Gordon Brown: Welcome To My Closet

Sunday, May 10, 1998

Early start: appearing on Breakfast With Frost, to be broadcast from 11 Downing Street. The Chancellor [Gordon Brown] is grouchily amiable, but so earnest — and still biting his fingernails to the quick.

After the show, he took us upstairs to his flat. He lives above No 10, while Blair and family are in the No 11 duplex, which is bigger and more like a proper house.

I was intrigued that, when he took us into his bedroom, the Chancellor rather ostentatiously opened the built-in wardrobes, as if he wanted us to see the women’s frocks that were hanging in there.

They looked quite large, but I don’t think they belong to Gordon. I assume they belong to his girlfriend [Sarah Macaulay, who he later married].

I presume he was keen for us to know that he has one — and that she’s not a ‘beard’. I don’t think he does anything without calculation.

From Gyles Brandreth's Breaking The Code: Westminster Diaries, extracted in The Week this very week.

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.

Julia Gillard: Strewth!

Julia Gillard has been asked on a Perth radio program whether her live-in partner, Tim Mathieson, is gay.
Controversial talk back radio host Howard Sattler posed the question to the prime minister on Thursday afternoon on the premise of clearing up rumours and things "you hear."
Sattler said to the prime minister he would offer her a chance to clear up ''myths, rumours, snide jokes and innuendo'' during the interview on Perth's 6PR.
"Tim's gay?" Sattler inquired of the prime minister.
"Well that's absurd," Gillard replied.
"But you hear it," Sattler persisted. "He must be gay, he's a hairdresser. It's not me saying it."
"Well, Howard, I don't know whether every silly thing that gets said is going to be repeated to me now, but to all the hairdressers out there, including the men who are listening, I don't think that in life one can look at a whole profession full of different human beings and say gee, we know something about everyone of those human beings," the prime minister said, before adding "it's absurd."

The Guardian.

Today Howard Sattler was sacked by the station.
Whilst I know there is quite a history of sexist, misogynist and personal attacks on Gillard - and the presenter's tone seems sniggeringly homophobic - this seems absurd.
Was Andrew Marr sacked when he asked about Gordon Brown's alleged depression?
Or was Sue Lawley sacked after she asked Gordon Brown if he was gay?
Ah well, another victory for the ban-everything brigade. 

PS Guardian Comment Is Free Open Thread; 'Julia Gillard's hairdressing partner: does your job stereotype you? Julia Gillard was asked if her partner was gay by a radio host. Tell us what job-related assumptions people make about you'
Shnoreballs!

Alan Turing: Pardon?

• Like the Guardian (Editorial, 3 February), I support a pardon for Alan Turing's conviction for a homosexual offence. However, I do not think he should be pardoned because, as you imply, he was a great intellectual whose contribution to our victory over Nazism saved countless lives. For this achievement, he deserves the highest honour. But he should be pardoned because the illegality of homosexual acts was a clear breach of his human rights. This principle applies to all those similarly convicted. What is needed is a short act of parliament granting pardon to all such individuals.
Eric Deakins
London

Letter to The Guardian.

It looks like the government will reject the calls to pardon Alan Turing, using something called "the precedent test".
Lord McNally told the Lords on Monday night; "The question of granting a posthumous pardon to Mr Turing was considered by the previous Government in 2009.
"As a result of the previous campaign, the then Prime Minister Gordon Brown issued an unequivocal posthumous apology to Mr Turing on behalf of the Government, describing his treatment as "horrifying" and "utterly unfair". Mr Brown said the country owed him a huge debt. This apology was also shown at the end of the Channel 4 documentary celebrating Mr Turing's life and achievements which was broadcast on 21 November 2011.
"A posthumous pardon was not considered appropriate as Alan Turing was properly convicted of what at the time was a criminal offence. He would have known that his offence was against the law and that he would be prosecuted..."
The Guardian quotes American mathematician Dennis Hejhal, who echoes the sentiments in the letter above; "i see that the House of Lords rejected the pardon Feb 6 on what are formal grounds.
"if law is X on date D, and you knowingly break law X on date D, then you cannot be pardoned (no matter how wrong or flawed law X is).
"the real reason is OBVIOUS. they do not want thousands of old men saying pardon us too.
"i hope there is an appropriate hullabaloo in the UK."
It's so satisfying to see there are so many events organised around the world to mark Alan Turing Year, but I've never been quite sure what pardoning Turing would achieve, beyond being "nice" - but maybe that's just me.
The e-petition is still open - here it is, clicktivists.

Scott Capurro: My Secret Crush Is...

"Gordon Brown. I met him at the – snore – the Hay Festival. We shook hands and said hello. He's got a very strong grip, which made me tumescent. He's also mastered a gorgeous smile. He seemed glamorous and contrite at the same time, like Jimmy Carter, whom I also adore."

From a Q&A in The Independent.
I can't tell if he's joking or not.
But that's the problem with comedians, I guess.
Scott has got two (2) shows at this year's Edinburgh Festival.

Spencer Livermore: Slight Return

'Ed Miliband finds new role for special adviser known as 'most powerful gay man in Britain' until he quit as Gordon Brown aide' - The Mail On Sunday.
"Spencer Livermore, Mr Brown’s Director of Political Strategy, visited Mr Miliband’s Commons office last week for talks on a new role.
"Mr Livermore resigned from No 10 following Mr Brown’s disastrous decision to call off a snap Election in the autumn of 2007.
"The aide was said to have been reduced to tears by the notoriously hot-tempered Prime Minister" - just like a girl...
There is almost certainly more to Spencer Livermore's resignation that what's said here, perhaps one day he'll tell us.
Livermore was a key member of Gordon Brown's inner circle, but calling him "the most powerful gay man in Britain" may have been overstating his case somewhat, so what's the Mail's source?
Pink News - don't laugh.

Bigoted woman in "bigoted woman" shock

More shocking news!! Labour's election campaign now looks in tatters after Gordon Brown called a woman who kept going on about immigration and sounded a bit bigoted a "bigoted woman".
When the 65 year-old pensioner asked him; "All these Eastern Europeans what are coming in, where are they flocking from?", Brown failed to give the decent answer; "That'll be Eastern Europe."
This incident could be every bit as catastrophic for Labour as that time when John Prescott punched some munter with a mullet who'd just thrown an egg in his face, and literally several voters thought; "Actually, I'm quite glad he did that."
It's only disappointing that Brown wasn't overheard calling her something really insulting.
Like "Silly old cunt" for example.
Or had punched her repeatedly in the face with a dumbbell whilst chanting; "Die! Die! Die!"

Chris Grayling B&B Row: Big gay nothing?

Yesterday saw a "Big Gay Flashmob" outside the Tories office in Millbank.
Around 400 people were present at the protest, though the media are portraying them as a mere supporting cast for the main attraction... Peter Tatchell.
Same as it ever was.
As has happened a great deal over the last week or so, there was much wailing and gnashing of New Labour teeth over the Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Grayling, saying off the record that Christian owners of a B&B should be allowed to turn away gay couples on "moral grounds".
How strange that this single issue has become a stuck record for New Labour.
You may recall how the last Blair cabinet were so committed to gay equality as an absolute principle that they almost fell apart because of Tony Blair and Ruth Kelly's demand that Catholic adoption agencies should be exempted from equality legislation, and be allowed to refuse to accept lesbian and gay couples as foster parents.
And could it not just possibly be that New Labour are making so much of Grayling's support for Christian Bed & Breakfast owners' "right" to say; "There's no room at the inn", because the goods and services legislation brought in under the Equality Act 2007 was just the only gay rights legislation Gordon Brown voted for?