Sunday, November 26, 2006

Mad Hattersley

I've always had a lot of respect for former Birmingham MP Roy Hattersley, being as he is an unashamed proponent of left wing values and perennial thorn in the side of New Labour. However, this morning on the Heaven and Earth show he made a bit of a fool of himself. Firstly he tried to gain the moral high ground by asking someone who dared to disagree with his position on the new anti-discrimination gay rights laws if she was gay. His face was a picture when she said yes. During this argument, he quoted a statistic from a report in the 1940's which claimed that 12% of the population was gay. Another member of the panel pointed out the this report had been discredited several times since, and the figure was closer to 3% which he then claimed proved his point! Finally, he rubbished the idea that if everyone followed the Catholic churches teachings to the letter, there would be no AIDS but failed to give any indication of why that was such a stupid comment.


It must show my age when I am starting to agree with Tony Blair (yes you read that correctly) that we need to take on conservatives on both sides. Roy is an Old Labour dinosaur who would be eaten alive in the House of Commons today. I do not disagree with everything he says, but perhaps he is a ladder it is time to kick away.

No comments: