Closet Queens: Getting Away With It

From 1885, when the Labouchere amendment created the new offence of gross indecency, until 1967, when the recommendations of the Wolfenden committee were enacted, all homosexual behaviour was illegal in Britain. It continued to attract intense social disapproval for long after that: as late as 1993, according to the annual British Social Attitudes survey, most people still considered it to be “always wrong”. In this cruel and illiberal atmosphere, politicians with gay inclinations had to keep them secret from the public at large, and ran enormous risks. They were obliged either to repress their sexual feelings and lead celibate lives, or else to lead double lives, indulging their tastes clandestinely while outwardly conducting conventional, heterosexual existences, often married with children.

Yet paradoxically, “closet queens” (to use an expression that came into vogue in the 1960s) often made effective politicians. They were past masters when it came to keeping secrets, and taking calculated risks; they were also actors on life’s stage, with a strong sense of showmanship, and a flair for intrigue and subterfuge. And there was probably a far higher proportion of homosexuals in politics than in most other walks of life, partly because, as actors and risk-takers, they were drawn to the profession, and also because 20th-century British politicians were often educated at all-male boarding schools, which fostered intense (often sexual) friendships among their pupils, and provided unintentional training in the art of breaking the rules and getting away with it...

Michael Bloch, Double Lives, The Guardian Review.

A nice introduction to Michael Bloch's new book, Closet Queens: Some 20th Century British Politicians.

Roll up, roll up! All yer favourites are here; Lord Rosebery, Earl Beauchamp, Balfour, Tom Driberg, Lord Boothby, most of MacMillan's cabinet (!), Edward Heath, Jeremy Thorpe, Norman St John Stevas, Mandelson, Portillo, Ron Davies, and intriguingly, if not entirely persuasively, Winston Churchill...

PS Craig Brown is not too impressed.

Margaret Thatcher: Some Of Her Best Junior Cabinet Members Were...

Generally she arrived at her opinions based on some simple principle. British history and her libertarian instincts had the strongest influence in forming those principles. That could lead to surprising attitudes. She was neither racist nor homophobic, nor even judgmental about people's private lives. She chose many Jews to serve in her cabinet and many gays. Cecil Parkinson's affair with his secretary worried but didn't disgust her. She had an extraordinary rapport with the Asian community, with whom she had some values in common...

A gushing tribute to Margaret Thatcher by ex-gay ex-Tory MP, Michael Portillo in The Observer - but then what did you expect?
In a breath-taking bit of revisionism Portillo argues the Iron Lady was actually a really nice lady.
And in-no-way was she homophobic - something ex-Tory MP and still-gay Matthew Parris also claims.
But if so, as Chris Bryant wrote in The Independent yesterday, doesn't that make her exploiting homophobia for electoral gain and sponsoring Section 28 "cynicism writ large", and arguably all the more odious?
Portillo suggests that having "many gays" in her cabinet is proof she couldn't have been anti-gay.
Though I can't quite see how this follows - doesn't politics usually operate under the maxim; "It doesn't matter if the cat is black or white as long as it catches mice"?
Maybe it didn't matter if a man was one of them as long as he was "one of us".
But did she even know who was? One gets the feeling she was somewhat gauche.
Here is a list of all her Cabinet members.* 
By Portillo's logic she didn't seem to like gay men that much, or maybe didn't like that many gay men.
There was the late and closeted Lord Avon and Sir Peter Morrison - though the latter was widely suspected of being a child abuser, which perhaps supports the notion that Thatcher wasn't "judgmental about people's private lives".
Is Michael "I had some homosexual experiences as a young person" Portillo including himself here?
Despite the rumours that Mr P was having an affair with his cabinet colleague Peter Lilley, it's now assumed he isn't/wasn't gay.
And so who does that leave?
Norman St John-Stevas!

PS Has anyone heard if Ivan Massow and Matthew Parris have been invited to the funeral?  

* Note also there is only one female cabinet minister here, the psychopathically homophobic Baroness Young.