This line...

'When Dave is around, inconvenient facts tend to get airbrushed.'

...did make me laugh, written as it was by the chief wielder of the daddy of all airbrushes!

How many times did AC perform this very service for Tone?

Anyway, hypocrisy aside, it was an interesting article, although by his standards loosely argued.

There was the infusion of gossip, guilt by association and the rather strange assumption, not written but very present in the background, that Labour is somehow a Borg-like collective, all thinking the same thing; that no Labour member would ever be homophobic. I find that, if nothing else, statistically unlikely at best!

The section about DC backing repealing the legislation and then voting to maintain the status quo was interesting. I can't remember, would this vote have been whipped? Wouldn't make it OK, but it would another example of the corrupting influence of that particular strand of 'democracy'.

Anyway, as an Ad Hominem piece it probably served its purpose. I thought Gordon said we should be concentrating on policy though?! ;)

What a peculiarly warped interpretation Adrian. I had to check the link to make sure I had linked to the same piece.

Pray tell, where is the bit that, no matter how loosely, implies... "that Labour is somehow a Borg-like collective, all thinking the same thing; that no Labour member would ever be homophobic. I find that, if nothing else, statistically unlikely at best!

I've read it through 3 times now and I can't find any reference to the Labour Party or its membership attitudes. In fact, rather modestly, Campbell only makes an oblique reference to the hard work done by the Labour Government, and even then qualifies it by saying there is much still to do.

Nor do I think it is particularly an Ad Hominen attack. It is about policy, and the question of whether the Conservatives are committed to the equality agenda that their leader spouts, or simply playing lip service to garner the support of the gay electorate. Pointing out the difference between his behaviour and his rhetoric seems perfectly reasonable.

As I say, a particularly twisted interpretation, and falls well below the usual standard of your comments, which can usually be relied on to refer to the point in the actual post, but sadly not on this occasion.

Hi Bob

Warped & twisted is a bit harsh! All I meant was this:

In my previous comment I actually wrote that that particular assumption was 'not written'.

What I was driving at - and I appreciate it may have only been my reading of the article - is that Alastair implies that the Tories are split about their attitudes to LGBTs, whether as a party or as individuals. The article further infers that Cameron's apology was a piece of political manouvering rather than a function of conviction.

The obvious 'push' in this article is that the Tories are not worthy of the votes of the LGBT community (an article also advanced by the two Labour ministers over the weekend whose names I forget).

For this line of reasoning to be valid - that Labour are the only party who can be trusted to defend LGBT against horrific discrimination and outright hostility - relies, a priori, on the fact that there is no divergence of opinion within Labour (for which for the purposes of this comment let's restrict to the PLP and local govt) for it to be an honest assessment.

My whole view is that Labour is *not* a collective and would be better served without the top-down, over controlled public projection of itself than is sometimes manifest (and of which this blog is a shining example!). This however was not obvious from my previous comment, although is what I meant with the admittedly oblique reference to not being 'statistically unlikely'.

I do stand by the general thrust of what I wrote, and I hope that this brings a little more insight into what I meant.

I'm kind of concious of the fact that this is your blog, not mine, and being possessed of a tendency to be overly verbose I try to edit myself as much as possible in order that I don't monopolise your posts!

The Ad Hominem comment, although I think essentially valid, was more of just a playful way of ending the post rather than something central to my thoughts.

Anyway, with a salute to the paragraph before last, I shall end here, and although we obviously disagree here I hope further comments on future posts are welcome!

Cheers

Adrian

PS - as I also indicated, I think the section dealing with Cam's flip-flopping with the whole voting record / public pronouncements was a stronger line, and one I for one was previously totally unaware of...

Adrian, your comments are always welcome, whether I agree with them or not they are usually well made points.

My reading of Campbell is different, I suspect we would both agree the Liberals were probably more constructive on the whole LGBT agenda than Labour or the Tories.

My general observation is that homophobic attitudes do exist within all parties, but in Parliament itself the Tories have nothing to be proud of, and unusually, within Labour, the Parliamentary Party has been ahead of the Party in the country.

PS - And warped and twisted were definitely OTT.

The Conservative Party looks a bit silly in retrospect on the subject of gays ( especially as it has always been full of them) but it looks pretty clever on the subject of marriage which Labour have attacked and denigrated at huge social cost. Conservatism in social questions is not always mistaken then as many many Labour voters if not MPs would agree .Some gay men also agree to my certain knowledge .
Today and for a good long time the subject of sexual orientation is behind us and its not as if Gay men define themselves exclusively by sexuality anyway . They are concerned about the catastrophic misjudgement of debt during a boom , resentful of paying for the lazy , and irresponsible concerned about irresponsible immigration , irritated by endless prescriptions on our behaviour and patronised by talk of making the word “Poof” an offence . What has happened over the last twenty years is that person by person people have changed by the slow and sure process of open social meeting .Now Campbell; wants to drive a section of the country back into some imagined ghetto , well its far too late and an unlovely sight.

Incidentally Bob in your manor how do they react to literature aimed at promoting gay and Lesbian lifestyles in schools or giving gay men preferential treatment in adoption. You have a large Muslim community in Sandwell do you not ? Personally I think those areas are valid points of disagreement , although I have no strong views myself . Would you call a concerned parent homophobic ? A local religious leader a bigot ?

I bet you would not

Not often you can claim to have beaten Alastair Campbell to the punch but I think I did here - http://www.liammurray.co.uk/2009/07/would-two-letters-make-any-difference.html

newmania, when and how did Labour "denigrate and attack" marriage? It sounds most unlike the Rev. Blair to me.

I have never seen literature which "promotes" gay and lesbian lifestyles (whatever that means). That sounds a bit like saying homosexuality is something you can catch if you're not careful, or buy on ebay second hand.

Nor am I aware of rules which give gay men 'preference' in respect of adoption.

So I'm afraid I cannot talk from experience here in Sandwell.

Attack the Tories, Bob, but leave AC out of it. If I recall he made a convincing case for attacking Iraq, and look where that got us!

OK, well since you ask... the Tories voted for the invasion of Iraq. And unlike most on the Labour benches, they didn't bother about Blair/Campbell's spin on WMD... they favoured supporting Bush with or without Saddam having WMD.

Tories are just soooo thick!

How come they missed the trick of saving Post offices?

Just how stupid are they?

I'd like to take this opportunity to apologise to the Conservative Party and especially to David Cameron.

I once thought that the modern Conservative Party was an opportunist party bent on jumping on any bandwagon going, but alas I am proven wrong.

It appears they do want to save Post Offices as reported in Con Home, the voice of reason and of the people.

Where do we find such Leaders?