And another thing…

IT’S STRANGE, isn’t it, that a media which regularly bemoans the end of collective government and the by-passing of parliament by the executive is the same media which believes all junior ministers are privy to the Prime Minister’s innermost thoughts?

Chris Bryant, the Europe Minister, is today accused of “letting slip” the date of the general election. I spoke to Chris last night when news of this “faux pas” first emerged and he was pretty amused by it all. I know him well, so I know that there is no way he actually said the election would be on any specific date. If anything, all he did was make a passing remark about the date which most people assume the poll will be held, and acknowleged that it was no more than that – an assumption.

But more importantly, do The Telegraph and other news outlets acutually believe that the date of the general election – the naming of which lies exclusively in the hands of the Prime Minister – is information which is shared with every member of the government? I doubt if even those few Cabinet ministers who are closely involved in election planning are more than 70 per cent sure about the date even today. And the majority of the Cabinet will know no more than the public.

SINCE being elected in 2001, I have never, until today, voted against my party on a three-line whip. That is something I’m extremely proud of.

However, yesterday I wrote to Nick Brown, the Government Chief Whip, informing him that I could not support the government on an issue which, I accept, is not that important to some people and which some might think is an odd choice of issue on which to make a virgin rebellion.

The subject was incitement to homophobic hatred.

Last year the government was forced, through lack of parliamentary time, to accept an amendment to the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill moved by Lord Waddington, the former Tory Home Secretary. This is what the amendment says:

For the avoidance of doubt, the discussion or criticism of sexual conduct or practices or the urging of persons to refrain from or modify such conduct or practices shall not be taken of itself to be threatening or intended to stir up hatred.

Tonight, the government asked the Commons to vote to remove it. This is what I wanted to say, had I been given time. In the event I had to cram it into less than three minutes, so the final version is considerably shorter than this.

In a sermon in 2006, the Roman Catholic Archbishop, Mario Conti, restated the church’s long-held policy that homosexual relationships should not be given the same value as married heterosexual relationships.

Now, as it happens, I don’t share the archbishop’s views. In fact my Hon Friend, the member for Rhondda and Deputy Leader of the House, once told me: “Tom, the only vaguely left-wing thing about you is that you quite like poofs.” And I have, in fact, a long and proud record of supporting gay rights legislation.

Nevertheless, Archbishop Conti’s views are widely held among other Christians and by most Christian denominations.

The Green MSP, Patrick Harvie, took such exception to the archbishop’s comments that he reported him to the Chief Constable of Strathclyde Police, accusing the archbishop of incitement to homophobic hatred.

I don’t know what happened after that; I assume that the chief constable, being a man of decency and common sense, quickly filed Patrick’s letter in the nearest waste paper bin.

And the danger of this stance being taken by the government tonight is that there are plenty of people out there who, like Patrick Harvie, combine a hyper sensitivity with an inclination to legal recourse

It is not, I assume, the government’s intention that homosexuals or any other group, should be protected from hurt feelings, or from being offende – and d. What the archbishop did in his sermon was not to incite hatred of homosexuals, but to invite disapproval.

So what signal will we send to people like Patrick Harvie and others who equate criticism with physical violence, that we are removing a protection, a caveat that the vast, overwhelming majority of people in this country would, I’m sure, support

If it is not the government’s intention that people of faith who criticise homosexual practice should be prosecuted for doing so, why are they insisting on the removal of this phrase

Does my Rt. Hon. Friend realise the harm done to the government’s excellent record in socially progressive policy by the actions of people like Patrick Harvie? Or indeed by the police officers who arrested and held a student in the cells overnight for calling a police horse gay?

I guarantee my RHF that if he is successful, if this phrase is removed from the Act tonight, it will be seen as a green light to all those who believe they can silence anyone who disagrees with them

There are a great many things in the Bible – the New as well as the Old Testament – which many people would find objectionable if they only bothered to read it. If it hasn’t already happened, I can see, in the not too distant future, a complaint being raised with the police because a quote from the book of Leviticus or I Corninthians on a placard outside a church is “incitement to homophobic hatred

It would be wrong to assume that every gay man and woman in the land supports what the government is doing this evening. I have many gay friends, and those with whom I’ve raised this matter have, frankly, more important things to worry about. They are more than capable of defending themselves against criticism from either Archbishop Conti or anyone else.

I dread the day when, in response to any kind of criticism, we in this country feel that it should become a police matter. No-one has the right not to be offended and we should steer well clear of establishing such a right now

We lost the vote.

Police officers throughout this country, if they are not avidly tuned into BBC Parliament right now, will take a keen interest in this debate. Its outcome will have a major impact on their already massive workloads, and they will have every right, if the government gets its way, to roll their eyes heavenward and resign themselves to having to deal with an increased volume of correspondence from those who interpret every harsh word uttered as a broken bottle thrown

Given my long voting record in defence of gay rights, I hope I don’t have to state on the record that I don’t happen to agree with what the Archbishop said about the inferiority of gay relationships. But at the risk of sounding more like Gamaliel than Voltaire, I absolutely defend his right to say it. So should the government.

We lost the vote.

TOMMY McAvoy is a record holder. Until last October he was the only member of the government to have held exactly the same post continually since May 1997.

That post was pairing whip, or Comptroller of the Queen’s Household, if you want the official title. Tommy is a legend in these parts, and since I know he reads this blog, I’ll leave it at that. Suffice to say that he’s exactly the kind of chap any government would want in the whips’ office; he’s now Deputy Chief Whip.

Last night, on the way to vote in the Aye lobby, I passed the despatch box in the Commons and saw that someone had passed a note to the minister who had been speaking before the vote was called. The note was informing the minister (I think it was Chris Bryant) how long he had to speak before he had to sit down, since business was on a rigid timetable with “knives” — pre-agreed points of interruption when votes are called — inserted into the agenda.

I smiled when I read the note; it read “Two minutes”, and, underneath that, in a clear attempt at instilling some authority into the instruction, the writer had added: “From Tommy”.

Chris’s speech did not overrun.

The Nasty Party is alive and well, as evidenced by this afternoon’s statement on the Lisbon Treaty in the Commons. When my old boss, Patricia Hewitt, rose to speak, there was a loud and hostile reaction from the Tories, with much disgraceful cat-calling and insults. There was a similar, though lower key, reaction whejn Chris Bryant spoke. Difficult to escape the conclusion that there are some groups of people to whom the Tory Party just doesn’t react well.

UPDATE (at 10.50pm) My editor-in-chief (Carolyn) has expressed some disquiet at the above post, suggesting it is unfair to label the whole Tory Party as misogynist homophobes. She’s right, of course. I know many Tories, inside and outside the Commons, who couldn’t be remotely described that way. Perhaps I was being just a little defensive of Patricia, of whom I’m extremely fond, and Chris (ditto). Hope that clarifies things.

So, to bring you up to date: yesterday I had various discussions with colleagues, mainly on abortion (where my mind is made up) but also on the “need for a father” clause. I’ve changed my mind on this at least three times already and by the time I went home I had pretty much – 75 per cent – made up my mind to support the government.

Then I spoke to Carolyn, who isn’t remotely political but is my touchstone to reality when it comes to this sort of question. What message does it send out, she asked, to society as a whole about the importance placed by the government on the role of the father? And what message does it send out to teenage men and women when we are (or should be) trying to persuade them that they shouldn’t enter parenthood unless they’re in a stable relationship?

Chris (Bryant) reminded me yesterday that “the only thing remotely left wing about you” is that I have always voted for gay rights (I paraphrase, but I’m not sure Chris’s original phraseology, though funny, would be appreciated by everyone). Well, it looks like after tonight, that small vestige of left wing credibility will have disappeared.