town. As soon as I could I was checking on that first port of call in our social media age Facebook, to see if she had updated her profile to tell us she was OK. Thankfully she had, but for 12 others the news was not so great and further 25 had been injured.

After Hungerford and Dunblane our guns laws in the UK have become some of the most stringent in the world. But there are sometimes no way that even stringent guidelines for issuing licences can stop what locals say was the out of character actions of Derrick Bird yesterday.

With my uncle and cousin both involved in the Rugby world the fact that one of those killed was Garry Purdham a back row Rugby League forward for Wokington, brother of Rob the Harlequins captain and England cap, means there is someone they probably know among the dead.

The role of the dead includes Bird's twin brother, the solicitor dealing with a family will, fellow taxi drivers and then in indiscriminate drive by victims. The pensioner delivering shopping catalogues, the cyclist, the retired Sellafield security guard and others.

Coming so soon after the coach tragedy of 3 dead Keswick school children, indeed on the day of Chloe Walker's funeral, this small and beautiful corner of England is facing more mourning.

The Race is On

As I said yesterday I've been neglecting this blog a little bit in recent days. The reason for that is that on Monday night I was attending a shortlisting interview for the Edinburgh Central seat at next May's elections.

Well things went well and I was named as one of the five who the Lib Dems living in Edinburgh Central will be voting on to be their candidate. So the next few weeks will be a busy time, as the last few months have also been.

Next years election is going to be an interesting one for Lib Dems standing in Scotland and especially in Edinburgh. We'll be defending a record of working with one party in Westminster and another in City Chambers. Across the city where we are challenging or defending our main challenge is coming from the other party. So we will have a challenge of defending a record in other places while challenging for Edinburgh Central.

There are five able candidates that the good Burghers who agree with Nick will have choose from, so I know that I have a lot of work to do to show people why I think I am best for the job. It is the reason that yesterday I made some subtle changes to the look of the blog which by the way you can also point your servers towards as http://stephenglenn.org.uk it was a domain I set up in advance of the Westminster Election but never got the time to develop as I intended then, but things may well change in the near future.

I do intend to keep blogging on the issues as I have always when the opportunity arises, but for the next couple of weeks in particular my time may be tight.

However, I do promise to tell you more later.

Danny Alexander

I'm back at work today after a long weekend as are our politicians. I fully expect that the Times today will be getting a request for the original of Peter Brookes cartoon from the Treasury.

People in the public eye used to say that if Spitting Image didn't have a puppet of you you'd yet to make it. So the cartoon (I'll not link as I'm sticking to refusing to link to future pay-walled site) has George Osborne shoes off feet kicking behind him on the chair, having crayoned in with primary colours 'BUDGET' at the top of a blank sheet. Danny Alexander peeking over the table is asking "Are we allowed to use the sharp scissors?".

It is a play on the fact that the two of them in the treasury are young, but that doesn't mean that the new Chief Secretary to the Treasury doesn't have the gravitas or experience for the job. He was the man who was Nick Clegg's aide and the author of the first Liberal Democrat manifesto to have planks put into a UK-wide programme of government. He was part of the negotiating team that struck the deal, and impressed his Tory opposite numbers.

If he hadn't impressed Osborne also part of those negotiations I doubt he would have been the replacement for David Laws. Of course in his 18 days Laws did make a mighty big impression from the off. Danny is going to have to do the same there is a budget coming up and he's going to have to carry on the work that David had started.

Blogging Lite

I'm sorry that blogging has been a little light over recent days, weeks even after the end of the election period. Those of you who follow my Twitter feed will know that I was back in Ireland for the weekend which affected the speed of my response to some of the big stories but that is only part of the story as to why my blog has remained a little bit neglected since the end of the General Election campaign.

 

There is more and I will let you know in due course. Meanwhile I do apologise for the inconvenience and I can assure you it has nothing to do with me becoming lazy or inactive in the Lib Dem cause.

 

This post has been sent via email therefore spacing and fonts may not appear at my usual standard. Also there may be links to other relevant blog entries or other content added later today along with adding the correct tagging.