Harvey Proctor - a footnote

In the Harvey Proctor piece I posted yesterday, I included a Daily Mirror front  page from the time of his 1987 trial. Excluded from that image for reasons of space was this bit from the top-right hand corner of the page, which I think illustrates public attitudes of the time towards homosexuality and towards Proctor's travails:

You see what they've done there? They've got a photo of him passing a clothes shop and they point out - sniggering and chortling - that the sign says L'Uomo Elegante. Well, that may be Italian for 'the elegant man', which 'aptly described the dapper MP', but it also sounds a bit like 'homo'. And that's apt as well. Because he's a homo, isn't he?

You might care to bear in mind that this is the Daily Mirror, the more enlightened of our tabloids in the 1980s.

Little Goody Two-Shoes: a portrait of Ben Bradshaw

Denis Healey once said of David Owen: 'The good fairies gave the young doctor almost everything: thick dark locks, matinee idol features, a lightning intelligence. Unfortunately the bad fairy also made him a shit.' Much the same could be said of Ben Bradshaw, except for the doctor bit. And, of course, the bit about him being a shit.

Bradshaw was born in London in 1960 and studied German at Sussex University. Following a brief time in print media, he moved into radio broadcasting, where he became the BBC correspondent in Berlin at the end of the 1980s, just as the Wall came tumbling down. He was very good and he was clearly seen as a rising star of Radio 4; by the mid-1990s he had started to get slots as the stand-in presenter on shows like PM and Weekend World.

Seeking a constituency for the forthcoming election, he was adopted by the Exeter Labour Party, despite telling the selection committee that he was gay. This was at a time when attitudes were noticeably changing, but culturally there was still a long way to go before homosexuality was widely accepted. Legally, the situation was worse: civil partnerships, let alone same-sex marriages, were a pipe-dream, and the age of consent for male homosexuals was eighteen.

And politically it was all very risky - both for Bradshaw to tell the local party and for them to choose him anyway. No candidate who had previously declared their homosexuality had ever been elected to Parliament. 'It is not something I am going to make an issue of,' Bradshaw told the press, 'but I am not so naive that I do not think others may do so.'

He was right. The local Conservative Party chairman greeted his selection with a sorrowful shake of the head: 'It would be a sad day for Exeter if it ever elected an active homosexual as its MP.' The Tory candidate, Dr Adrian Rogers, was a Christian GP who had already made his position clear, denouncing homosexuality as 'a sterile, disease-ridden and God-forsaken occupation'.

Bradshaw's sexuality was therefore a big local issue as the election approached. So too was the fact that the BBC gave him five months paid leave from his job on The World at One to campaign, though the criticism this attracted was somewhat derailed by Rogers's comments on the corporation: 'there are far too many homosexuals in the BBC'.

The slightly unpleasant tenor of the campaign meant there was considerable rejoicing when, in the great Labour victory of 1997, Bradshaw recorded a 12.5 per cent swing to take Exeter from the Tories with a substantial 11,000 majority. That margin has since fallen a little, but the city remains a safe Labour seat in a part of the country where the party is not naturally strong.

Bradshaw demonstrated a commitment to gay rights that ran ahead of the party leadership, so that in 2000 - when it seemed as though the government was backing out of its commitment to repeal Section 28 - he spoke out, saying 'that he had never seen so much anger in the Parliamentary Labour Party'. He might even have been ahead of the curve in other areas as well: 'Cyclists have a right to be pious,' he declared, somewhat piously. 'They cut congestion, cut pollution and cut costs to the NHS by staying fit.'

There were also less obvious positions, such as the issue of repatriation of art treasures. When Labour MP Bernie Grant asked Exeter's museum to return objects that came originally from the African kingdom of Benin (now in Nigeria), Bradshaw was forthright in his response: 'We are not going to send these treasures back - particularly not to a country governed by such an odious dictatorship as Nigeria. Their human rights record is appalling.'

Mostly, though, he became known in Parliament for not rocking the boat. He was allegedly referred to by Alastair Campbell as 'Little Goody Two-Shoes', while the Guardian called him a 'Hugh Grant lookalike turned ultra-loyal Blairite'. He had, wrote Edward Pearce in the Express, 'the distinct look of a teenage seraph on the make'.

In July 2001, following Tony Blair's second victory, Bradshaw was given a ministerial job in the Foreign Office, again raising some eyebrows, since he would be dealing with the Middle East, not a region noted for its enthusiastic embrace of homosexuality. In fact, though, the most contentious issue turned out to be his robust defence in 2002 of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, insisting that conditions there were perfectly humane, and saying of the suspects who were being detained without trial: 'we are talking about some of the most dangerous men in the world'.

He was similarly bullish the following year when he joined the government's assault on his old employers at BBC Radio 4. The station had covered Dr David Kelly's revelations about the abuse of intelligence reports in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, and had brought the wrath of the government down upon its head. Bradshaw was a minor, though notable, player in the campaign to re-position the story, making it about insignificant detail rather than the broad picture.

He went on to become deputy leader of the House of Commons, and then minister for, successively, the environment, the South-West and health, before ending up as secretary of state for culture, media and sport for the final year of Gordon Brown's premiership.

On taking up the latter position, he was asked to list his favourite cultural works. He selected Casablanca (for some reason it's the most cliched film choice for a politician), Bob Marley's Kaya (that's the non-political one), Michelangelo's David and Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbevilles (well, it was the Western Morning News who were asking).

During his time in government, there were some difficult issues to be faced: Britain's involvement in the arms trade, the badger cull, bird flu, the BBC licence fee, the fact that Jeremy Hunt, as the Tory shadow culture spokesperson, got a better press than he did. There were also some odd moments of his own making, such as the time when, during a shortage of NHS dentists, he suggested going to see your GP about your teeth instead.

But none of this seemed to cause him any great harm or even discomfort. Indeed, nothing ever seems to do so.

His public persona is one of apparently relentless good humour and absurd optimism, a determination to accentuate the positive that sometimes veers towards Pollyanna-ism. He even found a silver lining to the credit crunch; he wasn't arguing, he said, 'that a recession is good for people's health, but on issues like mental health, more men go and see their GPs if they are unemployed'.

Similarly, when Labour lost the safe of Norwich North in a 2009 by-election on a 16.5 per cent swing to the Tories, Bradshaw admitted that it was 'disappointing', but also 'said that the result did not appear to be as disastrous as Labour's loss of Crewe & Nantwich to the Tories and Glasgow East to the SNP last year'. (Just for the record: Labour did manage to regain Glasgow East in 2010, but has since lost it again, while the others have remained Tory through two subsequent elections.)

It's hard sometimes to identify quite what it is that Bradshaw stands for or what he has done, and equally hard to see that his career has been better spent in Parliament than it would have been on Radio 4. But he always seems very personable and, in some undefined way, quite important.

In 2000 the Independent on Sunday launched its Pink List, listing alphabetically the fifty most influential gay and lesbian people in Britain, and Bradshaw was included (as was his deputy leadership rival Angela Eagle). In later years, the names were ranked in order of significance, so that we could track his rising significance: in 2005 he stood at #69, moving up every year till he hit the top ten in 2009, the same year he was named Stonewall Politician of the Year. But political fortunes are never secure, and after Labour lost power he found himself plunging down to a lowly #82 in 2011.

Perhaps the highest accolade of his career thus far, however, came earlier this year, when this blog suggested he should go for the leadership of the Labour Party. The reasoning was simple: 'he's by far the best dressed MP of any party.'

This is the fourth of a series of posts in which - unless I fall by the wayside - I shall be looking at each of the candidates in the current Labour Party elections for leader and deputy leader, with portraits drawn entirely from their media coverage. Tomorrow: Stella Creasy.

The age of consent

Seventeen years ago tonight, the House of Commons voted for the reduction of the age of consent for male homosexuality from eighteen to sixteen, the same as it was for heterosexuals. As a matter of conscience, MPs were permitted to vote however they wished on this measure, and it passed with a majority of 207.

Broadly speaking, the Labour Party was in favour, and the prime minister Tony Blair and home secretary Jack Straw led the way into the Yes lobby. Just thirteen Labour MPs voted against - not very big names though their number did include Stuart Bell, Tam Dalyell and Gwyneth Dunwoody. Then there were the eleven members of the cabinet who, for one reason or another, did not vote either way: Margaret Beckett, David Blunkett, Gordon Brown, David Clark, Robin Cook, Jack Cunningham, Donald Dewar, Frank Dobson, Mo Mowlam, John Morris and Ann Taylor.

And, broadly speaking, the Conservative Party opposed the change in the law, though seventeen did vote in favour of the motion. Most notable amongst these was former prime minister Edward Heath, alongside the likes of Alan Duncan, Michael Fabricant and Shaun Woodward. Also voting for the reduction in the age of consent were Peter Bottomley and Alastair Goodlad, neither of whose names is remotely funny in this context.

'Satan's bearded folk singer' *

In the article published in the Sunday Times yesterday and signed by both George Osborne and Iain Duncan Smith, they begin by quoting David Blunkett's views on the benefits system: 'bonkers'.

I've always had a lot of time for Blunkett. I seldom agree with him, but he's generally worth listening to (except when he's claiming that Ed Miliband was the new Clement Attlee). His instincts are those of the old working class, which made him an unusual figure in the New Labour Party. He was clearly aware of that position, that he was out of step with the modern leadership, which is why - for all his reputation as a plain-speaker - he buttoned his lip on some subjects altogether: when, for example, was the last time you heard him mention homosexuality?

More broadly, however, he has consistently voiced perceptions that challenge any sense of left-wing complacency. And, as the excitement over the Labour leadership election mounts, I'm reminded of a line from 2000, published in his book The Blunkett Tapes:

'The liberal left believe that if they think hard enough that the world is with them, then somehow it is, whereas the very opposite is true. Britain is an innately conservative country and we need to win people over to progressive politics.'

* The 'Satan's bearded folk singer' quote comes, of course, from the late Linda Smith.

David Cameron: chillaxing to victory

In 2005, following a third successive election defeat, the Conservative Party staged a beauty contest for those who wished to succeed Michael Howard as leader. Up until that morning, the front-runner had been David Davis, but by the time all five candidates had made their 20-minute speeches, he'd been overtaken by David Cameron.

Amongst those who had their minds changed was me. I rated Davis highly at this stage, largely on the strength of a gig he did with Tony Benn at the Royal Albert Hall in 2002. Benn was then at the peak of his popularity as a lovable elder statesman, and for a Conservative to have the nerve to go head-to-head with him in front of an audience that was guaranteed to be 99 per cent anti-Tory showed, I thought, considerable bottle and self-confidence. He was also very good on the night.

Unfortunately he wasn't very good at that 2005 conference, while Cameron was brilliant. Maybe - I've often had cause to think in the last ten years - I was dazzled by a smoke-and-mirrors act, but my immediate response was to predict to the person with whom I was watching on TV that Cameron would win the leadership and would go on to win the next two general elections.

As I say, maybe I was caught up in the heat of the moment. In the final poll, the party members voted for Cameron over Davis in a ratio of two to one, but come 2010 the country did not. He failed to win the election, despite facing only a badly wounded Gordon Brown, a man whose most noteworthy contribution to the campaign was to insult a supporter for her alleged bigotry.

Now, however, Cameron has actually won an election, and I feel my original judgement was sort of vindicated.

This has been a spectacular victory, though not quite as wondrous as some are claiming. The Conservatives' share of the vote went up, but turnout was still poor and Cameron persuaded just 24.4 per cent of the registered electorate to vote for him. This was, however, better than the 23.5 per cent he achieved last time round (itself an improvement on Labour's 21.6 per cent in 2005).

So I wanted to make a couple of points about Cameron.

The first is something that I explored at greater length in an article on the twenty-first anniversary of Black Wednesday. This is a photograph of Norman Lamont, then chancellor of the exchequer, announcing Britain's humiliating withdrawal from the exchange rate mechanism in September 1992:

And there, off to one side, is his 25-year-old adviser and speech writer, David Cameron.

Cameron, I wrote, 'witnessed at close quarters the spectacular implosion of a party that once believed it was predestined to power'. I suggested that this is perhaps why he always seems so relaxed in a crisis. Similarly George Osborne, who was at Douglas Hogg's side in the BSE disaster of 1996. These people had experienced such dreadful political depths in their early years that very little was going to faze them.

Ed Miliband and Ed Balls, on the other hand were New Labour advisers in the 1990s, at a time when the party was already coasting into government. They had no such baptism of fire.

When Cameron became leader in 2005, it was clear that his job was, in the cliché of the time, to 'decontaminate the Tory brand'. The early efforts were clumsy and gimmicky: hugging hoodies and huskies, demonstrating his green credentials by installing a windmill on his roof and cycling to work (followed by a car, carrying his papers).

Then he got blown off course by the bankers' recession. No longer, it appeared, was sunshine going to win the day. The concept of the Big Society withered on the vine (though it's actually very good and the Labour Party should take it back).

Instead, the attempt to modernise the party seemed to consist of little more than the sudden, unpromised introduction of same-sex marriages. It didn't seem like very much - essentially a new name for civil partnerships - but actually it turned out to do the job really rather well.

Because the success of same-sex marriages lay not in the legislation itself, but in the way that it provoked a mass exodus from the party. Some constituency organisations claimed to have lost up to half their members as a result of the policy.

This was, most commentators agreed, disastrous for Cameron. But it wasn't. In one fell blow he'd cleared out large numbers of the 'fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists', as he'd described Ukip back in 2006. Many of them, of course, went straight over to Ukip, giving that party a huge boost in membership and popularity.

Less noticed was the effect on the Conservative Party itself, now smaller but - from Cameron's perspective - much better looking. It has become difficult to denounce the Tories as racist, sexist, homophobic and still retain any credibility as a political observer. The party that embraced economic liberalism in the 1980s has accepted the social liberalism that spread across Britain in the 1990s.

The election results this week saw Cameron increase the Conservative share of the vote, largely at the expense of the Liberal Democrats. All those right-wing commentators like Simon Heffer and Charles Moore who had insisted that the Cameron project was misguided, that he shouldn't be trying to appeal to the liberal vote (sometimes even suggesting he form an electoral pact with Ukip) - they turned out to be completely wrong.

There are many other commentators for whom the Tory brand cannot ever be sufficiently decontaminated, but it turns out that he's done enough. Not enough for those in the long-derided 'metropolitan elite' of course, those who follow in the pioneering footsteps of the delegate to the 1982 SDP conference, excitedly proclaiming: 'There may be minorities we have not yet discovered.' But enough for the rest of the country.

The achievement of Tony Blair in the mid-1990s was to make the Labour Party a safe home for ex-Tory voters. If Cameron hasn't quite reciprocated that achievement, he has gone some way towards it. There were many disillusioned Liberal Democrats, and even some lifelong Labour supporters, who simply couldn't countenance Ed Miliband and who felt just about safe enough to turn to vote Conservative for the first time ever, despite grave reservations over Tory policy.

As all the polls showed, Cameron's ratings outstripped his party's; Miliband's trailed his.

The Left need to get used to the idea that Cameron and Osborne have changed the Conservative Party for good. A new line of attack is needed.

One final thought. There is much talk of this election resembling 1992 when John Major won a slender majority and then ran into trouble with his own party over Europe. And look what's coming next, say the columnists: it's a European referendum and history could repeat itself.

I think this unlikely. If Ukip had got, say, five MPs they might have formed a rival pole of attraction for Eurosceptic Tory members, and there might have been defections over the referendum arrangements. Then Cameron would have had trouble. That might still happen if there are a few by-elections that allow Ukip to boost their numbers, but I doubt it. And Douglas Carswell does not in himself constitute a rival pole of attraction.

In any event, Cameron is much more in tune with the mood of his party than Major was. He remembers all too well the damage that Europe did to the Tories in the 1990s. Most importantly, he doesn't face the same problem that afflicted his predecessor.

Because Major's real grief over Europe was not to be found amongst the 'bastards' on his own backbenches; it lay in the House of Lords. There lurked the malign influence of Margaret Thatcher, the deposed but still powerful ex-leader, constitutionally unable to keep herself from interfering, from stirring up trouble, from seeking to undermine her successor as he tried to get the Maastricht Treaty through Parliament.

As I wrote in my book A Classless Society:

Thatcher's behaviour during Major's premiership was even worse than that of Edward Heath during her own time in office. Heath had been unstinting in his disapproval as he remained stubbornly on the backbenches ('like a sulk made flesh,' in the words of journalist Edward Pearce), but he hadn't actively engaged in plotting against her. But then, as a minister told the BBC's John Cole: 'She was always criticising the government when she led it, so why expect her to change now?'

The EU referendum won't all be smooth sailing, but it'll be less choppy than Major's trip back from Maastricht. And easier than Cameron's rite of passage on Black Wednesday.

Kids are different today

When I was born, male homosexuality was illegal in Britain. So too was abortion, while hanging was still in use by our courts.

Happily, this situation has changed. And I wouldn't vote for a party that advocated turning the clock back. A group such as the Democratic Unionist Party, for example.

Even so, I find it disturbing when Owen Jones in the Guardian describes the DUP as 'bigoted throwbacks to several centuries ago'. Or, in another piece, when he calls them 'the political wing of the seventeenth century'.

Because that's simply not true; as someone with, say, a history degree from Oxford would be able to tell you. The opinions of the DUP - even the private opinions of individual members - were the basis of the law fifty years ago, and absolutely the norm much more recently. They're not entirely uncommon now.

That's why in the Parliament that has just ended, the DUP formed the fourth largest party. Admittedly the party only registered 168,000 votes in 2010 (fewer, remarkably, than Sinn Fein), but that's still a quarter of those who voted in Northern Ireland, and it's a fair number of people to denounce in such terms.

That share of the vote wouldn't translate to the rest of the United Kingdom. But if a party like Ukip - to take the most obvious choice - advocated the restoration of capital punishment, the introduction of new limits on abortion, and the freedom to override gay rights in the name of religious conscience, my guess is that they'd see a reduction in their vote share, but not by a huge amount. There is a sizeable (if dwindling) minority whose attitudes were shaped in the Britain that existed not in the seventeenth century, but in my lifetime.

It is surely possible to articulate the case against the DUP without resorting to such overblown rhetoric. Apart from anything else, it makes me feel so very old.