It's over for Hilary

Out of cash, out of delegates and out of time - I think that she's coming to the end of the road.

Looking at the two 'victory' speeches last night there was a huge difference between the two candidates.

Obama striking and confident, giving his first speech of the General Election.

Hilary with bits and bobs all over the place but with pointed references to working with the Party's nominee..... She was unsure and unsteady and toward the end looked like she was reading out the words without meaning them.

The look on Bill and Chelsea's faces was an even clearer indicator. The reaction of her crowd of supporters was also an indicator they knew the end was close at hand.

Hilary has proved herself an able and dogged fighter with far more political skills than most thought she had. It's just that Obama is as well and has the edge in the campaign in terms of popular vote and more importantly delegates.

Hilary pulling out or at the least avoiding the use of her 'kitchen sink' /scorched earth approach for the next win or two would be good for the party, allow Hilary her role as Party No2 (but not probably running mate to Obama) and maximise the chances of Obama winning now that the Party has given him the advantage.

This would also settle the problem of the seating of Florida and Michigan. If Obama is designated as the Democratic Candidate the two delegations can be seated and vote for Hilary in the proportions that voted for her in that contest (hence I think the emphasis in Hilary's speech on seating the two delegations at the Convention).

Good coverage from Andrew Sullivan in his blog "The Daily Dish"

"Hilary, the time has come" from Kevin Naff of Washington Blade, previously a Clinton supporter.

From the BBC 'Clinton heading for the exit' by John Zogby (independent pollster)

.

Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill

The next piece of controversial legislation once the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill (incitement to hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation) has been resolved (Ping Pong taking place today) is the HFEB where the religious right get to have another outing (after the blasphemy debate when they could only muster 57 votes in a lost cause I think they are starting to enjoy this).

Debates here will include a number of free votes in the Commons on controversial issues in that Bill such as hybrid embryo's and the removal of the 'need for a father' with supportive parenthood in its place (which has already passed the Lords) as well as a big campaign to lower the abortion limit from 24 to 20 weeks - a move I oppose.

For the fullest reporting of the issues anywhere on the web I've seen go to Lou's blog where it is all covered in detail.

Ping Pong debates on the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

Very interesting debates in the House of Commons last night on Lords amendments to aforementioned Bill.

These concerned Lords amendment to the very important provision covering the incitement to hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation.

The reference to Hansard is here.

The Government majority (to disagree with the Lords amendment) was 202. Reports on how individual MP's voted here (Public Whip).

The next big debate with a lot of interesting and quite illuminating interventions from Conservative benches (much more than I expected) was on the repeal of the common law offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel (I blogged previously on the debate on this in the Lords).

Hansard here.

The Lords amendment was carried by 321.

In both cases the Government majorities were very large. The ping pong now goes to the Lords where they have a chance to reinstate their earlier amendment. If they do so it will return again to the Commons and so on.

.

Evangelicals - where do they fit in?

This post is prompted by moves afoot to protest the appointment of Joel Edwards to the post of Commissioner with the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

At the time of his appointment there was a big and predictable broohaha, especially from the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement who produced this diatribe against his appointment. I say diatribe (defined as meaning "a bitter critical attack") as it goes on and on about the personal evils of afore mentioned Joel Edwards as if he has been personally directing the whole show. Of course, that is not likely to be the case. In many particulars the quotes are taken somewhat out of context and some things are attributed to Joel Edwards and the Evangelical Alliance when they oughtn't to be. This is unfair.

Again at the time there was a wait and see approach from Ekklesia who saw a significant potential for evangelicals to address equality, human rights and discrimination issues through bodies such as the Equality and Human Rights Commission stating

Evangelicals who recognise that equality ought to be a key part of the Christian
message have been slowly coming out of the closet, and even the Evangelical
Alliance's sceptical opinions on this issue have been expressed much more
temperately of late.

I must say I tend to agree.

My reading of Joel Edwards is of him being moderate whilst at the same time being true to his evangelical beliefs (which I personally have no objection to although I don't personally share them). I could of course be wrong on this but the politics of systematic suspicion leads to a bad place for all of us.

Of course, the Commission as a whole are open to public scrutiny as are its appointees as members of public bodies.

The Commission has broad duties laid upon it to promote equality and human rights (set out in the Equality Act) , including on the grounds of sexual orientation and has published an Equality Scheme laying out its approach to equality work in different areas as well as having as its role the support of different strands of equality legislation.

We all have a responsibility to hold the Commission to be effective in its role and also to make it clear that we oppose any hierarchy of discrimination. We also have a role to play in scrutinising the activities of Commission members and highlighting any thing that raises concerns.

One of the principal problems that we face now is the problem of alienationa and paranoia as a propaganda tool.

We definitely saw this is the debate over Goods and Services (and Joel Edwards was one of the very few evangelical voices to ward against this trend - especially in his 'Letter to leaders of Alliance member churches' on the subject).

Getting non-paranoid evangelical leaders onto the EHRC can be very valuable in ensuring that the more outlandish statements don't in the future get credance. We have also seen exaggeration and paranoia being out to good use in the debates over the Mental Health Bill - it's now a well recognised political tool.

In addition to this, religious communities do have (sometimes legitimate) concerns about human rights like freedom of religion and belief, freedom of expression and so on where there is a tension between equality provisions and human rights and it is probably better to have some faith representatives on the EHRC to be part of the solution as well as being part of a clear analysis that can address their concerns (which I acknowldege) in a realistic way and also calm down the more exaggerated claims of organisations in the 'Religious Right' such as Anglican Mainstream and so on that I have added to my blog lists as being 'ones to watch'.

Finally I believe in tolerance, pluralism and social dialogue in a way that not everyone does. This means accepting diversity of views and being political about them, not demonising your opponents.

For me this is part of our multicutluralism whilst balancing this with provision for human rights for all and making sure they are an indispensable part of our national culture.

Christian communities in the UK are not (in my view) under threat. The protection of gay people from discrimination is in my view a core right that crosses all communities and all communities have a role in ensuring that that happens.

On balance I think that we'll make further progress with the likes of Joel Edwards (who has expressed support for the principle of protecting gay people from discriminaiton through the law) on board.

I am sure that this is the right way to go but I welcome comments of dissent.

.

Save the Horizontal Directive

Now is an urgent time for action to save the so-called horizontal Directive on discrimination in areas outside employment (i.e. in goods and services).

This would therefore cover race, gender (already covered through separate Directives), disability, age, religious belief and sexual orientation.

These seems to be being blocked by Germany and, seeing they actually have a General Discrimination Law covering sexual discrimination it seems somewhat perverse to oppose a new Directive on these grounds.

Many other EU countries enjoy a high level of protection from discrimination in areas outside employment and the development of piecemeal discrimination law is prfoundly harmful, especially as new countries join the EU - there needs to be a clear common standard to protect citizens of EU countries from discrimination.

This move is supported by many EU countries of different political colours as well as being supported by the ETUC and ILGA-Europe.

Also see the website of the Lesbian and Gay Intergroup at the Europan Parliament.

.

Those election results

What a catastrophic night (two nights actually) for Labour. There is such a thing as mid term blues but here we are reaching a new level.

No amount of gloss can hide that the electorate (or part of it - though last year's results were no better) is serving notice on the Labour Party.

The loss of London caps it all.

Yet now is not the time for panic or dismay, though this advice is paradoxical and may not find much favour in politics 'out there'.

Political parties are functioning entities. They don't die (although the Liberals might be an exception to that, though even they have come back from the dead, rather proving the point). They go on and carry on achieving things that are important to them whether in government or opposition.

Panic will only make things get worse and of course it is difficult to resist the temptation to "go off on one" as the Tories and Labour have done in their time in Opposition, making it all the more difficult to win again.

Our policies are what got us elected 3 times in a row and scrabbling about now isn't going to turn the tide. Now is not the time for fiddling and fudging.

It may be that the country has tired of the current Government and wants to "let the other guys have a go - What's the worst that can happen?". That sentiment is in any case hard wired after three terms in a country like ours where we don't have either a Conservative or Social Democratic consensus which sustains one party rule for extended periods (even Sweden has elected a Centre Right Government).

So - unlike Zimbabwe - what the French call the 'alternance', the surest sign of a country actually being a healthy democracy may be about to happen (already has happened in Scotland and London).

There is only one thing we can do for the remaining two years and unusually this is entirely in our own power and that is to carry on governing and govern well.

Those kind of governments are the ones that miraculously escape come election time, coming through at the very last minute and actually after three terms in office those are the only victories on offer.

It may come down to the economy righting itself and the Tories being unable to produce a coherent Manifesto (which they certainly can't). But we should be reconciled to being completely written off by all commentators and if we win we will do so by our stamina and ability to just get on with the job. If we don't win we will have governed well and be ready to return to power when the Tories' promises (like the rather odd promises to bring back the Routemaster and make the lights stay on green for longer) turn to dust.

As Peter Hyman said on Newsnight lastnight - the last thing Gordon Brown needs to do is to go around listening to people. We need to govern and govern well.

It comes down to panic v. governing and the real test is which one of those two the Labour party chooses in the coming months. It's a test which is momentous, partly about leadership, partly collective but one that will define the future of the country over the next 15 - 20 years.

Our response to these testing times lies entirely in our own hands.

Recent European Court decisions

Thought I'd include some links about a few recent important cases from European Courts.

There are of course two different European Courts which often get confused.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) is the Court that decides on the application of EU law, whereas the European Court of Human Rights (as the name implies) is a Court which rules on the European Convention on Human Rights for states who have ratified it.

The ECJ sits in Luxembourg and the ECHR sits in Strasbourg.

The recent ECJ case was a ruling against Germany for failure to respect non-discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation as regards pension rights (where these relate to pay and therefore the sphere of employment) for same sex couples. Good link on the ILGA-Europe site.

Summary of judgment here.

The most recent ECHR case was a ruling against two UK sisters who claimed they should be given the same treatment as Civil Partners in the exemption from inheritance tax.

I blogged about the case at an earlier level where there was a 4-3 judgment against. The hearing of the full court found against them 15-2. BBC report here.Also summary of the case on the ECHR website here.

This case cuts two ways. One cannot, looking at the case, avoid there being a sense of unfair treatment that ought to be remedied. To do so by a Human Rights ruling would have had massive implications for tax law in particular the ability of siblings and other relatives to evade inheritance tax.

But it would also have meant that there was a broader Human rights protection for all couples (inlcuding same sex couples without formal legal protections) in the case fo death of one of the 'partners'.

Although the ruling was massively against the two sisters I do think there is a potential argument there that a future Court might want to return to and in the meantime something that Parliament should try to remedy in some way.



In the mean time it is interesting that the European Court of Human Rights is continuing to develop its thinking on the topic of same sex partnership which will be important in future rulings on same sex partnership rights.

.

Johnson for Mayor?

As a colleague of mine has said somewhere else - I wouldn't support Johnson as Mayor of Trumpton, let alone London.

Now I don't want to get into personal abuse, tempting though that is. So without straying into any consideration of daft ideas on resurrecting the Routemaster I think it's well worth our time considering just how homophobic he has been in the recent past.

Some of them are helpfully posted on Ken Livingstone's campaign pages and include:

'Labour's appalling agenda, encouraging the teaching of homosexuality in schools, and all the rest of it.' (The Spectator 15 April 2000)

‘The essence of that Tory case is unchanged... it is more sensitive to spare parents' anxieties, than to allow Leftwing local authorities to waste taxpayers' money on idiotic and irrelevant homosexual instruction.'

(Daily Telegraph 3 August 2000)

‘Slowly Labour is winning the battle it really cares about, the Kulturkampf, adjusting what can be said, and what cannot be said... Homosexuality is to be taught in schools.'

(The Spectator 29 April 2000)

‘I first met the Bishop [of Liverpool] a few weeks ago at a gloomy convocation of top clergy and journalists in Windsor Castle. The hacks were thin on the ground... I can say that the clerics gave us a wigging for being so mean to the Church of England... Why did we draw attention to tricky subjects like homosexuality, aka the Pulpit Poofs issue?' (The Spectator 16 December 2000)

'If gay marriage was OK - and I was uncertain on the issue - then I saw no reason in principle why a union should not be consecrated between three men, as well as two men; or indeed three men and a dog.'

(Friends, Voters, Countrymen p96)

‘When the [hunting] ban is blocked in the Lords, as it surely will be, Blair will have his excuse for another attack on the Upper House. If Labour wins the election, Blair will invoke the Parliament Act to sweep aside the opinion of the peers, as he did over homosexual sex at 16, making a mockery of the Lords and consolidating his elective dictatorship.

(Daily Telegraph 18 January 2001)

‘More important, I am not sure how widespread this new right-on mood really is. Metropolitan opinion was wrong-footed over Section 28, where the public thought differently from New Labour; and three days after the event it was clear that the country did not agree with the editorialists on the verdict passed on Tony Martin. You can say that William Hague is opportunist to see the gap between the polite view and the public view. But you can't deny that he is right to go for it.'

(The Spectator 29 April 2000)

He has obviously had to tack his views somewhat for this electorate but his utter contempt for LGBT people is clear and he has refused to apologise for them.

Ken Livingstone's record however is clear, supporting same sex partnerships ahead of the Civil Partnership Act, tackling homophobic bullying ahead of the Government and giving support to a free Pride event in London amongst other things. See also Ken Livingstone's LGBT Manifesto.

It is therefore of the utmost importance that LGBT people mobilise to ensure someone with Boris Johnson's reactionary views is not elected as Mayor of London.

For a flavour of Boris in full flow on his previous support for Section 28 you can see some video footage of the LGBT husting here.

.

Zimbabwe - how long?

How long does it take to add up and release votes from the different polling stations?

We are now into the second week of counting/tabulating/verifying the votes and it's obviously a little more than fishy.

I was hoping by now to be blogging about a new, democratic start for Zimbabwe but now we see that Zanu PF are requesting a recount before the official figures have been announced and are reported to be unleashing a widespread campaign of intimidation to win any second round.

Needless to say this is the antithesis of what is meant by democracy.

Democracy means being able to kick people out. Yes Mugabe started out as a liberator, unfortunately he didn't end up as one. He didn't work to maintain democratic traditions and didn't make provision for a stable post Mugabe era.

That work will fall to others.

Paranoid Homophobia

I was very struck by two recent reports where some good old fashioned fear mongering seemed to be going on.

The one is from the Roman Catholic Bishop of Glasgow, the other from a prominent State level politician in the US. Similarities are striking.

First Representative Sally Kern from Oaklahoma (or should that be Oaklahomo).

She thought she was speaking before 50 people only but in fact her words were captured by You Tube.

Here's a flavour:

There's a great conspiracy out there where gay people are a greater danger to the US than terrorism and (apparently) history demonstrates that any country that embraces equality for gay people will eventually meet its end.

You can see the actual talk on You Tube and its really worth watching if you want a laugh.

There's quite a few of them that have different presentations. Some have been put to music, made into a poem, one has a version where the word gay is replaced with the word 'troll' for effect and so on.

Here are the links to a selection.

Victory Fund version (with excerpts from the talk in its full paranoid glory and pictures and captions from the Victory Fund).

Troll version. Very funny, you'll love this one.

The Ballad of Sally Kern - a worthy effort at poetry. It ends with some references to Hitler and the Nazi time. A helpful and sobering reminder to where can head when some people are referred to as a cancer and the greatest threat to our society by their mere existence.

Ellen de Generes does a good turn on her show - it's quite funny and she tries to contact Sally to try to put her right on a few issues.....

Finally 'Stop Hate' which links up the words of hate that Sally Kern uses to the strings of murders of LGBT people in recent times in the US.

The second example is that of Roman Catholic Bishop Joseph Devine. He's also seeing a plot, a conspiracy perpetrated by gays to do untold harm to society and our common values. Here's Pink News' report.

Gays even sink so low as to want to remember the gay people held in concentration camps in Hitler's Germany. Apparently. Really it verges on a form of selective holocaust denial.

There is a common thread to all of this and I think that some of the references to Hitler are apposite, if a little stretched.

We are seeing a phenomenon of denial of the humanity of one section of the community. We know where this leads if unchallenged.

Thankfully there are people who are willing to stand up. Some of them are to be seen in the You Tube links above.

I include in this Pastor Wright, longtime preacher at Barack Obama whose sermons are a little surprising in their anti-American content.

(It's easy to decry his sermons except for the fact that he is actually slap bang in the middle of the Old Testament prophetic tradition of lambasting your cultural safety zones. And - it is reported - that he also supported equality for LGBT people and preached this within the milieu of the Christian Church).

The last word is a very eloquent, unadorned You Tube piece on the dangers of Homophobia in Government.

.

House of Commons Free Vote on Embryology

Just a quick link to Lou's Blog where there is plenty of information about the decision of the Government to allow a free vote on several aspects of the embryology and human fertilisation bill. DoH site for the Bill here.

I think that the Bill has been very widely debated and scrutinised, including extensive pre-legislative scrutiny by a committee of both Houses. Plus I think that there have been some rather cheap shots and distortions of the aims of the Bill and what it will allow which I do not feel reflect grown up poitics or a political intervention of honesty - but then we saw that with the exaggerated debate over the Sexual Orientation Regulations, so there is nothing new in the use of such irresponsible scare tactics (we also saw the use of such tactics by more responsible organisations in the campaigning against the Mental Health Act - we must now get used to this form of campaigning as a means of igniting the media).

Thinking Anglicans also carries some interesting links and reactions, including this one:

Wow, the slimy, slippery slope - from carefully planned empirical research
- with ethical and methodological restraints or parameters - to outright
cannabalism.

Goodness knows, if conservative religious beliefs didn't stand
vigorously in the way, we might have got up to any number of other slippery
slope downhill things - like torturing our neighbors for their beliefs (or
unbeliefs), stealing their property when they died from our rough
interrogations, and generally claiming that we always know best because we know
God and God especially loves us for being so strict that a pagan cannot wedge a
lost penny under our tight knickers.

Alas, too often these conversations across the divides take on the character of near-parody. I will parody your understandings, if only you will firmly promise to parody mine. As for divorcing sex/childbirth from marriage, in many cultures the links are hardly the simplistic westernized conservative religious ones an either/or reference in passing might suggest to a casual reader.

Is adopting a strict, closed conservative religious view really, really, really, really the only possible way to value and engage in the value of human life? If we categorically cannot - cannot be allowed to? - empirically and ethically distinguish between embryonic tissues in a petri dish over a two week cycle of experimentation, and the
full-blown human being who just happens to be a queer citizen, partnered and
parenting, who just moved into the empty house next door - we might indeed
wonder if our ethical and empirical tools were too heavy and too blunt to serve
as anything better than a thrashing tool?

Blood donation

Just a few words about the rather long running issue of complaint by gay and bisexual men who feel excluded by not being able to donate blood.

This is one of the issues that has been campaigned on by the NUS LGBT Campaign - I think it's a great campaigning opportunity for student LGBT groups because it allows for greater LGBT visibility on campus and highlights different ways in which LGBT people may be treated differently within society.

But it is important for us not to miss the wider picture of rights.

It has also been debated at UNISON LGBT Conference, UNISON National Delegate Conference and UNISON's Health Conference and the TUC LGBT Conference and has gained recent prominence in reporting by the BBC and Pink News.

In my view the approach taken by UNISON's National Delegate Conference is a sensible balanced one, demonstrating the need for decisions on who may and may not be able to give blood to based on medical evidence relating to the risk posed. I think that's the right approach.

It's an important issue - donor selection should not be without scrutiny and there can be a damaging impact from banning a whole section of the community from donating blood.

Obviously a set of criteria based on sexual activity is far preferable than one based on belonging to a group (in this case men who have had oral or anal sex with other men - gay men per se are permitted to give blood and many men who self define as gay or bi may not have engaged in oral or anal sex - equally there are many heterosexual men who have engaged in oral or anal sex with men).

So if possible I would prefer for us to move away from a lifetime blanket ban, provided it is supported by scientific evidence.

This would enhance gay and bisexual men's sense of citizenship and inclusion in society - an important goal in itself. It would tend to reinforce messages of safer sex (I stress the word safer because anal and oral sex are still risky activities and even use of condoms does not eliminate that risk entirely).

Whilst equitable treatment of potential donors is important the rights of recipients take precedence. They must do, if they clash in any way. Blood donation isn't for the good and well being of the donors - it's for the recipients. The right to life is more important than the right not to feel rejected.

So where are we now?

Australia has removed its lifetime ban and replaced it with a 12 month deferral for anyone who has had "male to male" sex. It seems like a sensible policy, but it's one that the UK, Canada, the US and Sweden have declined to follow. Recent statistical modelling has indicated even the Australian model would lead to an increase of risk of infected blood within the blood supply. This does of course remain to be seen in practice. In a few years' time we'll have actual evidence of the quantity of infected blood in Australia and whether it's gone up, down or stayed the same.

Although all blood donations are screened for HIV and other infections, these tests aren't 100% effective - the tests aren't 100% accurate (i.e. they have error rates, though small), there is a window period - 3 month, though it may be much more reduced than that and there is human error in the lab. So there is still a risk and a good rationale for preventing donations through donor screening if it can effectively be done.

Currently between a half and a third of infected donations in the UK are given by men who have had sex with men and have in some instances given blood on a previous occasion. That is to say that a group compirisng about 3% of the polulation accounts for between 33% and 50% of infected donations even when there is a ban in place supposedly preventing them from donating. So clearly we are dealing with a high risk group for HIV (we'd all prefer it wasn't the case but the figures are there and can't be argued with - by these figures between 10 and 20 times higher than the general population that is not otherwise in a high risk group).

So, yes, it would be great if we could adopt the Australian model. Only time will tell if it is effective. I hope it is.

But any such move in the UK should be evidence based and not based purely on write ins, petitions and popular opinion, which don't always take account of the bigger picture of the need to safeguard a supply of blood for those who need transfusions.

Right to remain

Very interesting Leader in the Times of the 14th March titled "Right to Remain".

It congratulates the Government for changing its mind on the call for asylum to be granted for Mehdi Kazemi stating:

The Government swiftly drew back yesterday from a monstrous injustice.
Within hours of receiving a letter from more than 60 members of the House of
Lords, Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, announced that the Government would
reconsider its refusal to grant asylum to a 19-year-old Iranian homosexual, who
fears he will be hanged if he is sent back to Iran.

It is good to see there is a high level recognition in the wider media of the dangers of sending LGB people back to Iran and therefore a wider recognition that facing persecution on the grounds of one's sexuality is as good a claim for genuine asylum as a claim based on religion or political views.

This also opens up the need for the UK, EU and other countries (such as the US) to be very clear about LGBT human rights in the international sphere (e.g. at the UN and human rights treaty bodies).

The fight goes on and shows the vital importance of having organisations such as ILGA working at the international level.

One to watch

Norway has announced the introduction of legislation to equalise the marriage law.

This is significant because Norway was one of the 1st countries to intoriduce civil partnerships within a Scandinavian bloc and it is known that Sweden is also considering equalising its marriage law.

This is also of significance because Scandinavian countires tend to be overwhelmingly Lutheran and their Churches are in Communion with the Anglican Church via the Porvoo Agreement. Evidence from the Swedish Lutheran Church is of an attitude of pragmatism if not yet acceptance of same sex relationships and certainly not the hysteria that exists in the Church of England and Anglican Communion.

Wikipedia has an interesting article here. No doubt it will be updated as the Bill progresses.

365gay news report here

Congratulations to the French socialists

Although the French Parti Socialiste had been working hard to give voters the impression that it was hopelessly divided and anti-EU it is currently managing a bit of a Phoenix operation in the French municipal elections.

Coming so soon - less than a year - after losing the 3rd Presidential election in a row they have managed to do really well in gaining many town halls across France.

Dearest to my heart is the gain of Strasbourg again with a particularly pleasing absolute majority, but gains all over France of many cities including those that are traditionally right wing.

Bertrand Delanoe did well in his re-election in Paris and is being touted as a possible leader of the French socialists in opposition to Segolene Royal.

Last year I must admit I felt quite hopeless about the left in France - and its fragmentation and internal divisions continues to be a worry. Clearly though, Sarkozy is not proviong as popoular as people may have thought and there is a significant potential in future national elections.

Analysis aside - just the sheer joy that Strasbourg is socialist again!

3rd reading of the Lisbon Treaty

Just catching up on some blogging to mention the excellent debate in the House of Commons to give the Lisbon Treaty Bill a 3rd Reading (11th March)

Previously the House debated a proposal to submit the Bill to a referendum and defeated it - rightly in my view.

There is nothing that has been brought to my attention that would come anywhere near warranting a referendum, which in general is a bad way to make major political decisions, given we are a Parliamentary democracy with the idea that a parliamentary majority is the way all our major decisions are made.

There is of course a role for referendums, notably where the governing party is divided and cannot sustain its majority or because of a fundamental change such as adopting the euro or where a proposed change is (paradoxically) of less importance and you want to give people a choice at a local level (such as elected mayors, regional assemblies).

The only case for a referendum on the now defunct Constitution (which in itself was not that ambitious and represented incremental change) was that it had the symbolism of a Constitution and it was that kind of symbolics which suggested a referendum was of value.

At the time I must say I was not convinced. Europe isn't for most people a misty eyed thing that you embrace and fall in love with. For me it's a pragmatic mechanism that as a matter of simple fact the UK decided to join the EU because it felt it was in its overall interests and for that reason stays and works to improve it.

Going out there and persuading people to love the EU is daft - for good or ill (usually for ill, but there we have it) we Brits are congenitally sceptical of anything and love nothing better than poking fun at them there foreigners with their strange ways that are so clearly inferior to ours.

(This was the reason that we joined the EU late - 1972 as opposed to 1958 when it was first set up. We just couldn't believe that something run by our continental 'cousins' would work. We wanted to be "in Europe, but not run by Europe" a vast "area of free trading sovereign nations" .... so we set up EFTA as an alternative but seeing that the EU worked quite well we decided - that is to say the elected majority in Parliament decided - to join the EU - of course the Labour government did hold a referendum because it was so hopelessly divided it had to do so to maintain its majority and stay in office, but not for any other reason).

All those wonky banana stories are just too good to not print if you are a tabloid editor - though the determination of our culture to prick pomposity and lampoon any bureaucracy is not a totally bad trait either.

And all of these traits have helped to form the Lisbon Traety which makes the EU work at 27 as opposed to 15 (with surely the thought that there are quite a few countries yet to come in, albeit smaller e.g. the Balkan states) but addressing all of the negotiating points identified by eurosceptics over the years. Subsidiarity is in the Treaty and is defined along with a principal of conferral (the EU only has power explicitly conbferred on it, for example. Britain has oodles of 'opt ins', that is areas where the UK can opt in if it wants to but doesn't have to and there is explicit recognition of the role of the National Parliaments, giving them a veto over extensions of qualified majority voting.

Of course there's a lot of content that's the same as the defunct Constitution, but that's because there is widespread agreement on some relatively minor changes, like ending the rather silly rotating presidency (rotating every 6 months), extending QMV in some areas (mostly technical) and improving the votes' weighting system - increasing the UK's share of the vote.

In summary:

- Yes to the EU and our continued membership
- Yes to the Treaty of Lisbon as a good amending Treaty
- No to a referendum because we are a Parliamentary democracy
- Yes (hopefully) to an end to euro-institutional navel gazing
- No to any more EU treaties (amending or otherwise) for the next 20 years........

The link to the Hansard debate at 3rd reading is here

The link to the Parliament web for the Bill is here

For information on who voted which way see here

The Government majority was 140, which is very solid.

More good news - blasphemy's gone

Only just found out almost by accident that the House of Lords has accepted a Government amendment to remove the law on blasphemy.

This is good news, although the passage of the Human Rights Act ensures the law on blasphemy can never be used in any case and the Government was clear it was a dead letter - an attempt to bring a case against Jerry Springer the Opera was described as "bordering on the vexatious" by the judge hearing the case. The law on incitement to religious hatred is another reason given for making the move - we have a law protecting believers of different faiths rather than protecting one religion.

The official line from bishops was that they accepted the change and wouldn't vote against it (though some did) but felt that it wasn't the right time to make the change......

Other Lords (some of whom are well known from other debates - e.g. Baroness O'Cathain, who's somewhat of a regular speaker on such matters) opposed the move, some of them refering to the risk there would be a deluge of anti-Christian attacks.

The House of Lords debate is well worth reading as some of the speeches are very well informed.

The blasphemy law was of course famously used against Gay News for inclusion of a thought provoking poem called 'The Love that dare not speak its Name', which lead to the closure of Gay News.

The text of the poem is here (first time I've ever been able to read it, though on doing so I must admit to having some sympathy with the original trial judge on the matter and I definitely think it is outrageous in the offence it will have caused to many believers and straightway we're back onto the territory of thinking about the Danish cartoons and the reaction that had caused).

The whole House of Lords debate can be seen here.

Baroness Andrews' introduction and summing up.

Baroness O'Cathain here


Commentary from the Guardian - When blasphemy bit the dust.


Although a little used law, it's good to get it off the Statute Book before people start using it again.

Spanish elections

Good news for Spanish socialists who have been re-elected with a slight increase in their number of seats, but with the right also making gains. Near final results see PSOE with 169 seats out of 350, with the opposition PP on 154, though the socialists do have allies they can rely on.

This is interesting for many reasons including the fact that the socialist government has legislated for same sex marriage including adoption with a ferocious opposition from the Roman Catholic Church on this and a number of other issues.

And yet it seems the election result this time is almost a replay of the election last time.

One other thing is that the decision on same sex marriage did not seem to be the major part of the campaign where the focus seemed to have been on terrorism, separatism and the economy.

So there are big implications for the Catholic Church in how it 'comments' on elections.

Interesting opinion poll here from Angus Reid website (www.angus-reid.com - great for any kind of opinion poll) showing 75% of Spaniards supporting the law on same sex marriage, with 18% opposed to the law.

Commentary here from 365gay.com.

Other good news - in the French municipal elections the Parti Socialiste seems to be in a good position to retake a number of towns including Strasbourg where I lived when the socialists retook it in 1989 amidst posters from the right proclaiming "Strasbourg ne sera jamais socialiste".

Always good to see socialists winning.....

Tribunal award against bishop of Hereford

News recently put out that the Bishop of Hereford has been on the wrong end of an award of £47,500 for his act of discrimination and an expectation from the Tribunal that he undertake equality training.

No wonder the Archbishop wants parallel courts rather than those offered by the State.....

Archbishop of Canterbury tempts me back to my blogging

Of course Sharia courts of some description may have some place in resolving property disputes where this is mutually preferred by the parties - maybe this is what the Archbishop meant, but this is quite non-controversial and really not worth the bother of stating as though it were a great truth.

The Archbishop's remarks have however rightly been described as muddled and unhelpful.

The kernel of the Archbishop's thinking was stated in his reaction to the furore about the sexual orientation regulations and the issue of the campaign for an exemption for Catholic adoption agencies.

His thinking was that in a state that makes space for religious belief the state shouldn't claim total allegience of religious adherents and there should be a plethora of arrangements, special laws, separate courts, conscience clauses to make religious believers feel happy within a secualr state.

Now this idea isn't one of religious fundamentalism, where the sect seeks a kind of imposition of religious belief upon non-believers, but it is far from satisfactory nonetheless.

It inevitably leads to fears of individuals in faith communities setting themselves apart from and above the law and this is particularly dangerous where the laws are ones protecting human rights and outlawing discrimination - and here we basically end up with a self awarded right to be above the law of the land.

The Archbishop made a mistake in other ways as well. Muslims didn't ask him to make huimself their spokesperson and I don't think the reaction has spread awareness and understanding of different commun ities. Plus I don't think that he is that much of an expert on the subject of Sharia.

A much stronger argument might have been that we need to find ways of allowing the devlopment of Sharia in different countries that can incorporate human rights and considerations of freedom and equality in a way that could challenge the less enlightened forms in many of the countries where it is practised. This wasn't, however, the point he was trying to make.

And this might have led to a reflection (in that very involved and intellectual way beloved of the Archbishop) to a reflection on the interaction between Christianity, the law and rights and protections of others, though the results would have been opposite to the veiw he espoused when he proposed making religious believers exempt from discrimination law.

Ultimately therefore a very big mistake - in timing, content, argumentation and political nouse (or lack thereof).


He's been roundly condemned because his idea's a dud, whichever way you look at it.

Singapore retains criminalisation of homsexuality

Report on the BBC.

A petition had been presented to Parliament to include same sex acts in the repeal of heterosexual sodomy laws but the Parliament voted to retain the current legislation.

This is just one country amongst many where sex between men is still made into a criminal offence and shows how much progress there is to be made.

Meanwhile the report on 365gay.com details the many restrictions to freedom of association and expression which are occuring in Singapore under the current laws.

See also the letter from IGLHRC to Singapore's Prime Minister on this subject.

Great news from Poland

As everyone is no doubt aware the rather unpleasant right wing homophobic government in Poland has been roundly defeated in a 'snap' election by a much less but still right wing party and its ally. Especially gratifying that the more extreme smaller League of Polish Families (and coalition member) has gone from 18% to 3% and is no longer in the Parliament.

Together the two parties have an absolute majority of 20 seats in the lower house, though it is anticipated that the President who is in office until 2010 may oppose much of the government's legislation.

This is great news for LGBT people living in Poland and hopefully will demonstrate that homophobic governance cannot be relied upon to garner votes come election time. Hopefully it will allow further progress to be made in Poland as well as being an object lesson to the rest of the EU.

Guardian Editorial

Ekklesia - which describes the result as being a "defeat for extreme Catholic nationalism" according to 'analysts'.

BBC coverage

Pink News article

This report by the Polish Campaign Against Homophobia on the general situation of LGBT people in Poland is also interesting, though doesn't refer to the election.

Rees Mogg is at it again

Article in today's Times by Rees-Mogg - one of many to come I should think - basically a thinking person's way of saying Gordon Brown is dishonouring the war dead of many centuries with cartoons of spitfires and war graves (you need the Sun for that).

Just a brief reminder of where Rees-Mogg (he is actually a person and not a cat) is that he is opposed to anything connected to the EU, and actually took the then Conservative Government to Court as far back as 1993 arguing that the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty was unconstitutional. He lost......

He won't have any difficulty accomodating himself to today's Europhobic Tories however.

I support the Reform Treaty

Not only do I support it, I hope it is ratified through the Parliamentary mechanism after extensive debate and line by line scrutiny, which is in accordance with the UK parliamentary tradition that the Tories are trying to overthrow.

I must say that in this regard I disagree with the handfull of euro-sceptic Labour MP's wanting a referendum. There should only be a referendum when we are choosing to go into something like the euro, or creating radically new arrangements or institutions (e.g. devolved Parliaments) or where the governing party is hopelessly divided like Wilson's Labour government in the early 1970's.

Although there's a lot of bluster from the Tories I think they are making a big mistake putting so much effort into being anti-European and think they'll suffer from it in the longer run.

And an excellent article on why we should support the Reform Treaty from some time back in the Guardian.

Craig's back

After a long absence to allow me to rest I am now back at blogging and apologise for the interuption of service....

Well, I am back - but Ming is gone. As someone said to me recently - Gordon Brown makes the mistake and Ming is the one that has to go.....

I think all the excitement of having a new PM, preparign for a General Election, then having the election cancelled, then all the stress of Ming resigning - well it's all too much!!

Blindel's Blunder

I'm a little late on this one which has stirred a certain reaction in some qaurters.

Julie Bindel's original article appeared in the Guardian and can be read here.

She also argued her case on Radio 4's hecklers programme (a lot tamer than the title suggests and very little actual heckling, which in this case is a pity).

Julie Bindel makes a number of points but boils down to (you'll have to forgive me for not reproducing her views in extenso - I can't be bothered) feminist theory puts a lot of stress on gender roles being socially constructed and therefore anyone who has gender reassignment is buying in to the idea that gender is a given thing and therefore reinforces this concept of gender which according to feminism (or at least one version of feminism) reinforces the oppression of women.

So many logical fallacies and so little time to deconstruct them.

Julie Bindel has also gone on to look criticially at the whole gender reassignment thing and has some major critiques of hte whole thing from which she deduces it's all some kind of antifeminist plot by the medical profession. Again som many fallacies, so little time.

The first thing to state is that Julie Bindle is a bit of a 'Jonny come lately' to the argument about gender reassignment and the argument has been taking placeover many years within the trans community and is at the root of the original use of the term transgender which originally referred to people who did not wish for gender reassignment (as an example see this article), a fact she conveniently fails to mention in order to make her own critique appear more powerful than it is.

Many of her criticisms around the way gender reassignment works have some validity - yes of course it should not be rushed into, there should the provision of therapy and counselling for those who wish for it both pre and post and of course there is no guarantee that people are happy after surgery - hence the need for counselling and support. Yes there needs to space to encourage more freedom of gender expression apart from gender reassignment.

The promotion of the concepts of gender expression and gender variance is something that's being promoted by trans communities who are alot more political and diverse than Julie Bindle portrays them as - it's always easier to combat people when you portray them as unified and monolithic where no internal debate or dissension occurs (the gay community thinks etc).

But it does in the end come down to whether you think gender reassignment is the right thing under some circumstances. Clearly there are many people who are happy after transitioning and who were very unhappy prior to this.

Of course I can also see that people should have the widest choices available to them and that it takes a political community of people who have made some of those choices to make them possible and the medical community is not often able to reflect or offer that.

Before wrapping up I should state that I don't think that gender is completely a matter of social conditioning (though of course it is in large part - or at leat how it plays out). If people have a clear sexual orientation of being attracted to one gender that means to me that I can have a gender identity myself and that gender means something - though is maybe more varied than the binary male/female divide we are trained to think in.

I think Julie Bindel does raise some interesting points but the manner of attacking people's freedom to make decisions about their lives in the name of a doctrine (albeit secular as opposed to religious) is unfortunate and unhelpful.

Rather than be opposed gender reassignment provision needs to be improved.

Channel 4's 40 years after 1967 season....

Channel 4's season commemorating 40 years after the passage of the Sexual Offences Act 1967 is nearly over.

So far we have had A Very British Sex Scandal. An excellent and very well done recounting of the sensational trial of Peter Wildeblood and Lord Montagu showing the impact that criminalisation had on gay life (people being wary of telling each other their names, burning their letters to each other so they wouldn't risk being incriminated against for example) in conjunction with reconstructions of hearings of the Wolfendon Committee.

The most poignant moment is during the trial where Peter Wildeblood admits to being a homosexual and starts to turn the tide of public attitudes leading to the setting up of the Wolfendon Committee which, ten years later led to decriminalisation (over 21 and in private - prosecutions actually went up after the 1967 Act).

I found How Gay Sex Changed the World to be incredibly old hat and tedious but with some interesting moments in the telling. Certainly didn't talk about the World though, which was a shame.

Most controversy attached to Clapham Junction. It's well worth watching but from the reaction and commentary I have seen appears to have been understood by very few people at all, with most people's reaction being "This doesn't represent gay life" as though the purpose of drama is to give a faithful representation of something - it isn't. Drama is there to give insights not representations; as though we all need showing what the gay life is really like; as though Romeo and Juliette is a faithful representation of what heterosexuality is like.

Put simply what Clapham Junction portrays (so far as I can tell) is how prejudices from a previous era are disrupting the lives of people today born into a world where there are Civil Partnerships, openly gay people in high ranking professions and so on.

Their lives are disrupted by the threat of violence - often through being in the worng place at the wrong time - the young gay man in murdered after using a toilet frequented by gay men but not doing anything himself and then getting chased into the common. No matter. He's not being bashed because of his having sex (he wasn't) but because the nexus of homophobia from when there weren't Civil Partnerships is ready and waiting as well as affecting the way people construct their relationships, through isolation, lack of role models and so on.

It is quite simply about the legacy of discirmination that still weighs heavily upon gay people and in some ways on all of us. To test this out would be very simple - have two men walk hand in hand throught he streets of most UK cities and I think it would be clear what the result would be.

Finally and most retro of all, the "discussion" programme chaired by David Aronovitch (whose writing I really like). This was utterly tedious, worthy and for the most part unwatchable garbage, starting off with the complete failure to understand the meaning of Clapham Junction but failed to achieve any sense of lift off or purpose with David Aronovitvh trying depsreately hard to be a hip with it heteresexual and completely at ease with the vacuous non-discussions around him - even descending at one point to talking as a cultural authority on account of his gay friends..... In the words of Sir Alan Sugar "What a load of old tut!", though I think Catherine Tate's Nan Taylor would have said it better.......

Hullo? Homosexuality still a criminal offence in around 90 countries of the world? Stonewall's recent report on the failure of schools to provide any kind of protection from homophobic bullying (which one of the commentators - no less than Mark Simpson - (who?) describes as being an expression of "homo-unease" which shouldn't worry us unduly....... I see, so that's all right then.

So two cheers for Channel 4 who have actually covered the bloody thing (shame on the BBC) and made an attempt and for two really good and challenging programmes, even though the utter lack of sophistication when reviewing the drama could have been ameliorated by a kind of interpretative 'key' to help well meaning heteresexuals (who were mercilessly parodied in Clapham Junciton by the way - deservedly so in my view) make any sense of it all.

Cash for honours....

Surprise surprise the CPS has abandoned any intention of a prosection (much to the chagrin of the Metropolitan Police who after several high profile cases have gone wrong - Burrell, Who wants to be a Millionnaire - were aching for something that would come somewhere near justifying more than a million quid being spent on such a hopeless case).

The people of London must be fortunate indeed to have so little real crime that they have a couple of millions to spend on various wild goose chases initiated in this case by the SNP, who may well have won the Scottish election as a result.

Of course there is a statistical correlation between being a donor and receiving an honour - this is well known under both parties - a case for reform not criminal sanction. I for one think that people who donate to political parties and other good causes should be eligible for honours (though not positions in Parliament) - provided all is out in the open. And there are numberous bodies that can investigate including the Electoral Commission itself.

(I've previously blogged on the need for an entirely elected Upper Chamber).

Anyway - it is clearly illegal for honours to be sold to the highest bidder, like on ebay and there's a strong case for an elected chamber to remove any such considerations in the case of becoming a member of the Upper Chamber. Similarly there's a case for more state funding of political arties, especially in the field of political education and policy work as well as things like a limit on spending and so on.

But if we don't have state funding we have funding by individuals and I think that to say that you can be given an honour up until the point where you make a donation is ludicrous.

Yes we need reform of party funding as well as of the House of Lords - but these are political issues and arguments and should not be driven by a politicised police force using leaks via the tabloid press and certainly seeking to prejudice the public in a way that would be unacceptable in any other investigation.

Richard Rorty has died

After Derrida in 2004 Richard Rorty died on June 8th 2007.

The wikipedia article on Rorty can be found here.

Obituaries from the Times, Guardian and one form Jurgen Habermas.

Hi most accessible book is easily Philosophy and Social Hope.

Back from various Conferences

Well have been back a few days now from the TUC LGBT Conference and the UNISON Labour Link Forum.

The TUC LGBT Conference is a two day event where each affiliated union can send a delegation to debate LGBT issues (would be surprising if they debated anything else).

Big issues this year included:

Census 2011 - the inclusion of sexual orientation. In my view the Conference passing a motion asking for gender identity as well when the main Trans organisation (Press for Change) is not supporting this may well lead to difficulties in the campaign i.e. ONS saying well it's all too difficult and complicated to deal with ahead of 2011.

Framework for Fairness - This was an emergency motion submitted by UNISON and UCU. Its focus was on guidance given on the impact of sexual orientation regulations, which states that it is perfectly legal for teachers to tell a student that same sex activity is sinful, as well as relating some of the concerns about the Discrimination Law Review Green Paper - A Framework for Fairness. This motion was selected to go to Congress.

The UNISON Labour Link Forum debated a number of motions including 'LGBT Equality - Finishing the Job'. I also managed to ask a question to the MEP Panel, explicitly about Poland and LGBT rights actross Eastern and Central Europe.

Gays cause flooding - again

Or so the Bishop of Carlisle seems to think according to news reports.

Apparently the floods are a sign of God's distress over the sexual orientation regulations. I don't want to appear to mock the Divine Will but this is all a bit odd and I have a few questions:

1. How on earth is flooding people's homes, leading to a small number of deaths, in any way an appropriate punishment when many of the victims are not gay and had no part in the sexual orientaiton regulations? (of course the distress caused by flooding is extreme but there actually is no law of nature that says you have to have mild and predicatble wheather all of the time, though the Western European climate usually is) Unless God is saying that indiscriminate collective punishment is morally acceptable - seems to me that Al-Qaeda is working to the same principle already.
2. What sin was Britain committing in 1953 when over 300 people lost their life, Civil Partnerships were approx 50 years away and homosexuality was still illegal?
3. Apparently Texas leads the US in fatalities from floods and yet they have banned same sex marriage and are very conservative - just what is it that Texas is getting wrong? Whatever it is they don't seem too eager to correct it.
   

This is all clearly ridiculous nonsense and exposes church folk to the charge of being silly and supersticious at the best. Makes the likes of Richard Dawkins look positively balanced and sane in comparison and just brings old fashioned theism into disrepute as a load of supersticious old hooey.

I will try to pass on this interesting and useful link to Wikipedia's entry under 'extreme weather' seems most inicdents are caused by cyclones and so on rather than a comunication of divine displeasure at this or that law being passed at the time.

Of course, globally, it's poverty that leads to higher death rates in the event of natural disasters. But I don't expect Bishops have any understanding of things like that.

Mental Health Bill completes Parliamentary stages

In the end 'ping pong' was rather limited, with the Lords agreeing to the Commons' amendments and the Government agreeing a few more (rather significant) amendments and the Commons agreeing to the Lords' amendments.

The Bill has therefore now fully completed its passage through Parliament and awaits Royal Assent so as to become law and doubtless will enter into force in a year or two's time.

The final stages saw a further clause agreed by the Government which includes as one of the fundamental principles:

"respect generally for diversity, including in particular, diversity of religion, culture and sexual orientation"

which in my view is by far preferable to the 'exclusions' previously proposed, which muddy the water to a considerable degree.

Further amendments included sensible amendments to the process for renewal of detentions as well as improvements to the criteria for Supervised Community Treatment.

The Bill, whatever critics may say, is now much improved - hence the reason for it passing with relative ease (in the end......). Campaigners and amendments from the opposition have improved the original proposals but much time was wasted by caricaturising the Bill and seeking to defeat it completely rather than engaging on sensible improvements which in the end have been acheived.

The sense one gains from reading a lot of the wildly exaggerated campaigning material is one of having marched your troops to the top of the hill and now marching them down again but without necessarily achieving any more for adopting an exagerated and at times misleading stance.

The links to the latest parliamentary debates are:

Lords
Commons

All of the debates can be viewed here.

In the words of Tony Blair in another context "That's that - The end"

Post Script to the Mental Health Bill

Although the Bill itself contains vast areas of work for the Government to get its teeth into there are still significant areas for all of us to work on. Here's a few:

• Dealing with unequal outcomes for people from BME communities. At the very least this will mean undertaking clear measures to promote race equality at local level, clear and consistent monitoring at all stages, the use of positive measures, community outreach and mental health promotion and consideration of the need for alternative service models (the DoH Delivering Race Equality is a start)
  
• putting equality at the heart of all mental health service provision, across all strands and in particular ensuring that the forthcoming Single Equality Act includes a clear requirement to promote equality across all strands of equality
  
• monitoring the use of Community Treatment Orders to ensure they are being used in a sensitive and benefical way and do not discriminate
  
• a lot more still to be done to counteract stigma and discrimination associated with mental ill-health

And finally, there is considerable scope for issues of concern to be addressed in the Code of Practice which is going to open for consultation - link here.

Gordon and Harriet

Harriet Harman elected on the 5th round, having been led by Alan Johnson until the final round.

Both Harriet and Gordon Brown's speeches were truly inspirational with particular references to housing (which is now a key priority for many people), civil liberties and improving the constitution and pledges on education and the NHS.

For the Party the Deputy Leader becomes the Party Chair, rather than a Prime Ministerial appointee - as a result would seem that someone else will become Deputy PM (Straw?) - we'll see.

News on the Labour Party website and on the BBC. The Labour Party website has the text of Gordon Brown's speech.

Well it's been an interesting few weeks of Deputy Leadership election, it's allowed party members to debate both policy and presentation. I was sad that Peter Hain didn't win as I thought he'd be an excellent deputy leader but Harriet Harman was my No 2 (no, really....). In any case she has grown in stature during the campaign and her speech today was simply fab.

Voting over ...

If you haven't voted yet - it's too late!

Voting has now closed (unless you're an MP). Result due on Sunday.

I am still hoping for Peter Hain to win, but of course the result is rather unpredictable and I note that Gordon Brown has been making rather free of late with his current job (though he may have better things in mind for him), what with offering the post to Paddy Ashdown. More on this later.

On a spearate note Gordon seems to be engaging in an interesting version of Fantasy (Shadow) Cabinet..... Of course in a few days' time he'll be doin' it for real

Links from Hansard

Here are some really good bits. Links taken from Theyworkforyou.com. This is a really good website that allows you to very simply email your MP, find out who you MP is and also Hansard on this site is laid out better than on Parliament's website.

Here is the debate including Chris Bryant's excellent speech moving his amendment on 'therapeutic benefit'.

Here is the entire debate - though it's quite brief - on exclusions (including sexual orientation etc) with excellent speeches by Chris Bryant and the Minister, Rosie Winterton.

Here is Rosie Winterton's informative speech in third reading summing up the whole bill, followed by some other contributions.

The voting lists can be seen on The Public Whip:

Vote on exclusions - govt majority of 86
Vote on imparied judgment - govt majority of 83 (Lynne Jones and Jeremy Corbyn voted with the opposition)
Third Reading - govt majority of 70

For access to all debates in Commons and Lords (well you may mish to be selective in your reading.....) you can access these by clicking on the bill's Parliament website. The Hansard record for the ping pong - if there is any may prove interesting.

Mental Health Bill (Tuesday)

Final day of the Commons stages.

As urged by the Mental Health Coalition, who have in fact proved surprisingly effective in gaining concessions on key areas from the Government during the Bill's passage, the Governemtn accepted a compromise proposed by Chris Bryant on treatability, eerlly similar to the way forward I suggested to the Government in my own correspondence.....

In the end the Bill passed its Third Reading with a majority of 70, which in the circumstances aint too bad, certainly shows there has been no significant rebellion by Labour MP's.

The debates from yesterday's debate can be seen here (on theyworkforyou.com) - you need to scroll down to 'Orders of the Day' and then click on 'next debate' and probably scroll past the full text of the amendments which are ....... long.

Report on the Bill from the BBC.

Mental Health Bill (Monday)

Two remaining days in the Commons for the Mental Health Bill and I am going to try and watch as much of today's proceedings as I can.

The Government have made significant concessions as indicated in an earlier post and in several cases these are about making explicit (on the face of the Bill as parliamentarians are wont to say....) what was already the case and helping to dispel some of the myths as well as legitimate fears people may have that the powers of the Bill were too far reaching.

More compromises may be in order to stave off a lenthy ping pong session, but some of the things the opposition is asking for are contrary to the policy of the democratically elected government and on those issues - provided there is a Commons majority behind them - the Lords should not persist in their opposition.

The latest press release from the Mental Health Alliance does give recognition to the Government for the changes the Government has introduced and seems more conciliatory in tone.

Update

The Government introduced new clauses on independent advocacy, as well as indicating support for specialist advocacy services for Black and Minority Ethnic service users, age appropriate services for people under 18, improvements to safeguards in relation to consent and improvements (campaigned for by UNISON and the newly formed Mental Health Coalition) to the proposed Community Treatment Orders to ensure that they are not misused so as to place restrictions on people's lifestyles.

The Government also responded to lobbying by the Mental Health Coalition on the Nearest Relative issue (the Bill already allows you to seek a change in the NR where the current NR is unsuitable, with a patient being able to identify any other person so long as they are suitable) the Government has clearly stated that the NR is not the Next of Kin, and recognised you can choose who your Next of Kin is, agreeing to strengthen guidance in this area in the Code of Practice.

The Government won all of its votes today with majorities varying between 59 and 66.

Tomorrow is the final day of debate in the Commons.

The Department of Health website has latest documents including helpful correspondence with and reports from the Joint Committe on Human Rights (otherwise known as the Liberal Democrats at prayer).

In particular you can see the Government's response to some of the Joint Committee's rather incoherent (though no doubt well meaning) arguments on some aspects of the Bill, for instance on the need for 'exclusions'. I must say I find Rosie Winterton's argument to be particularly robust and succinct when speaking on the proposal to exclude sexual orientation, religious and cultural beleifs from the definition of mental disorder:

[...] They are not recognised mental disorders. It would be legally redundant to exclude them from the definition of mental disorder for the purposes of the Act. Indeed to do so might appear to suggest, quite wrongly, that they were mental disorders for other purposes - which would be particularly inappropriate in the case of sexual orientation. Moreover, to include any exclusions which are of no legal effect risks them being misunderstood or misinterpreted to have a substantive effect, which they would not in fact, have.

Which I think is a good paraphrase of the case I made out against such exclusions in my submissions to the Government over the Bill - nice to see they listened......

French results - socialists do better than expected

Today is the last day of the French legislative election.

As the Presidential election was in 2 rounds, so also is the of the Assemblee Nationale, the final round being today.

Results are predicted to give Sarkosy a very substantial majority and there are fears that the Parti Socialiste will have one of its worst historic results.

More later as the results come in.

Some analysis ahead of the results here:

Sydney Morning Herald, BBC, The Australian, Washington Times

And if you can read French an excellent analysis (with historical comparisons) in Le Monde and as well as this article.

More comment when there are some early indications of the result. Already, however, it is clear that the result will not be good for the French socialists, who will have a real job to do to reinvent themselves after the election.

Results start to come in BBC, Guardian

It now seems the Parti Socialiste is doing quite well, having gained a number of seats in the Parliament, which allows it to be a substantial opposition to the Government.

There is though a general consensus that there needs to be a process of 'rebuilding' in the Parti Socialiste, though exactly what form that takes remains to be seen, with at least a risk of a period of bitter infighting between the followers of a handful of political heavyweights.

Final results are now in

See the BBC site for the full details of the composition of the Assemblee Nationale with 07 compared to 02.

It's a little difficult to work out what's going on as the French system means there are lots of small groupings along side thw two big parties.

It seems the socialists have gained around 40 seats. The communists have lost a number of seats and therefore lose their status as a 'party group' in the Assembly.

The right wing UMP lost approx 40 seats.

Lesson - the importance of expectation management (especially difficult in a two round election). As a consequence the party that lost the election feels like it has won it as the first round predicted a wipeout for the Left and the party that actually won it feels like it's lost it...... Well that's politics for you.

Govt moves on Mental Health Act - gives credit to UNISON

Press release here detailing Government amendments to the Mental Health Bill which represent significant movement and go a long way to meeting campaigners' legitimate concerns in a number of areas.

UNISON along with other trade unions are specifically mentioned as having made representations to the Government (on the issue of Supervised Community Treatment).


So far as I can tell, the Mental Health Alliance put up a statement welcoming these changes, then took it down again and then put one back up saying, amongst other things:

Our members will welcome the fact that the Government has begun to listen to and act upon the concerns of the people who live and work with the Mental Health Act. We hope that today’s changes mark the beginning of a new government approach to this issue that will lead to a genuine consensus before the Bill becomes law.

We believe that the Government and the Mental Health Alliance can still work together to deliver a new Act that is defensible and workable.

Is this the opening of a genuine era of co-operation breaking out? Given the Tories and Liberal Democrats have their minds seriously set on mauling the Government (of course that is the role of opposition parties, so I'm not criticising them for that) I harbour some doubts - we may be in for a very long ping pong.

The Mental Health Alliance is still wanting exclusions which are, in my view, patronising toward LGBT people and suggests that in some way being lesbian, gay, bisexual or trans is a mental illness. We all know this isn't the case, so the exclusion is unhelpful as it suggests the opposite.

Firstly being of one sexual orientation would never be able to meet the stringent tests contained in the Mental Health Act for compulsory admission, secondly because the law in Council of Europe countries on sexual orientation and gender identity is actually very clear and thirdly because UK legislation is explicit in recognising the legitimate existence of LGBT people (examples including Civil Partnerships, Gender Recognition, protection from discrimination in employment, goods and services and in the exercise of public functions - including acts under the Mental Health Act and finally the Bill contains 'fundamental principles' including non-discrimination and the least restrictive alternative.

Empty scaremongering versus equality

But at the same time some of the professional groupings in the Alliance (especially Psychiatrists) could do a lot more to promote services that are supportive to LGBT people and do more to challenge discriminatory attitudes that still abound in psychiatric practice.

No, not trying to lock you up for being gay but not really listening to you either, or not creating a safe environment for LGBT people (staff and clients) to be out or always seeing a person's sexual orientation or gender identity as the case of their mental distress, even when it has nothing to do with it.

Rather than joining in the scaremongering we should be demanding that as professionals in charge of NHS care we start to put our own house in order.

For the Government's pages on LGBT equality in the NHS (the Department of Health's Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Advisory Group) with some fantastic material the Government is producing on sexual orientation and gender identity.

There's some really great stuff there, but as we all know getting it put into practice when discriminatory attitudes go very deep is the real challenge. So in addition to all of the Government's other progress in dealing with discrimination, there is an urgent need to extend the equality duty to cover all strands of equality inlcuding sexual orientation and gender identity.

Bid to reverse same sex marriage in Massachusetts fails

News just in.

Lawmakers in Massachusetts have voted 45 to 151 to defeat the proposed constitutional amendment. It had already received votes in one session and needed votes in a second to be placed on the 2008 ballot (there only need to be 50 votes in favour in two sessions to allow the amendment to go to ballot). The next opportunity to place the question on the ballot will be 2012.

You can see the news here.

The bid to kill off the amendment was supported by the leaders of both Houses and the State Governor Deval Patrick.

Some really good pictures of the day here.

Single Equality Act proposals now out

These have just been made public by the Government.

The full proposals can be seen here and the press release is here.

The consultation will last until the 4th September 2007.

In addition the Government has published the proposals to add protection against discrimination in goods and services on the grounds of gender reassignment, by way of regulation under the European Communities Act.

Much of the reaction to the proposals is somewhat muted at the moment. TUC, Equal Opportunities Commission, Disability Rights Commission,

There are no clear proposals at this stage for an equality duty acorss all strands of equality or for harmonising provisionson harassment.

It will obviously be important to make sure there are forceful voices pushing the Government to use this once in a generation opportunity to actually deliver a lasting legacy, a step change in creating a more equal society, with the promise of real change.

Time to Vote!!

Labour's deputy leadership election is now in full swing.

If you are a member of the Labour Party (well duh....) or a member of a trade union and pay the political levy you have a vote (as well as members of Socialist Societies - including LGBT Labour) you will have the chance to vote. The elction is divided into three sections, each of which has a third of the final vote (MP's, MEP's; Party members; affiliated trade union members and socialist societies).

Please use your vote(s)!!

It is vital for ordinary people to be able to have a say and that is why the Labour Party is set up in the way it is, allowing millions to have a say in the elctions for Leader and Deputy Leader.

(I should say at this point that I would have wanted to have had an election for Leader - but not an artificially created one with a candidate who needed people to nominate him just to get him on the ballot (even if they had no inention of voting for him and didn't think he'd be any good as a Prime Minister) - what would have been the purpose of that?).

So now it's time to get voting!!

I am supporting Peter Hain (this may by now be a statement of the "bleedin' obvious" but it's good to let everyone know where you stand). I think he has fought a good campaign, has solid values and will be a real asset as a Deputy Leader in ensuring that we establish a genuinely progressive agenda that will sustain a progressive government over a fourth term.

He has a good basis of support from Trade Unions, a genuinely radical past (in the Anti-apartheid movement), good ministerial experience (notably in Northern Ireland), a clear commitment to equality and human rights (again his clear determination to bring in equality laws against stiff opposition in Northern Ireland) and a clear sense of direction as to how Labour can make a difference in government to ordinary working people.

If you are voting for another candidate please use your second preference vote for Peter Hain (the winner is unlikely to be elected on 1st preferences alone and the second preference only comes into play when your preferred candidate has been eliminated).

Remember:

1. Voting is by preference (1,2,3 etc) if you use a cross it won't count
2. You don't have to use all of your preferences - preferences are only used if your preferred candidate is eliminated
3. If you are using a union or socialist society vote remember to tick the declaration box to say you support the Labour Party and aren't a member of another party (or your vote won't count)
4. Vote by returning your ballot paper in the envelope provided or to the address on the ballot form (if you lose the envelope you can still vote.......) by the closing date.

If you want any more reasons to vote for Peter Hain you will find them aplenty on Lou's Blog or of course, Peter Hain's campaign site.

Campaigning on the Mental Health Bill

A good example of some of the exaggerations that are being put about concerning the Government's plans form the website for 'Black Information Link' with my comments added in parentheses.

"The Bill includes provision to:

- allow anyone to be detained and medicated against their will even if they will not benefit from treatment.

Not true. The law will broadly operate as now. To be detained to hospital you have to have a serious mental health problem which is not amendable to treatment by your GP, local community mental health and home treatment teams. An appropriate treatment will have to be available.

- allow anyone can be forcibly medicated against their will within their homes.

Absolutely not true. There is no provision for forcible treatment in people's homes unless in emergency situations. People who have been discharged from hospital under Supervised Community Treatment (a small number of people as opposed to "anyone") are amenable to being brought back to hospital if unwell and given medication.

- allow practitioners to restrict the lifestyle and behaviour of those anyone who has had contact with the services.

Not true, though the wording used by the Government in the legislation has led to some confusion and would benefit from being clarified. There are, though, no plans to restrict people's lifestyle and behaviour.

- Extend doctors powers to detain patients against their will to other professions

Not true. Only certain doctors will be able to detain (as now) under the Mental Health Act. The Bill will, however, allow other professionals (only if they meet cartain competencies) to be the responsible clinician, allowing them to renew detention (subject to certain safeguards). This will allow people to move away from the medical model of psychiatry where everyone has to be under the care of a Consultant Psychiatrist, but, if approriate (and perhaps with a degree of patient choice) have a nurse, Occupational Therapist or Psychologist as their responsible clinician.

I think it is really good that the Government has to justify any proposals in the field of mental health law and that there is the widest possible degree of involvement and criticism from community groups and, yes, in some areas the Government needs to reflect and seek ways of improving the legislation.

However it is most unfortunate that some campaigners (no doubt with the very best of intnetions) are proceeding by means of half truth and exaggeration to raise fear and anxiety around the proposed legislation, making sensible criticism and debate almost impossible and seeking to create long term mistrust of mental health services which can only be harmful in the long run.