Gay friendly Tories are just wolves in sheep's clothing

We all know that with this being election year lots of groups are being targeted by political parties, well the Tories are trying to court the pink vote, or LGBT voters.

Well now the "shameful" Tory record on voting for gay rights issues is clear for all to see, and they aren't quite as gay friendly as you may think!

A quarter of David Cameron's shadow cabinet have previously voted against gay rights legislation in the House of Commons.

The research by the Liberal Democrats looked at issues including Section 28, adoption and the age of consent. It lists the voting records of current Tory MPs who will be standing in this year's general election.

One in six current Tory MPs standing for re-election voted in favour of Section 28 back in 1988.

A sixth voted against Section 28's repeal in 2003 including a third of the shadow cabinet. David Cameron, Francis Maude and William Hague were among them.

Yes, that's right, David Cameron voted against the repeal of the most anti gay piece of legislation ever - a complete and utter hypocrite!

One in ten of them voted against reducing the age of consent for gay men from 21 to 18 in 1994.

Almost one in five voted against the Sexual Offences Amendment Bill in 1999 which reduced the age at which anal sex is legal from 18 to 16. Seven of these, including shadow equality minister Theresa May, are in the current Cameron shadow cabinet.

One in three voted to allow only heterosexual married couples to adopt in 2002, including seven members of the current Cameron shadow cabinet.

One in three voted against the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations in March 2007, which allows the Secretary of State to make regulations defining discrimination and harassment on grounds of sexual orientation. This included 33 – a third – of frontbenchers and four members of the shadow cabinet.

Nineteen members of Cameron's shadow cabinet joined an attempt to block the Equality Bill which would introduce a single ‘public duty’ requiring all publicly-funded bodies to proactively promote equality.

Of the 31 shadow cabinet members, ten voted at least once against gay equality. One, the shadow Europe minister, Mark Francois, voted against repealing Section 28, allowing gay couples to adopt and 2007's Sexual Orientation Regulations. He also joined the attempt to block the Equality Bill.

The Tory record on supporting gay rights is nothing short of shameful. David Cameron cannot pretend a quick apology for Section 28 will make up for the entrenched and often bigoted views of his hand-picked frontbench colleagues in the House of Commons.

David Cameron and the Conservatives like to pretend that they have changed but they remain the same old Tories.

Can you imagine what will happen to gay rights if they win the general election later this year?

Bye bye Mrs Robinson, the gays won't miss you nor the Christians

I realise there is some sympathy for the homophobic hypocrite teenager shagger that is Mrs Iris Robinson because she is being forced to stand down as an MP, Councillor and Northern Ireland Assembly Member because of mental health issues.

But, am I the only one that thinks this is all just a little convenient given the circumstances she now finds herself facing?

It appears her statement about suffering from depression came out after it emerged that the BBC were investigating both Mr and Mrs Robinson's financial affairs. Investigative journalist Darragh McIntyre appeared at Stormont accompanied with a camera crew one day to ask Mr Robinson, Northern Ireland's (now former for 6 weeks) first minister, a series of questions.

The previous afternoon, Mrs Robinson had released a statement admitting to her affair with a teenager and her suicide attempt only a month after announcing she was leaving politics due to ill mental health.

The hypocritical aspect of Mrs Iris Robinson, okay, one aspect, because let's face it, there are apparently many, was back in July 2008 when she said "I cannot leave my Christian values hanging at the door when I go into politics."

This quote was from July 2008 when she said in the House of Commons during a Committee Session of the Northern Ireland Grand Committee on 17th June 2008. MPs were discussing the new Risk Assessment and Management of Sex Offenders legislation and proposals to reduce the age of consent in Northern Ireland from 17 to 16.

Iris Robinson said: "There can be no viler act, apart from homosexuality and sodomy, than sexually abusing innocent children.

"There must be sufficient confidence that the community has the best possible protection against such perverts, and it is important that there be a mature public debate on the issues,"

Mature public debate she says, Christian values she quotes.

Yet, at the same time, she was having sex with a 19 year old young man, while still married and sharing the family home!

She obviously left her Christain values hanging at the door then along with the car keys and her knickers.

People in glass houses should keep well away from the stones, yet Iris carried on throwing them at the gay community with her abhorrent views.

I do hope that if she is suffering from depression, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone, that she now may begin to understand what many people from the LGBT community go through at times when they are preparing to come out to family and friends.

Duncan James the singer said of his coming out as bisexual "he had been surprised by the reaction he got from family, friends and fans.

He said: "I’d had in my head that everyone was going to leave me, no one was going to talk to me. When the story came out, the reaction I got was so positive.

"People I didn’t expect to contact me said lovely things and people were writing beautiful letters saying that I’d really helped them."

I am sure Iris Robinson will get a similar response and many people will support her.

I would Mrs Robinson, but you think I'm a vile pervert and you consider me equal to a paedophile.

Mrs Robinson, I have never heard such crap in all my life, a paedophile can rot in hell as far as I am concerned but gay people like me are way better than them and especially people like you!

The snow first, then the thaw and floods?

We have been hit hard by the snow recently, across the whole UK not just Scotland and there have been all of the accusations about Councils and Governments being prepared, or under prepared for the weather.

Here in Edinburgh we have had it fairly easy compared to some parts of the Borders or the Highlands with the volumes of snow.

I was down in Hawick and Galashiels which is in the Scottish Borders this week and was really taken by the sheer volumes of snow piled up everywhere and also really quite pleased to see the Council being very pro-active clearing paths and roads and shifting the snow out off the hilly areas.

This is good planning to see this given the piles of snow will soon start to thaw.

Hawick has been hit hard in recent years by floods so this forward planning by the Council is welcome but I do question how many Councils across the UK will have put thought into moving the huge piles of snow piled up on the hills in their towns to avoid the eventual floods following the thaw?

Let us hope for the sake of all those who will be affected that they have planned and have the resources ready to deal with whatever comes out of the thaw - floods and the pot holes!

Well done Nick Clegg at PMQ's

Good on Nick for doing this and urging the Prime Minister to stand up and get his backside into the Iraq Inquiry before the General Election, he signed all of the cheques to pay for the illegal war so he should therefore face the consequences.

I blogged about this before Christmas and stand by what I said back then, these people made the decisions so should face the Inquiry now, not when it suits them.

Let's stop the whitewash and the excuses and have them explain their decisions to take us into the illegal Iraq war, we already know that Tony Blair was going to send our troops into Iraq whatever the reason so Gordon Brown as the paymaster needs to justify why he sanctioned the payments, remember this war cost around £7million per day.

Following yesterday’s Prime Minister’s Questions, Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg has written to Gordon Brown, urging him to indicate to the Chilcot Inquiry that he would prefer to appear before it ahead of the election.

The text of the letter is as follows:

Dear Gordon,

I am writing to urge you to indicate immediately to Sir John Chilcot that it is your strong preference to go before the Iraq Inquiry ahead of the General Election.

Following developments yesterday at Alastair Campbell’s hearing, your personal role in the decisions that led to the war in Iraq has now come under the spotlight. The notion that your hearing should take place after the election in order that the Inquiry remains outside of party politics therefore no longer holds. On the contrary, the sense that you have been granted special treatment because of your position as Prime Minister will only serve to undermine the perceived independence of the Committee.

As I said to you across the floor of the Commons today, people have a right to know the truth about the part you played in this war before they cast their verdict on your Government’s record. I urge you to confirm publicly that should Sir John Chilcot invite you to give evidence to the Inquiry ahead of the election you will agree to do so.

Nick Clegg

New Year message from Tavish Scott and the Scottish Liberal Democrats

New Year message from Tavish Scott, Leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats.

“This year, 2010, will be one of the most momentous in politics for generations.
We know there must be a General Election. But nobody knows how that will end.

“The polls are all over the place. But they all show the Liberal Democrats in a stronger position in the run up to an election than we have been for generations.

“We are the challengers to Labour across Scotland.

“We have well-resourced target seats that are campaigning harder than ever.

“We have inspiring candidates who deserve to be part of the new House of Commons.

“And the choice facing the country at the time of economic recession and the failure of old politics means it has never been more important to break the red-blue-blue-red pendulum of British politics.

“Our plans for a fairer society and a sustainable economy have never been clearer.
We will take the low paid out of income tax, cut tax bills for middle earners and stop the very richest in the land using loopholes to avoid their fair share.

“We will reform politics, not least to end an electoral system that has created a culture of a “seat for life” and “winner takes all” that has led so many MPs to exploit the system for their own gain.

“We will build a sustainable economy, creating jobs and opportunity for the record number of young unemployed. We will avoid creating a lost generation of young people, as Mrs Thatcher did in the 1980s. Her mistakes squandered the chances of thousands of people. The legacy remains. Poll after poll shows that most Scots still think that the Conservatives are the party for the well off not ordinary people.

“In Scotland we have set the political pace on our campaign for a fairer society. We are winning the argument that there needs to be restraint on the pay and bonuses on those at the very top of the public sector in order to keep jobs and services going for those at the bottom of the income scale.

“I know that our council by-election gains from all parties in 2009 will be followed by Westminster gains in 2010.”

The final stat porn for this decade and 2009

Once again my thanks to Stephen Glenn for the idea, here is the monthly summary of my visitor stats according to google analytics for December 2009.

I have done this for the last three months and as it was somewhat interesting for me to see the numbers, like many others including Stephen I am sharing them.

The busiest day on my blog last month was Tuesday 1st December when the story of Fiona Hyslop being sacked after Tavish Scott discussed with other parties introducing a vote of no confidence, Alex Salmond sacked her before the vote.

Last month I had 1,444 absolute unique visitors. They made 2,089 visits and 2,938 page views.

So, my top 10 referring sites for the last month were;

1. Facebook (3)
2. Lib Dem Blogs (1)
3. Twitter (2)
4. Blogger (5)
5. Lib Dem Voice (4)
6. SNP Tactical Voting (6)
7. Planet-politics (18)
8. Wikio (15)
9. Freedom and Whisky (27)
10. Google (12)

Last month I wrote just 40 blog posts, a somewhat quieter month for me.

The top 10 stories by direct page views that you've read most were;

1. Top rugby star Gareth Thomas says he is gay
2. Gay Trooper Ben Rakestrow is out in Afghanistan
3. SNP Minister Mike Russell's Aide Mark MacLachlan in smear campaign
4. Ashay Ghai wins Bearsden South by-election from Cameron's Conservatives
5. Flyglobespan Update
6. Subrosa shuts down the blog - another one bites the dust
7. Scottish Liberal Democrats at The Glasgow Wave
8. Dual mandate hypocricy of the SNP - attacking Labour and Conservatives
9. Detention for Fiona Hyslop as Tavish Scott goes top of the class
10. Alex Salmond gets stood up in Copenhagen

So this month's mixed bag is about people coming out, many many problems within Alex Salmond's SNP party, the Lib Dems winning another by-election from the Conservatives and the Mcblogosphere.

The visitors to my little blog came from 49 countries this month, down from 52 last month, the top ten were as follows;

1. United Kingdom (1)
2. United States (2)
3. Australia (7)
4. France (6)
5. Canada (3)
6. Belgium (4)
7. Ireland (5)
8. Spain (17)
10. Netherlands (12)
10. Germany (8)