Thought For The Day: Alan Bennett

via @Bennett-Diaries.

The eponymous documentary inspired by Alan Bennett's Diaries is on BBC4 again tomorrow.

Maurice Oldfield: Who Knew?

A sharp little mystery has been partially solved. Why had my predecessor as MP for West Derbyshire, the late Sir James Scott-Hopkins, so evidently disapproved of me? Why did he try to stop my secretary from taking the job? It had seemed out of character for this mellow and clubbable Old Etonian.

I’ve been reading the manuscript of Martin Pearce’s Spymaster, a gripping and candid new biography of the late Sir Maurice Oldfield, my former constituent and one-time head of MI6. Sir Maurice had to resign as Margaret Thatcher’s Northern Ireland security
co-ordinator when stories of his homosexuality surfaced. Pearce (Sir Maurice was his great-uncle) reveals that Mrs Thatcher visited him on his deathbed and — alone with her former appointee — asked him point-blank if he was gay. He confessed. His family found the dying man weeping after she had gone.

Two years earlier in 1979 Scott-Hopkins’s Westminster secretary was taken aside conspiratorially by the retiring MP and warned that for reasons he knew but could not reveal, she should have nothing to do with his successor — me. Dear Eileen, who now has dementia, confided in me decades later. She had ignored him, bless her, to become my secretary.

Now, in Spymaster, I learn that Scott-Hopkins had been an MI6 officer too.

Matthew Parris, The Times.

In next week's news, Danny LaRue was a drag act.

Thatcher: Prude Juice

The former Conservative minister Michael Portillo has said that Margaret Thatcher was more “liberal” about homosexuality than many would imagine.

Speaking on This Week, the ex-deputy Conservative Party leader said: “Many people would have an impression of Margaret Thatcher as a great prude – actually she wasn’t”.

“She was rather liberal on sexual matters. For example, she was surrounded by gay people amongst her advisers.”

After Andrew Neil probed him about whether Baroness Thatcher was conscious of this, Portillo replied: “Oh yes, she knew”. 

Under Baroness Thatcher’s reign, the Conservatives prohibited the ‘promotion’ of homosexuality in schools via the introduction of Section 28 in 1988...

The Independent.

Sake.

Thatcher: Anal Sex

When Downing Street asked for the wording of the advert to be reconsidered, Sir Norman [Fowler] made it clear he felt the threat posed by the “grave and unprecedented problem” was not being adequately appreciated in Number 10.

He wrote to Mrs Thatcher: “Unless there is a reference to anal intercourse, which has been linked with 85 per cent of AIDS cases so far, the advertisement would lose all its medical authority and credibility...

The row ended when health officials suggested that the phrase “anal sex” be replaced with “rectal intercourse” and Mrs Thatcher, perhaps beginning to be persuaded of the scale of the emergency, declared the new language acceptable.

Despite a warning that she was being seen as “reluctant to treat the issue with the seriousness it deserves”, the Prime Minister continued to be less than enthusiastic about the publicity campaign.

A series of leaflets and television adverts, famously showing a tombstone etched with the words “Don’t die of ignorance”, nonetheless followed...

The Independent.

See Fighting The Epidemic (The Truth About The Aids Panic), Don Milligan.

Much misunderstood at the time, but he was proved right.

Thatcher: Will Do Harm

Margaret Thatcher bitterly resisted calls for a major public education campaign to counter the threat of an Aids epidemic.

Papers released by the National Archives at Kew show how the prime minister repeatedly raised objections, warning that alerting teenagers to the dangers of “risky sex” could backfire and cause “immense harm”.

She only backed down after a series of stark warnings by advisers that hundreds of thousands could become infected by the Aids virus unless people - particularly gay men and drug users - were persuaded to change their lifestyles.

The first case of Aids in the UK was recorded in 1981 and by 1986 there was growing public awareness of the spread of the disease for which there was then no known treatment.

But when Health Secretary Norman Fowler proposed a newspaper advertising campaign setting out advice on “safe sex”, Mrs Thatcher was horrified.

In particular she objected to a section entitled “What is risky sex?”

“Do we have to do the section on risky sex?” she scrawled in a handwritten note. “I should have thought it could do immense harm if young teenagers were to read it.”

She suggested the advert could even breach the Obscene Publications Act and proposed a more limited campaign based on previous public information campaigns on “venereal disease”.

“I think the anxiety on the part of parents and many teenagers who would never be in danger from Aids, exceeds the good it may do,” she wrote.

“It would be better in my view to follow the ‘VD’ precedent of putting notices in surgeries, public lavatories etc. But adverts where every young person will read and hear of practices they never knew about will do harm.” ...

Mirror. 

Lest we forget, here's Pink News' legendary tribute, Margaret Thatcher, a controversial figure on gay issues, dies aged 87.

Alan Bennett: May Days

8 May. A feeling of bereavement in the streets. I shop for supper and unprompted a grey-haired woman in the fish shop bursts out: ‘It means I shall have a Tory government for the rest of my life.’

In the library they say: ‘Good morning, though we’ve just been trying to think what’s good about it.’

I wanted a Labour government so that I could stop thinking about politics, knowing that the nation’s affairs were in the hands of a party which, even if it was often foolish, was at least well-intentioned. Now we have another decade of the self-interested and the self-seeking, ready to sell off what’s left of our liberal institutions and loot the rest to their own advantage. It’s not a government of the nation but a government of half the nation, a true legacy of Mrs Thatcher. Work is the only escape, which fortunately moves along a little.

9 May. My birthday. A nice woman in a leopardskin coat who always speaks wishes me a happy birthday. I say that I wish it was. ‘Why? What’s happened?’ ‘Last Thursday. The election.’ ‘Oh, you don’t want to worry about that. They’re all the same.’ At which point (we are in Shepherd’s grocers) I hear myself as very rarely shouting at the top of my voice. ‘No, they are not all the same. This lot are self-seeking liars, the cabinet included, and we’re landed with them for another five years.’ She tries to calm me down but I tell her not to bother, with other customers peeping round the shelves to see who is making all this din.

She is waiting outside the shop with a cake she has bought me for my birthday and I kind of apologise. But as I walk back home I wonder how long it will be before this crew turn their attention to the BBC.

From Alan Bennett's diary, London Review Of Books.

The drawing is an old one he unearthed of Miss Shepherd, the lady in the van.

PS Alan writes about recording the Christmas edition of Private Passions for the BBC World Service, which you can hear here.

Matthew Parris: Everything He Wants

Reading biography, one is normally an outsider looking in on another’s life. But for the first time last week, and much to my surprise, a biography solved a little mystery in my own life. Working my way through the second volume of Charles Moore’s enormous biography of Margaret Thatcher (I was reviewing Everything She Wants for The Times) I stumbled upon his account of my last cup of tea with the then prime minister.

I was taking my leave of the Commons in 1986 to try my hand as a TV presenter. Over tea she fussed and talked incessantly, but right at the end I managed to get in what I had meant to say: that I was gay, many Conservative voters were too, and so were a fair few of my parliamentary colleagues. I suggested that our party needed to change its attitude towards homosexuality. Without comment she put her hand gently on my wrist and said “There, dear, that must have been very hard to say.”

As I left, the third person in the room, her parliamentary private secretary, the late Michael Alison, followed me out. He asked for a list of the MPs I had alluded to. “We might be able to help them,” said the wan and churchy MP, rather spookily. I did not oblige, but wrote about the encounter in my autobiography, Chance Witness. Mr Moore must have seen it there, and later interviewed Mr Alison’s secretary at the time.

Moore adds: “Parris naturally assumed that Alison wanted the information to use against the men later. In fact, Alison told his secretary at the time, he had asked for the names so that he could pray for them.”

The Times.

LOL etc!

Margaret Thatcher: Everything She Wants

A must-read! 

But why in the name of Finchley is it named after a Wham! song? *

George Michael hated Thatch.

PS This is Radio 4's Book Of The Week - with Nicholas Farrell giving voice to Thatcher as a kind of high-class drag act - and where wonderfully incongruously Wham! is the intro and the outro music.

* 'I have called this book Everything She Wants - the title of a song by Wham! - because it expresses Mrs Thatcher's appetite for achievement and change and the degree to which she was the commanding personality of her era; but hard as she fought for everything she wanted, this was not always what she got. In the process, may of her loyal but exhausted staff often asked themselves, in the words of the same song; 'Somebody tell me, won't you tell me/Why I work so hard for you?' Introduction page xiii.

Damian Barr: Joan Collins & Moi

Damian Barr, author of the inexplicably acclaimed memoir, Maggie & Me: Or How I Learned To Stop Working Classing And Love The Bitch writes a pointless column for The Sunday Times, on posh drinking hostelries.

This week he goes to Claridge's Bar with another right-wing bitch, Dame Joan Collins - and yes, it's every bit as painful as you'd imagine.

“I saw Ivan [Massow] earlier. I’m truly honoured to be considered a gay icon. I love gay men. I’m not saying that in a patronising way. Yes, they have the best taste, but they’re not going to jump on you. I made my first gay friend, Trevor, at Rada, and he was my safe haven. I’ve had a lot of trouble with men.” 

Pass the champagne bucket, Damian, I think I'm going to be sick.

Ted Heath: What Did Maggie Know???

Some believe Ted Heath’s ruthless ambition to become Prime Minister meant that he hid what he considered was his darkest secret.

When his political career started to take off in the 1950s, homosexuality was considered a bar to a seat in Parliament.

The claims were serious enough he apparently had a visit from Special Branch officers who told him that not only was it illegal to go “cottaging” but it would end his career in politics.

The damning accusation of his seedy sex interest did not emerge until 2007, two years after his death, when a fellow Tory publicly “outed” him for the first time.

Brian Coleman, a member of the London Assembly who was then one of the party’s most prominent gay politicians, wrote in the a magazine article that Heath had once been warned in the 1950s by police - who were vetting him for membership of the Privy Council - to stop seeking out gay sex in public places...

So Heath did everything he could to mask his desire for gay sex.

But there were Westminster insiders who believed that there was a more sinister side to his sexuality - a weakness to find boys willing to sell their bodies to wealthy professional men.

One of the strongest rumours was that Heath, while Tory MP for Old Bexley and Sidcup, preyed on vulnerable young men...

Mirror.

One of those days when the media has become so lunatic, I think I'll just go back to bed...

Thatcher: Es Depuesto Por Reina Socialista

She was a doyenne of right-wing politicians around the world, but Madrid’s tribute to Margaret Thatcher – a square named after the Iron Lady – may be short-lived as the city’s new left-wing Mayor considers renaming Plaza Margaret Thatcher less than a year after its inauguration.

It was all pomp and ceremony in September last year when Mark Thatcher, son of the former Prime Minister, was invited to break ground on the site in the centre of the Spanish capital.

Just 10 months on, and after Madrid elected a left-wing former judge as its new Mayor in May, the decision could be reversed. According to the conservative Breitbart news website, Manuela Carmena has indicated that she favours replacing Thatcher’s name with that of Pedro Zerolo, a former Spanish Socialist party politician and gay rights activist who died of cancer last month. Ms Carmena is reported to have told supporters of her Ahora Madrid party, a coalition of left-wing groups, that they “do not want a space for public use in town to be named after the Iron Lady who enslaved the workers”.

Zerolo’s life and career could hardly be more at odds with that of Thatcher, Prime Minister between 1979 and 1990. Born in Venezuela to parents exiled by Franco’s dictatorship, he became a passionate advocate for gay rights, and was among the first Spaniards to marry his partner in 2005 when gay marriage was made legal...

The Independent.

Madonna: Maggie & Me

Posted on Madonna's Instagram thingy earlier today, but swiftly deleted when people pointed out she was a demented and deluded evil old witch.

Maggie, that is.

BOOM BOOM!

Cyril Smith Cover-Up: Who Knew??!

Downing Street cynically tried to prevent the release of damaging files exposing the scale of the cover-up over paedophile MP Cyril Smith.

The Cabinet Office repeatedly blocked The Mail on Sunday’s attempts to see the bombshell documents – and caved in only after being threatened with High Court action.

After the shocking year-long fight, we can reveal the content of the papers, which expose just how much the Establishment knew about the late politician’s sexual and physical abuse of young boys.

Nick Clegg and David Cameron, both Ministers in the Cabinet Office, have been accused of ‘colluding’ in the latest cover-up of evidence that could expose VIP paedophile rings.

The secrecy row will also focus attention on Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood, who has become known as ‘Sir Cover-Up’ after blocking twho has become known as ‘Sir Cover-Up’ after blocking the release of dozens of messages exchanged by Tony Blair and George W Bush ahead of the Iraq war.

Click to enlarge.

Following The Mail on Sunday’s victory, it can be revealed for the first time that:

- Margaret Thatcher was personally told that police had investigated claims that Smith indecently assaulted teenage boys in the 1960s.

- Thatcher was explicitly warned that awarding a knighthood to the 29-stone Liberal MP risked damaging the ‘integrity of the honours system’, but went ahead anyway.

- A senior Whitehall mandarin took the ‘exceptional’ step of contacting the country’s top prosecutor and police to find out why Smith was never charged with abusing boys at a hostel he helped run.

- Civil servants feared the secret Smith police file might be made public in 1982 – when a burglary at the Fleet Street offices of The Sun newspaper revealed the editor was in possession of a copy. This revelation will lead to speculation that the break-in was linked to attempts to cover up Smith’s crimes. *

One insider told The Mail on Sunday that the matter is ‘on the Deputy Prime Minister’s desk’. The fact that the Cabinet Office blocked five attempts by The Mail on Sunday to see the papers will deepen fears of a cover-up at the highest levels over the activities of VIP paedophiles...

Mail On Sunday.

Oh dear.

Think most of this is official confirmations, not revelations.

And what about this cover-up? Larger-than-life Lib Dem Sir Cyril Smith dies aged 82, Daily Mail obituary, September 2010.

* Kevin Maguire, then Sun editor, says he doesn't remember a break-in - 'nor Does Scotland Yard' - or possessing the file - no link yet.

Ivan Massow: Still Fucking Terrible

“Look, I don’t want to bring out a violin, but the lack of support from the gay community at that time, because I attended a conference with Margaret Thatcher for example, really brought me down, because I couldn’t tell people what I was trying to achieve. And I had a very specific objective. Because I saw the politics of sexuality at the time being very much a case of them and us.

“So we were expected to join the left side, even though we might be quite entrepreneurial and want to own our own houses and believe in small government, and all the things I personally – and especially gay men – tend to be.

“Gay males don’t realise it, but when you start to dissemble, and ask them the questions that are multiple choice, they’re Tory. But you were obliged to stand on the left and throw rocks at the right. Almost as if they enjoyed it. It was like a class hatred thing and I didn’t see that as being productive."

Gay Tory millionaire shitbag, Ivan Massow, interviewed in the digital edition of Attitude.

One word, Ivan... bollocks.

It's Christmas Time: There's No Need To Feel Afraid...

Only available online - hurry while stocks last!

Gor blimey, makes you glad to be British, dunnit? etc etc.

NB 'If you question the Savile moral crusade, you're seen as evil', Frank Furedi, Spiked.

Westminister: It's A Scandal

A whistleblower who claimed Cabinet ministers enjoyed sex parties with rent boys is to be quizzed by police investigating the Westminster abuse scandal.

Former Tory activist Anthony Gilberthorpe says he told Margaret Thatcher 25 years ago about what he had witnessed and gave her names.

The Sunday Mirror revealed in July how he claimed to have seen top Tories enjoying sex with boys at drug-fuelled parties.

He claimed to have supplied youngsters as young as 15 for MPs during conferences at Blackpool and Brighton in the 1980s.

Mr Gilberthorpe said one who attended a sex party is a serving minister and that others included Thatcher Education Secretary Keith Joseph, former Attorney General Michael Havers and top Tory Rhodes Boyson...

Sunday Mirror.

Private Eye showed Gilberthorpe to be a serial fantasist in August.

This story is so clearly ludicrous, that if the police do interview him they could be accused of wasting their own time.

Fagburn: I'm Still Here

Sincere apologies - Fagburn was called away to London by the spirit voice of Regina Fong to see a young engineer of his acquaintance, and a transvestite potter.

He is now going through the last few days' papers to see what - if anything - of interest and import he missed.

These - again, if there are actually any - will be retroactively posted below on the day of publication.

PS This amusing/disturbing/sacrilegious/erotic/transphobic photomontage illustrates a silly article in today's Guardian; Tony Benn – the new face of the Tories No wonder our Thatcherite prime minister can’t win over much of his party on the European Union. They’re closet Bennites

Of course, that 'politician is Thatcher in drag' meme/trope will never get old...

Ukip Calypso: Read M And Weep (Geddit?)

In common with all media commentators, Fagburn has nothing interesting to add to the current hoo-ha about Mike Read's in-no-way racist song, UKIP Calypso.

Though, I did once interview Mr Read on the eve of his musical about Oscar Wilde - which was so famously good it was cancelled after the first night.

Mike struck me as one of the thickest people I've ever had the misfortune to interview - and I've interviewed Steps and Brett from Suede.

Mike launched into a spirited celebration of celebrity nonces, citing Oscar Wilde in their defence.

Mike tried to explain - very badly - that he couldn't have had Relax banned from BBC Radio 1, even if he'd wanted to.

Anyway, Fagburn thinks Ukip should send out free downloads of Ukip Calypso - U2-style - to every household in this sceptered isle, instead of publishing a manifesto for the next general election.

But please don't thank me if you win.

• Saturday Morning Superstore screengrab via Dan Hollingsworth. The look of contempt on gay Gordon Kaye's face is priceless, x

Groundhog Gay: Damian Barr

New Statesman.

Every other month since the dawn of gay time someone has written an article asking this.

There is nothing interesting left to say about the subject - as Mr Barr shows.

And why is the New Statesman publishing this?

It's basically Damian Barr pushing his 250 page love letter to Margaret Thatcher, Maggie & Me.

Next week in the NS: Andrew Pierce asks is drag sexist.

PS I do like DB presenting Front Row, though. *balance*

Typo Of The Week: Pink News

Pink News.

Damn you Daily Mail and all your pesky communist columnists!

PS Good piece in Sunday's Observer on LGSM's Mark Ashton; The real-life triumphs of the gay communist behind hit movie Pride.

PPS Apparently, Stephen Beresford is 'in talks' about turning Pride into a West End musical. Oh dear...

Mind you, maybe that means there's still hope for my feel-good musical about the Poll Tax riot.

PPPS On reflection, it can be a musical on condition that director Matthew Warchus gets Tim Minchin to write the songs. K?