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penwing: that last RT makes me inordinately happy even with the inclusion of Jimmy Carr - Alt Election was wonderful, my Dream Team for UK Daily Show

penwing: RT @guideguardian: RT @jimmycarr C4 have commissioned 15 shows with me @charltonbrooker @realdmitchell & @laverneshow. Live TV what coul ...

penwing: eugh, some washing up and then some food prep and then some food eating 8-)

penwing: "Hello this Paul from OU, deadline for signing up for more this year is the 9th are you planning on doing more" "Yes, I've signed for DD208"

Alex Lambert Sharing: William Hague/Chris Myers: a short history of gay rights in Britain: LOOK away now if you have an unduly ... http://www.davidosler.com/2010... 14 hours ago from Twitter - Comment - Like

penwing: Sharing: William Hague/Chris Myers: a short history of gay rights in Britain: LOOK away now if you have an unduly ... http://bit.ly/de0FUO

Alex Lambert William Hague/Chris Myers: a short history of gay rights in Britain - http://www.davidosler.com/2010... 14 hours ago from Google Reader - Comment - Like

LOOK away now if you have an unduly salacious imagination, but I must confess to sharing a hotel bedroom with Newsnight economics editor Paul Mason. Yeah, I know, girls. Dishy, isn’t he?

This, you understand, was simply to save the National Union of Journalists a bob or two. It does not imply that we are anything other than red-blooded meat-eating full-on skirt-chasing 100% heterosexual coureurs des dames. Or I am, anyway. Can’t speak for Paul.

The saddest thing surrounding the kerfuffle over William Hague and his special advisor Christopher Myers is that most reasonable people get over any hang-ups about homosexuality by the time they get actively involved in the mating game, whichever team they bat for.

‘Poof’ was absolutely the worst insult that could be thrown at a boy in Wellingborough Grammar School in the mid-1970s, and honour would demand that you at least threatened to thump anybody who addressed you in such terms.

But after I got a bit older and had been to a couple of Tom Robinson Band gigs, and a mate came out of the closet, it all became a non-issue. Anyway, I reasoned, if some blokes were getting off with other blokes, the less competition the rest of us faced when hitting on Northampton’s array of sultry teenage punkette temptresses.

I still remember being slightly shocked when I moved to London and saw two men snogging at a party. Oooo-er. But I had come to the capital expressly to be a bohemian, and it would have been uncool in the extreme in leftwing circles to let on that you even noticed.

For the political right, it was a different story. Among the many reasons many young people learned to hate Thatcherism was its wilful inculcation of discrimination against gays. From my point of view, that was only a minor concern in comparison to deliberately engineered recession, mass unemployment, the Falklands war, the miners’ strike and the poll tax.

But section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988 – which provided that that a local authority ‘shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality’ or ‘promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship’ – seemed to sum up Thatcher’s home counties golf club bigotry on the matter, even if the law had little impact in practice.

One of the few tests that the New Labour administrations passed with flying colours was its agenda for gay equality. S.28 was repealed, the age of consent equalised and civil partnership introduced.

And guess what? The institution of marriage has not collapsed. Het couples still cohab. Why, last time I checked, women were busily dropping sprogs all over the shop. Meanwhile, gays get on with those notorious unspeakable practices that cannot be reported in a family newspaper (see pages four, five, six, seven and eight). Who knows? Maybe they have more fun than I do.

Today, the Conservatives are supposed to have their heads round social change, and be just as intensely relaxed about homosexuals as New Labour was about the super-rich.

Before the election, Cameron told Pink News:  ‘I’d like to make one thing clear — we are totally committed to the fight for gay rights and there will be no going back on equality legislation if the Conservative party is elected.’

The ‘fight’ for gay rights, Dave? Steady on, old chap, that’s a bit Spartish, is it not? Next thing we know, you’ll be boasting to some feminist rag about your plans to smash patriarchy.

Churls raise such quibbles as his party’s support for bed and breakfast proprietors who are opposed to, er, permitting two men to share a bedroom. But let’s not nit-pick, right?

And now the Hague/Myers row. The foreign secretary could have chosen not to dignify internet tittle-tattle with a detailed rebuttal telling the world more than it needs to know about his efforts to have children with Ffion.

Many commentators point out the obvious danger of issuing a denial denial of ever having a relationship with a man, rather than opting for the standard non-denial denial tactic. Should even a single past liaison emerge, the man is toast. Watch the Sunday papers.

Hague is roughly the same age as me – which is why he looks such a prat in wraparound shades, I guess – and will have been through much the same experiences of the situation facing gays as I have.

For my liking, the statement sounds rather too much like the seventies grammar school kid that Hague is too, threatening to hit a  classmate who called him a bender. We are supposed to have moved on since that time, aren’t we?

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Alex Lambert RT @BinaryDad: Two important govt. figures. 1 subject to sexual rumours. 1 alleged to be behind illegal wire-tapping & lies in court. Which gets coverage? yesterday from Twitter - Comment - Like

penwing: RT @BinaryDad: Two important govt. figures. 1 subject to sexual rumours. 1 alleged to be behind illegal wire-tapping & lies in court. W ...

penwing: RT @Jon_S: Wow! Look at all the links in .@DrEvanHarris' #sex ed article! http://ff.im/-q6fxy This is science journalism done right. Go ...

Alex Lambert RT @ARCH_Rights: RT @bbw1984 Kirklees Council becomes the first in the UK to ban the Mosquito device - http://www.bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/home... yesterday from Twitter - Comment - Like

penwing: RT @ARCH_Rights: RT @bbw1984 Kirklees Council becomes the first in the UK to ban the Mosquito device - http://bit.ly/agEfnN

Alex Lambert RT @lamacqshow: @larouxofficial, @BethanElfyn &Paul @QMagazine are here join the listener's Roundtable at 6PM and give your opinions at http://www.bbc.co.uk/6music... yesterday from Twitter - Comment - Like

penwing: RT @lamacqshow: @larouxofficial, @BethanElfyn &Paul @QMagazine are here join the listener's Roundtable at 6PM and give your opinions at ...

Alex Lambert despite the late train arrived just in time for #roundtable 8-) yesterday from Twitter - Comment - Like

penwing: despite the late train arrived just in time for #roundtable 8-)

Alex Lambert Sharing: Hague story not about sexuality: It’s been known for a few weeks. The former chairman of the US Republica... http://blogs.channel4.com/snowblo... yesterday from Twitter - Comment - Like

penwing: Sharing: Hague story not about sexuality: It’s been known for a few weeks. The former chairman of the US Republica... http://bit.ly/czBH4c

Alex Lambert RT @Emanix: Geek #QotD: If at first you don't succeed; call it version 1.0 yesterday from Twitter - Comment - Like