Simon Hughes
I don’t like Simon Hughes. Not at all. I mean, he’s a Lib Dem who gained his seat through dubious means and at the very least profited from homophobia. I also know someone who would be a much better MP for North Southwark and Bermondsey.
If you think I’m about to say, “but today I feel sorry for him”, then this really isn’t going where you think. Cos today, I’m even less impressed than ever. Thanks for demeaning my relationship and my life and those of my friends, Simon, by your insistent denials of your “homosexuality” or your dalliances with men or whatever it was. Thanks for insisting on your - and by extension, our - right to privacy, as if being gay were something to be ashamed of. As if I get a right not to have the heterosexuality of my colleagues, their partners and baby photos in my face all day. (I wouldn’t want to live in that world, my colleagues are lovely etc etc, but you get my point.)
Of course, his bad behaviour doesn’t excuse the hideousness of the reaction of our press, which has been virulent this week. And to think I thought we’d moved on, judging by the reception given to civil partnerships in December. Oh well. Two steps forward, one step back.
The oddest thing was that the media seem to have forgotten the existence of the word ‘bisexual’. Indeed when he said ‘having had both homosexual and heterosexual relationships I’m hard to categorise’ many of my bi friends were throwing dictionaries at the TV. Would have been a gift for the Spitting Image of old. “I am neither a heterosexual nor a homosexual, but somewhere in between”…
Yes, it all goes to show how unacceptable male homosexuality really is amongst society generally.
Anyway, A Happy Year of the Dog to you all!
Leaving aside your (very valid) points on the 1983 bye-election for the moment, why does Simon Hughes not have the right to keep his sex life private if he so chooses? What is it about having had gay sex that gives you the right to claim his past as some kind of communal property of the gay rights movement??? Even Tatchell said that he would not have outed Hughes…!
There speaks Antonia Bance the Labour Party party hack. And rather sanctimonious with it, but I guess that’s de riguer.
More positive and decent words from Peter Tatchell:
“Simon benefited from these dirty tricks [the Bermondsey campaign], but that was 23 years ago - I don’t hold a grudge,” said Mr Tatchell.
“Based on information [my campaign] received we had a very strong suspicion that Simon was gay despite the homophobic campaign against me.”
Mr Tatchell said he welcomed Mr Hughes’ belated admission: “Although it is a pity Simon was, even recently, denying being gay, it is great that he has now come out.”
“I don’t support the Lib Dems, but if I was a member I would vote for Simon as leader.”
Mike - I guess I feel he has some responsibility to the promotion of wider equality. It would be nice not to feel like that.
Benjamin - Why should I care what Tatchell thinks? The fact remains that Hughes benefitted from homophobia, would under normal circumstances have never won his seat, and against all demographic factors that would suggest it might not be a natural liberal seat, continues to hold it.
I may not support Simon in the leadership contest, but he has every right to keep his sexuality a personal attribute.
The majority of LGBT people in this country are closeted, and it is people like you who expect them to be out and proud that scares them, haunts them, and probably means they’ll suppress it for a hell of a long time.
Hello Chris - normal service resumed then? You and I couldn’t agree for long, could we?
The majority of LGBT people in this country are closeted
And you want the need for that to remain unchallenged? I don’t expect people to be out and proud, leading the pride parade and giving interviews to the local paper about their sexual habits, but I do think that in a homophobic and heterosexist society, the more often successful people (nationally and locally) are open about their sexuality, the more accepting the UK becomes. I don’t need to name my partner on my leaflets for election, but I do: because I love her, because straight candidates often seem to have pictures of their families on their leaflets, and because I’m a moderately successful young lesbian woman, and I feel that I have a duty not to hide that, as so many lesbians and gay men have had to over the years.
I don’t know if I agree with you entirely Christopher. I think older generation LGBT people in the country have not come out because of intense homophobia when they were younger leading them into “straight” lives where they love their partner/wife and possibly children and don’t want to hurt them and so are now unable to come out due to the situation society put them in. Speaking to younger generation LGBT people who have and haven’t come out many don’t come out because of fear of the reaction of their friends and family as you might expect.
My own experience of coming out was based on my fear of how people would react not on the idea that coming out led to being involved in the rights movement, as is the case with my LGB friends.
When I was the Gay and Bisexual Men’s Officer for my Students’ Union people would speak to me about not coming out because of their families reaction or their friends reaction and that was what stopped them from coming out. There were one or two who like you said were nervous about coming out because they didn’t want to be the out proud and campaigning type, they wanted to be out but didn’t want to instantly feel like they had to get involved in campaigns for LGB Rights movement and they were worried that coming out meant you had to get involved. That’s not true because it’s your choice about whether to get involved, and I suspect there are a hell of a lot of out people who don’t get involved with groups like Outrage and Stonewall even though they are out. However because they are not in these groups they are not in the public eye and so, in effect, they don’t exist. I would hope that people who are not out would realise that they choose to come out and they choose whether to get involved in campaigns or not; one does not lead to the other.
Time for me to break and old mould and disagree with you for the first time Antonia.
I think that the way that elected politicians are judged - particularly by the newspapers - is so unreasonable (and the personal consequences can be so devastating - often for those around the politicians in question) that they have the right to say that ‘my personal life is none of your business.’
But even that is not enough. In the same way that no-one should reasonably expect someone to answer the ‘when did you stop beating your wife?’ question, any reluctance to discuss marriage plans or to be photographed with family members is always subjected to speculation. I think that a lot of politicians, for their own personal reasons, feel that they have no option but to throw journalists off the scent.
Until the real freedoms in law are mirrored in society’s ability to grant those freedoms, people sometimes have to publicly deny their sexuality. I’d sooner argue with Simon Hughes about policies than about who he is.
Where were you in 1983 Antonia?Were you growing up on a London council house estate?Hughes has held his seat for more than 20 years because of homophobia?As Tony Banks would say- get a life!
I’m still not sure what to make of thw hole thing. Personally, I don’t give a damn about whether he is straight, gay or bi. Seriously, not fussed.
I certainly understand the desire to come out on your own terms rather than on someone else’s - being “outed” is a horrible thing (I could be wrong but I seem to remember something about Outrage doing something like that) and if the Sun threated to out him if he didn’t out himself then they are even worse than the ‘Limp-Dem’ headline says they are.
But Antonia does make a valid point.
Homophobia is validated by interalised homophobia. So long as LGBT people deny their sexuality, it makes it acceptable for the homophobes to carry on speading their lies and messages of hate.
As [ainful as it may be for some people to accept, the only way we will normalise sexuality (as opposed to homosexuality) is if sexuality no longer matters. There’s a great scene in the West Wing where Josh tries to understand why a gay man he knows is a Republican. The Republican’s attitude is that being gay is just one part of who he is - he also believes in the (nasty!) things the Republicans believe in, so why should he be a Democrat when he opposes most of what the Democrats stand for.
And that is how it should be.
Who cares if someone is married or single or in a relationship or has signed a civil parternship or is divorced or whatever?
None of that should matter - but as soon as the word “gay” is mentioned, then all of a sudden it does matter. And that is because being gay is STILL seen as being different.
By saying he was straight and then saying maybe he wasn’t, what Simon did was say that it’s not acceptable to be gay in politics. Which is complete bullshit, but he was asked a question and he lied, until he was asked again but this time with “evidence” so he had to confess.
As a community, out or not, we have to accept that if we want equality, then at some point we’re going to have to come out. Everytime we lie or don’t answer the question, we’re saying that other people have got a right to assume we’re straight until we tell them otherwise. Hell, we’re even saying that it’s acceptable for people to be homophobic as we’re not prepared to challenge it.
If I was Simon, I would have let the Sun out me and then put out a press release saying “who cares?”. But then again, I wouldn’t have lied about it in the first place…
Let’s be honest - the reason Hughes has retained his seat for so long is because he has been a fantastic MP who gives a damn about his constituents, in stark contrast to the usual party’s attitude that takes inner city rotten boroughs for granted.
But to get there he had to win the seat in the first place. And there was a lot made of the Labour candidate’s homosexuality, helping to demonise him. Hughes’s own literature does go for the man as well as the party and he won the seat on an anti-Tatchell backlash.
Politicians are notorious for evading questions. The “A private life is a private life, let’s talk about issues that matter to the voters like schools and hospitals” line is far preferable to an outright lie. It would also help if other politicians stopped parading their families and playing on being “a family man” all the time (and then whining about privacy when the media investigates the family but that’s another matter) rather than making those who don’t have a spouse and 2.4 kids stand out.
Yes Outrage sent letters to MPs threating to expose their sexuality if they didn’t support gay liberation. James Kilfedder(North Down)may have received one.It does not seem improbable that fear of being outed brought on his fatal heart attack.
Which is why I am no fan of Tatchell. I think it’s just as nasty to threaten to publicly out people (even with the best of intentions) as it is to persecute someone for being gay. I can understand why Tatchell did it, but he should know, of all people, how difficult can be!
I would also disagree slightly with when Jo said “Everytime we lie or don’t answer the question, we’re saying that other people have got a right to assume we’re straight until we tell them otherwise”. It’s valid, but only to a point. The way I see it is that in our prying society if you are completely single, then people assume you are gay! I am a completely single and celibate heterosexual, and yet one or two people in the past(who hardly knew me at all), assumed that I might be gay, simply on that evidence!
Now that doesn’t really bother me, but how many others think that about very single people and sometimes put two and two together and make seventeen! What is slightly bothersome for me is an obsession with society (or maybe it’s just the Media), about who is gay and who isn’t! So I would contest the view that if a gay person hasn’t come out (and they are single), that people would assume they are heterosexual
Let’s be frank.
A lot of people are called a great MP. When it’s true it means they run several advice surgeries a month and use a massive amount of their incidental expenses up in postage and stationery. - Laudable but most social workers/CAB volunteers do variations of this or harder without public acclaim. Also note most MPs do this and they tend to care about their constituents. They just don’t always emote it eloquently, c.f. generations of good old boys with trade union sponsorship.
Or it means they’ve managed to write and steer legislation onto the statute book. - Very hard, worthy of genuine praise if it’s any good.
Or it means they’re an amazing lobbyist for their local area’s needs. - Again good, but not exceptional.
All of this is good but it doesn’t win you elections. Political campaigning wins elections and being a great/good/or acceptable MP is just part of effective political campaigning. Bermondsey isn’t really a rotten borough for the Lib Dems so any Lib Dem MP there has to be seen to ‘care’ as well as actually caring - this is often the gap between good MPs and those widely acknowledged as such.
Smear campaigns are effective, clearly, but they aren’t excused by then doing the job half decently and touting it as great work at 5 yearly intervals so that you can keep your career.
I think people have a right to a private life and a right to say what they want about it. I’m not entirely convinced even by Andrew Neil’s point that Simon Hughes is the 3rd Lib Dem in two weeks to have been caught lying categorically.
There’s enough of a charge sheet I can draw up on the back of a beermat anyway:
1)Allegedly running or winking at a homophobic smear of his opponent - unacceptable regardless of his own sexuality surely?
2)Repeatedly lying about his alcoholic party leader’s fitness to lead our country.
3)Supporting regressive Lib Dem policies and opposing the good things the current government has done - weighs just as heavily against as a good iraq war record (for example) weighs for.
4)Being a Liberal Democrat
I think that there is a very good essay to be written about what would constitute a good MP. But some bloke’s first draft (above) is a bit of a rough diamond at the moment.
A bit more polish, perhaps?
Roy Hattersley gave an answer to the Nolan Enquiry with the words ‘constituency party and concience’ (when he was asked who and what he should represent).
It’s a fabulous text, but - annoyingly - I’ve never been able to find it online.
Antonia,
Hello Chris - normal service resumed then? You and I couldn’t agree for long, could we?
Well, I didn’t think it would last.
I think we very almost agree, to be fair. Yes, if everybody was out and proud, there would be a lot more pressure for people to accept it. However, you have to bear in mind the closeted people who are, to be frank, petrified about coming out. In fact, I didn’t come out till I was 17 because I found the gay activists to be far too scary, and I didn’t associate with them. There were many things that eventually made me - mainly meeting people who were in the same situation, i.e. scared about doing it themselves. I could associate with them a lot more than I could associate with the out and proud crew.
Excuse the cheese, but I’ll never forget the times I had when I constantly fought my family were going to hate me. I’ll never forget the times I hated myself, and thought I was unnatural (Catholic school upbringing). And I’ll similarly never forget that until homosexuality no longer is an issue to society (i.e. nobody gives a shit what you are and treats you the same as everyone else) that there are people out there who need to be reassured that coming out isn’t as easy as people make it out to be, and they’ll be supported every step of the way.
Some Bloke.That must be on the back of a Watneys Red Barrel beermat.
No12
Tim
I’d suggest that the anti-Tatchell backlash was mainly due to his ultra-left wing politics, he’d been denounced as an unsuitable candidate by his own part leader only a few months previously.
And the “Straight Choice” (a not the) leaflet was clearly a rather cliched attempt to convince anti-Tatchell waverers that only the Liberals had achance of beating him.
The fact remains that Hughes benefitted from homophobia, would under normal circumstances have never won his seat, and against all demographic factors that would suggest it might not be a natural liberal seat, continues to hold it.
By all accounts Hughes is a good MP, and that’s why he maintains the seat. I’m not a Labour Party member so I don’t regard the Labour Party as having seats automatically in the bag because of “demographic” factors - seems an odd attitude towards democracy. Nor do I bear the grudges that some Labour folk obviously have - it seems very tribal.
Of course when he was originally elected - some 23 years ago - there was poor behaviour in that campaign, although not all from the Liberals, that’s for sure. But it was some time ago now.
I just think Hughes has been poorly treated today.
He’s not homosexual, so he would deny being gay, wouldn’t he? Just as you’d evidently deny having the first clue about bisexuality.
On a totally unrelated note Antonia, although I think you might want to do something on this:
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1697424,00.html
Looks like democracy has spoken?
PaulW:
So why didn’t other Loony Left Labour candidates suffer such a backlash?
Tatchell was demonised in the press for his alleged sexuality (as I understand it he, on poor advice from the Labour Press Officer, never actually confirmed it at the time). Male Liberal canvassers famously wore the “I’ve been kissed by Peter Tatchell” badges to reinforce the point. Those of us who’ve encountered the true face of Liberal grass root campaigning (or seen the handbook that openly advocates stirring shamelessly and throwing mud) know the Liberal approach all too well. Hughes rode that wave of homophobia.
Jen:
Terminology is quite fluid. For a long time the term “gay” was used where we’d now say “LGBT” and even now its still used in a lot of places. Society has not yet fully grasped the conception of bisexuality. When a public figure is asked “are you gay?” and they say “no” they know full well that they are giving an on the record answer that is understood to mean “I am straight”. To try to wriggle round on bisexuality being a different thing is technically correct but from the common parlance point of view it is a lie. Bisexualit needs to be better understood in this country, and the way that will be achieved is not to have public figures using it as a get out card.
‘Society has not yet fully grasped the conception (sic) of bisexuality’. You do lead a sheltered life Tim! Something tells me you were born yesterday.
Ian: Amidst all that pointless abuse I rather missed your point.
Ian: But it hasn’t. I’ve met (even at NUS Conference) people who told me they were fine with gay people but thought that as bisexual people ‘had a choice’ it was inexcusable for them to go with people of the same sex (as if you can help who you fall in love with). Also there is the constant assumption that bisexual people are necessarily promiscuous, sex-obsessed pervs. Alternatively ‘you just can’t make your mind up’, or ‘you’re really gay but scared to come out’. Even high up in the Labour Party there have been people who have been willing to say all sorts of nasty things about bisexual people that they wouldn’t have dared say about gay people.
Paul
‘For a long time the term the term gay was used’The term gay has been used since the beginning of the 1970s Tim. That is NOT a long time. It was a girl’s name. I remember Gay from Ipswich.I wonder if she has changed her name.I can remember the young people in the 1960s who thought they had invented sex.I did hope in those days that it would be possible to create a society with more relaxed and tolerant attitudes.Apparently not.
Ian have a sense of relativity. Compared to the length of time that “LGBT” has been used, “gay” was used for quite a long time.
Oh and the term “gay” was in strong use in the early 1960s and can be traced back to the 1920s. Now you may not think that isn’t a long time, but a lot would disagree with you. (And that wasn’t your original non-point anyway.)
Tim
What about the 1986 (approx) Greenwich bye-election where the loony-left candidate lost to Rosie Barnes of the SDP, or even Warrington where Roy Jenkins seriously cut the majority of the then left-wing Doug Hoyle? And in general elections the exact poition of individual candidates tend to matter less than in bye-elections.
I happen to have a copy of “By-elections in British politics” edited by Chris Cook & John Ramsden on my shelf and it includes a table of all the Great British by-elections since 1918. In the case of Greenwich the Labour vote actually held up quite well - declining only 4.5%, with most of the SDP advance coming at the expense of the Conservatives. Warrington was more complicated by having a national figure in the running but again the Labour vote only declines 13%. By contrast Bermondsey sees the Labour vote shed 37%
Tim!
“loony left”!
Ah! Thank you!
I feel all young and idealistic again!
Keep it up old bean!
Alfred Kinsey’s ‘Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male’(1948) and ‘Sexual Behaviour in the Human Female’(1953)have indicated that the majority of people appear to be at least somewhat bisexual.To say that society has no conception of bisexuality,Tim,somewhat defies reality.
There is a lot of hypocrisy in the population. Even today there are many, both straight and gay, who assert that “bisexuality doesn’t really exist” and common parlance assumes a binary divide. To pretend that bisexuality is understood and accepted - that is the defying of reality.
Ian - I’m sure you’ll admit that bisexuality also has a problem with visibility. That is to say, when a bisexual woman is seeing a man, then to all intents and purposes she appears straight to the outside world, and when she’s with a woman, she’ll be perceived as a lesbian. I think the gap in understanding is pretty understandable, really.
The primary reason for the bigger swing against Labour in the Bermondsey by-election was the intervetion of the ‘Bermondsey Labour’ candidate, O’Grady, who was supported by the former MP Bob Mellish.
This was at the time when leftwing entryism into local Labour Parties was at its height and the ‘old Labour’ people in the Bermondsey party were reacting against what they saw as a leftie takeover by the group that selected Tatchell. This was primarily political, although Tatchell’s sexuality also became a factor.
The Alliance campaign was about presenting Hughes a the clear challenger to left winger Tatchell and as a moderate party against the exremists. Hughes clearly benefitted from the fact that the Alliance campaign message was being strongly echoed by the ‘Bermondsey Labour’ campaign. The main reason why the Labour vote fell so dramatically is because of this message hitting home and O’Grady taking a chunk of Labour vote too.
The slogan ‘it’s a straight choice’ was used on several bits of literature as it had been in several other by-elections and is still used to this day (including recent campaigns where the Lib Dem candidate is openly gay). Suggestions that this is somehow playing on homophobia is, in my view, unfair.
Similarly the ‘I’ve been kissed by Peter Tatchell’ badges were, according to those who were there, a prank by a couple of gay Young Liberals which was not widely used and went largely unnoticed at the time.
What the Alliance campaign could legitimately be criticised for. if at all, is that they didn’t go out of their way to vocally oppose the underlying homophobia of the O’Grady campaign. A sin of ommission if you will.
The main point is that the election result was much much more down to political reasons than Tatchell’s sexuality, reflective of some of the other by-elections that hev been mentioned, and the scale of Labour’s defeat down to the additional factor of the O’Grady faction. That Hughes has held his seat ever since is down to his genuine hard work.
Hey Antonia,
Didn’t know you had a blog - but it’s nice to visit! How’ve you been?
As you say, bisexuals are perceived as either straight or gay depending on whom they are dating, and often by the people they WANT to date, which often makes it hard (men have the perception you will cheat on them with a woman, and vice versa.) But just as being heterosexual or homosexual is part of who you are, you can have 40 years of happy marriage, but you are still bisexual, and can appreciate attraction to men and women. I think Simon Hughes is bi, and this is sometimes harder to explain to people than being gay. That said, as you said, he profited from homophobia, and so I’m not a huge fan.
Not sure why I’m preaching to the converted here, but anyway, good to see you!
Dear Antonia
may I make a formal complaint about LLOYDS bank on your blog?