Lord Browne, former BP boss, writes in The Guardian today; 'Being outed is a blessing - It's a great shame a public figure like David Laws still felt a need to hide his sexuality as I once did.'
Quite.
At the end of June, Browne was appointed as a chief government advisor - the coalition's "lead Non-Executive Director" no less.
This means he will be trying to identify lots and lots of cuts that can be made in Whitehall spending.
Browne doesn't mention this - nor, oddly, does a companion piece on the front page of The Guardian.
His new job will probably make Lord Browne about as popular as... well, as popular as his old firm the Gulf of Mexico-polluting BP are at the moment.
The first reader's online comment after Browne's article says; "I didn't know your sexuality and didn't care. I still don't care.
"Your record of cost-cutting in vital areas of safety and maintenance while in charge at BP, however, means that I consider you unfit for your current role as a highly paid government advisor. We won't even mention whether the chairman of a company with as many safety violations as yours had should have been honoured by a peerage."
Quite.
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A good letter in The Guardian today from Bob Cant.
ReplyDeleteJohn Browne's plea for an end to discrimination against gay people at work (Being outed is a blessing, 16 July) makes no reference to the work of trade unions over the past 35 years, supporting people coming out at work and organising against the prejudice of fellow workers or managers. The Millthorpe Project has put a series of interviews with gay trade unionists into the British Library's sound archive. They tell stories of ordinary people doing extraordinary things in pursuit of the right to be honest about their sexuality.
Dr Bob Cant
Millthorpe Project, Brighton