Edward Heath: Czechmate

It was a scandalous accusation, and the leading Conservative politician made clear he would be consulting his lawyers. A book by a defector from the Czechoslovak secret service was claiming that Edward Heath, who had only just been ousted as prime minister and leader of the Tories, had been the target of a homosexual blackmail plot. The defector, Josef Frolik, wrote that more than a decade previously, in the early 1960s, a colleague in London had decided that the noticeably unmarried minister was a ripe target. And so, it was said, the Heath Caper had been born.
According to Frolik, the man behind the plot was a brilliant young spy named Jan Mrazek, who specialised in targeting politicians (even becoming friendly, Frolik said, with the wife of one minister). Mrazek’s alleged plan was to exploit Heath’s well-known delight in playing the church organ.
A “handsome young organ virtuoso” named Reinberger was selected to act as the bait. Reinberger was supposedly trained in the “techniques of homosexual approach and seduction” before being sent to meet Heath in London and invite him back to Prague to play the internationally acclaimed organ at the grand baroque Church of St James. Then he would pounce, leaving Heath open to blackmail by the Czechoslovakians...

The Sunday Times.
The so-called "Heath Caper" is an old story, which first surfaced in the 70s.
Was there a fiendish blackmail plot by the far Right planning a Pinochet-style coup in Britain?
Probably not.
Josef Frolik almost certainly made it all up.
The Sunday Times concludes "there seems no evidence of a real plot."
Thanks for that.

• The Heath Caper is on BBC Radio 4 tomorrow at 11am.

The Sunday Times: And On This Bombshell

A leader in today's Sunday Times pauses for reflection at this time of giant humanoid rabbits bearing chocolate eggs to think - in a very real sense - about the challenges facing the Church of England.

"When we said recently that prayers had no place before political meetings, it drew some criticism. We still believe this is the right course. Giving the established church a formal political role is anachronistic and does it no favours. By the same token, politicians should respect the sensibilities of believers, particularly Christians. David Cameron’s government, for example, has embarked on a collision course with the church on the issue of gay marriage. The government would like you to believe it is a modern, with-it coalition facing opposition from a church stuck somewhere in the Dark Ages.
"It is hard, however, to disagree with Ben Bradshaw, the Labour frontbencher, who accuses the government of playing “pure politics” with gay marriage. He, like most other gays in civil partnerships, is happy to call it a marriage. The further step proposed by the government is, he says, an unnecessary distraction. Mr Cameron is pushing gay marriage and picking a fight with the church for political reasons. It is indeed unnecessary."

This is shocking stuff.

Not least of which because The Sunday Times' sister paper, The Times, has made so much of championing marriage equality of late.

And because Ben Bradshaw's tepidity on gay marriage is now being used as an argument against it/us.
A careless remark already celebrated by the gay marriage bashing Mail and Telegraph.

Well done Ben!

I'll have to check what The Sunday Times has said about this before - don't think this has been their line.

It may be another sign of Rupert Murdoch turning on David Cameron because he blames him for the Leveson Inquiry.

More later...

• Dunno how, but I missed this - potentially huge - story when I was going through the papers earlier today. Thanks to Scott Roberts for the alert.

Update: I believe this is The Sunday Times first comment on gay marriage since they broke the story that the government was considering introducing it in February 2011.

Schools: Kissing To Be Clever

Eleanor Mills in The Sunday Times today has become the nth journalist to get a feature - 'Cuddling Schoolboys Kiss Homophobia Goodbye'- out of research by Mark McCormack and Eric Anderson on how homophobia is declining among teenage boys.*
The first of these - 'Straight Men Kissing More' - appeared in The Guardian over a year ago; McCormack has a book published later this month.
I don't blame them, it's really interesting stuff. 
“I noticed the difference as soon as I entered the sixth-form common room,” he tells Mills. “Boys were sitting in circles chatting; one had his feet on another boy’s lap, another dangled his arm over another’s shoulder. They were constantly touching each other and always hugged each other hello and goodbye. That would have been unthinkable when I was at school.”
Eleanor Mills helpfully points out; "His book argues that these behaviour changes are due to the normalisation of homosexuality in the culture surrounding these boys as they have grown up."
Well, duh.
She holds up One Direction as proof of how today's young men are all touchy-feely and homo-friendly.
But so were Take That twenty years ago, Smash Hits called them (approvingly) a "Girlie-bloke" pop group. 
Even so it's as obvious as rain that there has been a marked decline in anti-gay attitudes - and their acceptability - across society in the last 25 years.
And, yes, adolescent males, the most neurotically homophobic sector, are losing their "homo-hysteria", too.
Though Fagburn is with Barney Frank, who argued that most young men aren't homophobic, they just think they should be.
The problem with journalists zoning in on Mark McCormack's research is that it's a study of just three British schools, all sixth-form colleges, which arguably foster a culture where appearing "adult", sophisticated and even academic are valued among students.
Something made clear in McCormack's original title for his book, Gay Friendly High Schools. 
But is this - loaded word coming up - normal? 
A 2007 Stonewall survey had 65% of lesbian, gay and bisexual school pupils reporting having experienced homophobic bullying.
97% said they often or frequently heard homophobic remarks. 
Over half of gay pupils said they didn't feel able to be themselves at school.
And over a third did not feel safe or accepted at school.
In a 2009 Stonewall survey; "Nine in ten secondary school teachers... say children and young people, regardless of their sexual orientation, currently experience homophobic bullying, name calling or harassment in their schools."
Homophobia may be declining in significance generally - and homophobia may be seen as "gay" in some colleges - but sadly it still seems to be in rude health in many of our schools. 

* 'It’s Just Not Acceptable Any More’: The Erosion of Homophobia and the Softening of Masculinity at an English Sixth Form. Read it here.

•  The Declining Significance of Homophobia: How Teenage Boys are Redefining Masculinity and Heterosexuality by Mark McCormack is published by Oxford University Press on April 19th.

Postscript: There's an interesting tug of war going on, better documented in the US, where more school kids are coming out, and younger, and are finding more straight pupils supportive, but simultaneously, and perhaps due to this increased visibility, anti-gay bullying may be the worst it has ever been.
Witness for example It Gets Better, the rise of Gay-Straight Alliances in high schools, and all those all-singing, all-dancing mass anti-bullying, pro-gay videos on YouTube.
Here's one of the biggest videos from Cypress Ranch High School, Texas.

Update: A blog from Mark McCormack on Psychology Today - Men 2.0: Masculinities, Sexualities and Homophobia - is a good introduction to what he's arguing. Also see his comments below...

The Sunday Times: I'm A Cliché

'It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single woman in possession of an empty diary and a lacklustre wardrobe must be in want of gay. It’s just common sense, right? Nowadays, every sensible person accepts that gay men are unequivocally brilliant, especially at really important stuff like warming up a dancefloor or icing an intentionally kitsch cupcake. Their dress sense is without equal, their hair impossibly velvety, to say nothing of their steady stream of hilarious one-liners, benevolent bitchiness and scatter cushions that are as well appointed as their abdominal muscles. I have sad news. 'The notion that all gay men are fun-loving, emotionally intelligent hotties is a myth — albeit an increasingly powerful one...'

The Sunday Times. 
So some gay men are rubbish/rubbish gays - who knew?!!
Apart from everyone, obviously?
Quite frankly, I'd rather be a gay cliché than write clichéd crap about gay clichés like this crap.
A record-breakingly pointless piece by someone called Giles Hattersley.
That first name again - Giles.
Some people just STINK of public school poshness, don't they?

Matthew Bourne: The History Of Ballet

"I’d taken it just so far in Swan Lake, but I thought: why are we beating around the bush? Can I take it a little bit further and actually show different kinds of relationships between men [in Dorian Gray], without it being uncomfortable for the audience? I wanted to show that male dancing can be lyrical and touching as well as macho. Everyone loves saying, ‘Oh, dancers are like athletes, they’re like footballers’ — as if that makes it okay. But they’re not all like that. But I don’t feel the need to keep pushing it now, so I’m happy to do Sleeping Beauty with a female lead...”

Cracking interview with the smashing Matthew Bourne by the cracking Lynn Barber - uncharacteristically gushing with nothing but praise - in The Sunday Times.
Though there's a recurring riff about gay men and youth - a constant obsession of straight people.

Asked whether ballet dancers pad out their packets, Matthew laughs and replies; "To be honest, I think a lot of the history of ballet has been about that. Seeing beautiful bodies is a big attraction that nobody ever talks about.”

Gareth Williams Murder: Case Closed!

The Sunday Times has bigged up 'The Murder Story MI6 Doesn't Want You To Read'
Screaming on the front cover; 'Who Killed Gareth Williams?'
You remember Gareth Williams? The spy guy found zipped up in a hold-all.
"The man who knew too much" who has been endlessly written about by newspapers that know fuck all.
So who killed Gareth Williams?
One might have expected this question to be answered - is it buggery?
Titled - bafflingly - 'Death On The Doorstep' (he was found in the bath) we are told; "The bizarre death of MI6 agent Gareth Williams has been shrouded in silence. On the eve of an inquest, details of a possible cover-up have emerged."
Erm, no they haven't.
The article by Miles Goslett is an exercise is speculative space-filling lunacy, a few thousand words of tedious twaddle, telling us nothing new, and almost hilarious in its inanity.
Were there "dark forces" after Gareth Williams?
Well, there was a break-in at a flat downstairs.

"Clearly, the flats at Alderney Street had come to the attention of somebody. The motive may have simply been random burglary, but it is at least conceivable that some foreign power with an interest in Williams’ professional life might be involved."

No, wait - there is more sinister skullduggery afoot!

"From the point of view of the intelligence services, failing to prevent an assassination of an operative in the very shadow of the MI6 headquarters at Vauxhall would appear hopelessly inept — especially if a previous break-in had flagged up the building as a possible target."

Eh?
Seeking the truth, our intrepid journalist heads to Holyhead in Wales, where Gareth grew up.
So how does he try to get to the bottom of this?
He talks to an old man in a pub who met Williams a couple of times;

'Over a drink in his local pub, The Angel, the 63-year-old, who runs a building firm with his brother, said many in the area believe false trails have been laid because of the work Williams did.'
“I first knew Gareth in 1993, when he joined the club, aged about 14. He wasn’t an easy person to get to know. He was a fine cyclist, but he was at arm’s length socially from the club. I heard members of his family say he was very hard to fathom, very deep. But if you’d said to me when he was alive that he was gay, I wouldn’t have believed you. I don’t think he was that sort of person.
“When you think of the circumstances in which Gareth was found, this doesn’t seem to be a death which just occurred on the spur of the moment. It seems too well planned. No evidence of cause of death has been identified. It all looks too clean to be anything other than a professional job and I believe, like many people here, that there is a conspiracy of silence.”

Fuck - this is gold dust, Miles!
But what about "the gay theory"?

'One story claimed he was “known to meet men in the capital’s gay mecca of Vauxhall Cross”. It isn’t clear where this information came from.'

Or why he called it "Vauxhall Cross".
But then Gareth Williams had visited "a bar in East London, alone, to watch a drag act called Jimmy Woo".
Or maybe he went to Vauxhall to see Jonny Woo?
Or maybe the journalist doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about?
But nevermind all that, cause...

'The “gay theory” seems highly suspect.'

For why?
Because someone who works at BarCode didn't recognise Williams' photo.
Obviously not a gayer then - Case fucking closed!
This award-winningly awful piece ends with a line from one Professor Anthony Glees, the director of security and intelligence studies at the University of Buckingham, no less.
“The only thing that’s clear about the death of Gareth Williams is that he was murdered."
But even that's not clear.
I despair.

Howard Hodgkin: Who Will Be 80 In August

'Looking back, what would he have done differently? Like the late Sir John Betjeman, does he wish he’d had more sex? The pale eyes blink. “More what?” More sex, I reply loudly. “Asked the same question as Betjeman,” he says, “I would probably give the same answer.”
'Because he was of a generation for whom sex was taboo? “Probably. But the best story about John Betjeman, I think, was him sitting in a restaurant and a most beautiful waiter came along to take his order and he said, ‘Isn’t he marvellous, he…’ ” – Hodgkin’s voice thickens with emotion – “ ‘brings out the scoutmaster in all of us.’” His face crumples, and he is overcome by two, three, brief, racking sobs of laughter.'

Harry Hodgkin is profiled in The Sunday Times.
Which, like its sister paper, The Times, seems a bit homosex-obsessed.
But maybe it's healthier than newspapers neutering the nellies?
He was taken for Lunch With The FT last weekend, where he talked a bit more about his poovery.
Sir Harry's full name now appears to be "Hodgkin who will be 80 in August".
Just as David Hockney is "Hockney who will be 75 this year".
They're like titles - Old Age Honours?
And, just like Hockney, Brian Sewell has slagged Hodgkin's work off something rotten; “Dab dab dab, go on the blobs of colour, as if he were designing rainwear for the common prostitute.”
I wonder if Mr Brian R Sewell has a good word to say about any of your actual living, breathing artists who are homosexualists?

Cosmo Landesman: Some Of My Best Friends Are dept.

'My gay friends are always keen to claim any distinguished public figure, past or present, as gay. Shakespeare? “Gay!” Cary Grant? “Gay!” Tom Cruise? “Gay!” Bruce Springsteen? “Gay!” (Sorry, boys, but that’s at least one gay too far...)
'Anyway, name your favourite writer, philosopher or politician, and out will come the cry of “Gay!” Yet mention J Edgar Hoover, the most powerful gay man of the 20th century, and what do you get? Silence...'

Cosmo Landesman talking crap in The Sunday Times, as per.
Gay men are hysterical, aren't they?
What with all their grabbing claiming 'They is all the gays!' stuff.
Nice of him to out Tom Cruise, though.
And if you think you get silence when you mention J Edgar Hoover to a gay man, you're profoundly deaf, dear.
Like a gayer hasn't just written a film about it - which you're reviewing!
Oh do fuck off.

Leveson Inquiry: Freedom Of Speech

"She was openly gay… we regarded it as a matter of freedom of speech… we didn't regard it as pejorative. There are gay websites that use that term in a positive way."

John Witherow, Sunday Times' editor, at the Leveson Inquiry, tries to excuse AA Gill calling Clare Balding a "dyke".
In 2010, the Press Complaints Commission upheld Balding's complaint against The Sunday Times - a decision perhaps swayed by Witherow's dismissive reply to her initial complaint to him.

Religious News: Elton John Lookylikey 'Considers Suing Church of England For Discrimination'

"The Church of England's most senior openly gay cleric is understood to be considering suing his employers for discrimination unless he is made a bishop.

"Dr Elton Jeffrey John, the dean of St Albans, was forced to stand down by the archbishop of Canterbury, after being appointed suffragan bishop of Reading in 2003 following objections from conservative evangelicals..."

The Guardian - and every sodding paper.

Words cannot begin to describe how little I care about this story.


Update: A note of caution from Fagburn's favourite Christian, the Rt Rev Richard Coles; "Wondering where this Jeffrey John story originated..." via Twitter.
At the time of typing Jeffrey John has not commented on this story.
It was started in yesterday's Sunday Times, Gay Bishop Threatens To Sue, which quotes only "a friend of John" and " a source close to him".
Ooh, I'm starting to care now...

Hamley's: And Pink For A Boy

The mad Rod Liddle in his weekly Sunday Times video on Hamley's "controversial" decision to stop having seperate sections for boys' and girls' toys.
Good of Hamley's to announce this in the run-up to Christmas.
Note how all the parents Liddle interviews say they wouldn't be bothered if their sons play with "girls' stuff."
Fagburn spent much of my childhood playing with my Action Men and it never did me any harm...

Brian Sewell: The Condensed Interview

“You have no idea how immediate, how cahzual it could be...”
“f****** dreadful”
“drunken slut”
“something of a prostitute”.
“a whoouuuer”
“my umisixlitay is one of the most important, formative elements in my life”
“I was damned for being queer”.
“And even the most homosexual of young men can shut their eyes and let it happen if it’s being done well.”
“like Diana looked at Endymion”
“sex between the old is ridiculous and sex between the old and the young is even more ridiculous.”
“I can’t say anything”
“not capable of doing anything as well as men”
“like jack russell bitches who grab something and won’t let go”.
“a man in drag”.
“And I didn’t have a little Scottish boy. The poisonous old woman.”
“Agh, my spine!"

All quotes from an interview in The Sunday Times.

Sir Cliff Of Richard: Mind Your Own Business

'The buried aggression keeps surfacing. The compulsion to hit journalists stems mainly from our “impertinent” inquiries into his private life, which often focus on his relationship with a priest, John McElyn, who lives and travels with him. “If I was gay, of what business is it of anyone else?” Yes, but surely there are many gay people who would appreciate a man of Cliff’s stature coming out, if indeed he is gay, I say. “I may well be gay. But supposing I am and I don’t want to talk about it? I have every right as a human being not to.”
'I’m confused again. Is this an admission? Or a poor choice of words. “Do you feel like hitting me?” I ask.
'“No. No I don’t.” he says..."

Interview in The Sunday Times.
Earlier this year Cliff came out in favour of gay marrriage on Woman's Hour.
Whatever next!?

School Bullying: Sticking Up For The Bullies

How collossal a moral fuckwit would someone have to be that, whereas rational people know homophobic bullying in schools is a massive problem, they will argue the reverse; that it's the reporting of homophobic bullying in schools that's the problem?
'Thousands of under-11s branded homophobic' shouts a headline in The Sunday Times.
Really? Like cattle?
So what's the story?
"More than 20,000 primary school children were labelled racist or homophobic last year, including children as young as four years old.
"A survey of education authorities in England and Wales by a civil liberties group under the Freedom of Information Act (FoI) reveals that children were reported for insults, including “broccoli head” and “this work’s gay”.
"The survey finds more than 1% of primary-school children in Leeds and Birmingham were reported for slurs. In Barnet, 63 children under 13 were labelled homophobic. Hertfordshire and Suffolk recorded the sixth and seventh highest number of racist incidents. One in 200 primary school children were reported in these counties..."
So their bad behaviour wasn't so much "reported" as recorded by teachers, and they weren't "branded" homophobic just because they used homophobic words.
What kind of a cunt could object to that?
What is the "civil liberties group" who conducted this "survey"?
The Manifesto Club.
Who?
Don't worry if you haven't heard of them - The Manifesto Club is yet another front organisation for the ultra right pseudo-libertarian big business-loving nutjobs at The Institute For Ideas/LM/Spiked.
This is familiar IoI territory, in what they call The Battle For Ideas.
It's all been set out ad nauseum in IoI ideologue Frank Furedi's book Wasted: Why Education Isn't Educating.
And why isn't it?
It's all that "political correctness" and "soft social engineering" by a "liberal elite" in a "nanny state" blah blah blah.
Jenny Turner tried to make sense of Furedi in London Review of Books last year;
"It’s difficult to give a fair account of his argument. It’s not so much that he said anything obviously disagreeable, because he didn’t: he’s against meddling control freaks, ignorant teachers, the craven obsession with health and safety, and lots of other stuff that you would happily agree with, if only you could stop yourself suspecting that none of these issues is as straightforward as he makes out. The way he presented his argument was brain-shrinkingly vague. The focus was mainly on UK schooling, and yet Furedi hardly engaged at all with what actually happens inside British schools. There were instead grand-looking historical generalisations – ‘in the 21st century, conservation of the past is a radical act’ – and a lot of anecdotes of the sort that make people start going on about political correctness gone mad: ‘They’re even expelling two-to-four-year-olds in nurseries for racism, for homophobia, for inappropriate sexual behaviour.’ It’s significant that Furedi uses the word ‘expelling’ – no one who works in education has used this word for decades. They always use the word ‘excluded’, which is both more neutral and more exact..."
So The Sunday Times has presented a press release presenting twisted statistics in support of the hidden agenda of a tiny ultra right think tank as news.
Well done.
Thank fuck we have gay media to challenge such bias, eh?
I'm joking - of course, we don't.
The apolitical retards at Pink News have just reprinted - unchallenged, unquestioned - the IoI's right-wing bullshit in a story lifted pretty much verbatim from The Sunday Times.
How impressive to see the gay press siding with the anti-gay bullies.
Yet again!
Gold fucking star!

Scottee Scottee: Scottee

"At the mirror is Scottee, a 25-year-old performance artist and fat activist. Often, his performances start out funny and light, and end with him red-eyed, naked but for dirty bandages and a body scribbled on by a ruthless surgeon’s pen. He tells me drag is political.
"This is how these two make a living. It’s their art. Just don’t call them drag queens. “I don’t think there are any men in here dressed as women,” says Scottee sharply. “We’re not female impersonators, we’re not pantomime dames.”'

The loverlee Scottee Scottee in The Sunday Times.
So how does The Sunday Times introduce the article?
"Gaga’s gaffer tape, Cheryl’s lashes and Rihanna’s red hair – the stars get their style inspiration from London’s alternative drag queens..."
D'oh!
Scottee's show, Eat Your Heart Out, is at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival from Tuesday August 16th.
Scottee and his chums will be on the Mile tomorrow from 2pm giving out flyers and have £5 tickets "if you ask nicely".
His website's rather good fun, too.

• The Guardian ran a "Aren't fellas in frocks fascinating?" feature on trad drag act Cookie MonStar (Me neither) in Saturday's Money section. Oddly.

Tom Daley: Daley Grind

Absolutely fascinating interview in The Sunday Times Magazine today with Tom Daley; "the poster boy of our 2012 squad."
It's titled The Daley Show.
Geddit???
"There’s a lot more to Tom Daley than a ready smile and an enviable pair of pecs," writes a breathless Robert Crampton. "Although, obviously, it’s hard not to be impressed by Daley’s physique..."
Steady on, man.

Correction Of The Month: Rafael Nadal

"In the feature on Rafael Nadal ('Anyone for tension?', Magazine, last week), we reported that David Law said there are no gays on the tennis tour. Law, in fact, said he was not aware of anyone on the men’s tour who had publicly stated they were gay. We apologise for this error."

The Sunday Times.

Word Of The Week: Fagwa

Fagwa n.

Something that Rupert Everett said he would issue on "whoever wrote that scandalous review of Nicky Haslam’s book". The Sunday Times.

Thoughts For The Day: Simon Callow

You were one of the first mainstream actors to come out publicly. What made you do it?
I’m a very unconvincing liar.

Are you surprised in this day and age that someone like David Laws felt pressured to “stay in” — and torpedo his own career?
Yup. The longer you leave it the harder it gets. All those lies to all those people over all those years.

Are you bored with being asked about gayness all the time?
Nope.

You’ve said recently you don’t care about Oscars. Is that because you’ve never won one?
Yup.

Simon Callow on fruitily good form in The Sunday Times today.

The Guardian: Letter To The Editor

I was surprised at the omission from Dr Luisa Dillner's guide to donating blood (G2, 7 June) of the fact that the UK National Blood Service prevents the donation of blood from men who have sex with men. Such a blanket ban prevents a large number of healthy individuals from donating much-needed blood and playing their part in contributing to the welfare of others. Countries such as Spain, Italy, Australia and New Zealand have all recently changed their policies to allow gay men who pose no risk to the blood supply to donate blood.

Michael Contaldo

Salford

The Sunday Times reported in April that the government may lift the ban and gay and bisexual men will be allowed to donate blood if they haven't had sex with a man since the invention of the motor car.
But seeing as The Sunday Times proudly announced in February 'Gays Will Get Right To Marry' I'd take this with a pinch of tea and biscuits.