Peter Mandelson: Still Creepy After All These Years

'First of all, I'd like to pay tribute to Ed Miliband, useless sack of socialist shite he may have been. You know something Andrew, we could have won this election if only everyone had listened to me. Remember New Labour, they were great, and that was me. I blame the trade unions for picking Ed over his more Blairite and, let's be honest, much better looking brother, David. As for his successor, we don't want a beauty contest, but that young Chuka Umunna chap you had on the show today, when I was watching him I almost lost my deposit!'

Thank you Lord Peter of Mandy, anything else?

'Aspiration, aspiration, aspiration!'

The look of love...

General Election 2015: Carry On Campaigning

While we’re on the subject of locker-room horseplay, though, could there please – in the name of all that is decent – be a moratorium on politicians making jokes about sexy time? In Hendon, Cameron was reiterating that to vote for Ukip is to “go to bed with Nigel Farage and wake up with Ed Miliband. I don’t know about you,” he twinkled suggestively to the audience, “but no part of that works for me”. Last week it was Ed Miliband referring to the idea of having to go into a “darkened room” with Nick Clegg, telling the Question Time audience: “I don’t like the sound of that,” he oo-erred, “for a whole range of reasons”.

Guys, guys … Please. We get it. YOU’RE ALL STRAIGHT. You’re not mining some comic seam here – you’re doing the equivalent of going into the gents’ and writing “NIJEL FARRARGE DONE IT WITH NICK CLEG!!!!!” on the wall...

Marina Hyde, The Guardian's election diary.

General Election 2015: Pink Turning Red

I saw something very Brighton on Bank Holiday Monday. A woman putting bottles into a bottle bank noticed that one of them had a drop of wine left in it. She unscrewed the cap, downed it, and then dropped it in the bank. To combine recycling with alcoholism is about as Brighton as it gets...

Kemptown, in the east, has also seen a massive influx of Labour campaigners – and the dominance is shown in the number of Labour signs in windows. I spoke to a gay couple basking in the sun outside a café. One said: "Yeah, we’ll probably go with Labour… Ed’s not very impressive is he? But anything rather than Cameron.”

“Ed looks weird,” added his partner. “That mouth.”

I asked if the Tory embrace of gay marriage had made any difference to their voting intentions, and they said that it hadn’t. “I mean, we’ve not got married have we?” observed one with a raised eyebrow – suggesting that I’d opened a can of worms. “But Labour would’ve backed gay marriage anyway, so it doesn’t make any difference.” 

This is a view that might not be true, given national polling evidence that the Tories are now doing much better among gay voters * – although, not well enough to hold on to a constituency that could be described as the San Francisco of England. Then again, Kemptown has always been a very working-class kind of gay scene. There are a lot of middle-aged couples sporting tattoos that probably hail from the days of Margaret Thatcher...

Tim Stanley, Daily Telegraph.

Fagburn is proud to announce he is voting Nancy on Thursday - I think this may well swing the election.

PS Radio 4's Today attends a gay hustings in Vauxhall to find out 'Where is the pink vote?'

* Fagburn on why the Pink News' readers poll is unrepresentative of gay voters. Today also cited it without question.

Mind you, this one could be the most unscientific gay election survey of all time; Most Grindr Readers Back The SNP!

Election 2015: Analysis By Nicky Haslam

What did Ed Miliband’s kitchen say to him, I wonder? “Oh, kitchens are so common, aren’t they? And people who bang on about kitchens are common,” he says dismissively. Bathrooms are much more revealing, he thinks. “Dickie Avedon [the American photographer] once said to me, if you want to decorate for someone properly, you should go to the bathroom and find out what pills they take, if they’re on uppers or downers or what.”

Haslam may be unenthusiastic about Miliband’s kitchen but he loves the man himself. “He looks like a Velázquez. An extraordinary face. He’s really rather beautiful. I met him the other day and I said, ‘You may have read, Mr Miliband, that I think you’re wonderful-looking.’ And he said, ‘Have you met my wife?’” He chuckles throatily. “I thought that was quite funny.” What about David Cameron? “Great fat lump!” he declares. “I’m very fond of David but he looks like anybody really, doesn’t he?”

Interior designer and socialite, Nicky Haslam, The Times.

Lucky readers also learn Nicky keeps his weight down by watching his diet. 

“Avocados only,” he says. “I’m sure that was the food of Eden.”

Election Fever Mounts: A Goat

An election candidate has apologised for joking that he "could be caught with my pants down behind a goat with Ed Miliband at the other end".

Labour's Clive Lewis, who is standing in Norwich South, made the comment in an interview with the New Statesman.

He had been asked if he was taking victory in 

the marginal seat for granted.

He said he was "sincerely sorry" if anyone had been offended by the comment.

Mr Lewis, who worked for BBC Look East as a reporter, had told the magazine: "I mean, in the multiverse there's still three universes in a hundred where there's a Green MP in Norwich, so anything could happen.

"I could be caught with my pants down behind a goat with Ed Miliband at the other end - well, hopefully that won't happen." ...

Regarding his New Statesman interview, Mr Lewis said: "On occasion we all have the ability to get carried away with language and colourful metaphors.

"If anyone was genuinely offended then I'm sincerely sorry for that."

BBC News.

#BBCDebate: Those Gayish Memes In Full

Sit down, Nick! It's starting! pic.twitter.com/lgW08nO5ia
— Fudgey (@fudgecrumpet) April 16, 2015

A couple of notable absentees this evening. #WhereAreCleggAndCameron #BBCDebate pic.twitter.com/aB7AOdn0eo
— HaveIGotNewsForYou (@haveigotnews) April 16, 2015

 

Ed Miliband is being very "sassy" this evening! #BBCDebate pic.twitter.com/s78vgaUC9x
— Craig (@Official_Craig) April 16, 2015

Election 2015: Now It's Red Hot Dave!

Daily Mail.

What a lad, eh?

PS And who is the prissy Sunday school teacher behind this new puritan crapola?

The Mail's inhouse gay Uncle Tom, Andrew Pierce, come on down!

Ed Miliband: Boo Hoo Squish Squish

‘The last thing I cried at was Pride. Pride is about this lesbian and gay community in London who go and help the miners in Wales and Justine and I watched it recently. I blubbed.’

Part of an Absolute Radio interview earlier today where Mr Ed tries to show his human side, quoted in Mail Online.

Pride was set a generation ago - taking sides in this celluloid fantasy is about as meaningful as saying who you'd root for in the English Civil War.

Funny how Miliband supports the Tories' war against the poor today.

Update: An alternative view...

LOLZ!

Turing's Law: Tokenism

Few reasons to vote Labour at this election could be more tokenistic than their new pledge to introduce "Turing’s Law". This legislation, named after Bletchley Park codebreaker Alan Turing, would allow families to apply for the government to posthumously pardon gay ancestors convicted of “indecency.” It's a touching idea, and not a bad one. But you don’t have to be a genius codebreaker to see that, coming from Labour, this the worst sort of gimmickry, cynically designed to win votes on the cheap.

Elections should be about solid promises to change society today, not historical tinkering. If Labour wanted to offer current victims of injustice anything substantial, it could pledge to repeal this government's cuts to the legal aid budget. But Sadiq Khan ruled that out just this Monday. Unable to think of anything useful to promise to living members of the LBGT community, and beaten to the legalisation of gay marriage by the coalition government, Ed Miliband is – if anything – damaging an otherwise harmless idea, turning it into a precedent of which we ought to be suspicious...

Rupert Myers, Daily Telegraph.

A rare moment where Fagburn colludes with the Daily Telegraph (and someone called Rupert).*

Hurrah for pointless gestures!

* Apart from my near-namesake Rupert Smith, obvs.

David Cameron: A Straight Choice

Daily Mail.

Banter!

Jason Orange: Gone For Good

Aww, he always was my favourite.

If this happened 20 years ago I'd be devastated.

And, lest we forget, Jason was the only member who didn't join in The That's £26 million scummy tax avoidance scam.

Connection?

PS Note the really classy Miliband-bashing at top of page...

Michael Cashman Watch: And Tomorrow The World!

You know we have made extraordinary progress on Lesbian and Gay rights over the last twenty years. If I think about the transformation that I have seen growing up into adulthood, the biggest transformation.

We’ve made such progress on equality. But we have to face the fact that internationally things are, if anything, going backwards. We can’t just let that happen. We can’t just say “well, that’s OK”. The next Labour government will fight to make sure that we fight for our values and for human rights all round the world.

So today I can announce that I am appointing Michael Cashman, Lord Cashman, as our envoy on LGBT rights all round the world...

From Ed Miliband's speech to the Labour Party conference yesterday.

Good grief, I wouldn't even trust Lord Cashman of Brown-nose to be LGBT envoy to Walford Square.

Sorry about this world.

PS There's a programme on BCC Radio 4 Extra on Friday, Pioneers, where Mr Cashman recalls the 1987, Eastenders gay kiss fiasco.

TV Caption Of The Week: "Gareth"

Watch video.

'A stroll on Hampstead Heath appears to have inspired Ed Miliband’s conference speech as he quoted from chance conversations in the park with software worker Gareth, chef Xiomara and two students who wished he was the actor Benedict Cumberbatch...'

The Guardian.

Owen Jones: The Establishment

The Guardian today publish an exclusive extract from our Owen's latest book, The Establishment, about how the political, social and business elites have a stranglehold on the country.

Sounds good, Jonesy. 

Thankfully, it seems Penguin are not going with the original front cover quote from that ridiculous berk Russell Brand, a man with the political acumen of the Chuckle Brothers, who dubbed OJ; 'Our generation's Orwell'!

This is about 

In his weekly Guardian column, Owen writes; 'The confines of acceptable political opinion are narrow and zealously guarded, and those presented as outsiders are actually the establishment in undiluted form.'

How true, Owen, how true...

PS Did 38% of Guardian journalists go to Oxbridge? Were half of leading newspaper journalists privately educated? Press Gazette.

Some people are so childish...

PS Is Ed Miliband protecting and courting Owen Jones? Dan Hodges' Telegraph blog.

Dan - Glenda Jackson's son, incidentally - once famously called Owen 'The Justin Bieber Of The British Left'.

Update: Statistics should provoke Britain's media into prolonged period of self-reflection. They probably won't, since 54% of top 100 media professionals went to private schools, Owen writes in Thursday's Guardian.

Owen neglects to mention that the new Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission's report also says that 47% of newspaper columnists went to Oxbridge.

Attitude: 20 Years, 5 Covers!

Better get your disco rollerskates on if you want to snap up the Ed Miliband one.

GT: Question Time

If you like cocks, there's four massive ones in the new GT.
AMIRIGHT???

PS And lest we forget David Cameron's last fun-packed encounter with Gay Times.
This may be why, while Ed and Nick answered readers' questions, and Dave - like Nige - wrote an open letter.

Cartoon Watch: They Looks Gay Hahaha!

It's been an age since we've seen an HILARIOUS cartoon depicting Cameron and Clegg as a gay couple, thankfully The Times' Peter Brookes today now ups the game with one showing Nick Clegg QUITE LITERALLY getting into bed with Ed Miliband.
James Gillray must be spinning on his quill.

Spencer Livermore: Where Have You Been?

Ed Miliband's first big speech of 2014 promised; "Only if we take on powerful vested interests, from energy to banking, and reform broken markets, can we make the long-term changes Britain needs."

And who is heading Red Ed's election campaign? Step forward Spencer Livermore, who was until recently serving precisely those, er, vested interests.

Livermore was a  Gordon Brown adviser until 2008, when he moved into PR and advertisng. At PR firm Blue Rubiconbhe was in charge of "brand positioning" for firms including Centrica (owner of British gas), Lloyds Banking Group, and other cuddly corporates such as Shell, Coca-Cola and McDonald's. In other words, he shored up big corporate reputations while the likes of British Gas gaily went on raising prices to customers, and Miliband's, chagrin. Just the man to guide Labour back into office!

Private Eye.

In 2007, Pink News declared Spencer "The most powerful gay man in British politics". 
In 2008, he resigned as Gordon Brown's senior strategist when he refused to hold a snap general election.
He then joined Saatchi & Saatchi, but rather fell off the gay politics radar.

Paul Flowers: Gutter Press

Ed Miliband lets Paul Flowers hang.

A missed opportunity.

"It is a return to the nasty party" - Yvette Cooper.

Like Mr Ed, she only seems concerned about damage to the holy Labour Party.

Observer cartoon by Chris Riddell.

PS Sleazy Rider The scandal of the bank boss, the drugs and the rent boys has made Co-op a dirty word. Bad news for the shadow chancellor, Ed Balls

Sunday Times. It took six people to write this trash!

Paul Flowers: Sex! Drugs! Blasphemy! Depravity!

Mail On Sunday goes for the kill.
There's nothing to see here, bar Paul Flowers took drugs.
Big fat hairy deal!

PS Sunday Mirror Gangster arrested over threat to kidnap rent boys involved in Rev Paul Flowers Co-op scandal. Small print; "There is no evidence to suggest that the enforcer was working on behalf of 63-year-old Flowers, but police are investigating."