The Sunday Times Rich List: Going Up

Good news!

The super-rich have apparently doubled their wealth since 2009.

Who says the Conservative-led coalition government wasn't doing its job?

Last week we learnt  'Sir Elton John is again the highest-ranked celebrity in the Giving List, donating just under £24.1m — or 8.9% of his overall wealth — to charity last year, the bulk of it to his Aids Foundations in the UK and America.'

They also note One Direction gave a whopping 1% of their dosh to charity.

Though the Sunday Telegraph strike a note of caution; some multi-millionaires may be using charitable donations to save on paying tax.

Hmm...

Sunday Times: Gay Marry In Haste...

Because every public event must now resemble The X Factor, a number of couples were competing to star in Britain’s first gay marriage: each wedding had an official waiting in a side room to press a button that connected to the general register office, which I imagine lit up to the sound of Let It Go as each marriage rang through.

But how to decide which wedding would truly embody this new phase of equality? How many gay points for having Peter Tatchell as a witness (Islington), for example? Or for holding your wedding in Camden (Camden)? For having the London Gay Men’s Chorus sing Come The Day (with hand gestures) as celebrity keyboardist Rick Wakeman, composer of Henry VIII On Ice, operated one of the biggest pipe organs in the country (the South Bank)? In the end there was no contest. Brighton has been gay since before Islington was born...

The Sunday Times.

Wake me when this nightmare's over.

If I see another photo of some grinning smug poshgays I swear I'll do time.

PS Except we can see their faces now, so maybe that's another MILESTONE for gay rights. 

Sunday Times: 100

Tory cunt.

My Tommy!

Touched by the hand of god.

And we're only up to H!

Exciting times, dudes, exciting times...

Chris Smith: A Gentlemen's Agreement

Britain’s first openly gay MP Lord (Chris) Smith of Finsbury, has spoken up on the difficulties he faced coming out about his HIV status, revealing that the Sunday Times had agreed not to publish any stories on the matter for two years until he was ready.

Appearing at BNP Paribas Diversity Week as a Keynote Speaker Lord Smith was asked how easy or hard it was for him to speak up on his HIV status.

Smith, who was the first MP to publicly acknowledge that he is HIV positive in 2005, told the audience that it was “a whole lot more difficult” than he had anticipated.

He said: “One of the things that happened was the Sunday Times found out and they were going to run a story and I talked with the editor.

“This was a couple of years before I eventually decided to speak out about it. And I said, actually, I don’t think I’m ready to do this yet. I can absolutely promise you that when I am, I will come to the Sunday Times to do it but it is against the editorial code that you reveal someone’s health details without their consent, and I’d much rather you didn’t.”

Pink News. 

Note Chris Smith doesn't say how the Sunday Times found out about his HIV status.

And this sounds like the sort of soft blackmail the tabloids are fond of; informing a public figure that they know something about them, tell them the evidence they have acquired (through often devious means), and ask them to tell their story - or be outed.

Hard to prove, but Fagburn suspects many stars - "Yes, I'm gay!" - So brave... etc etc - "coming out" stories still come via this route.

Oh, and Smith wasn't really "the first openly gay MP", he was the first to come out of his own volition.

Many had been outed or arrested sucking off a guardsman in Regent's Park or whatever before.

Labour MP Maureen Culquhoun, was openly lesbian in the late 70s - then was deselected.

PS Smith also said that Tony Blair was initially nervous about launching his programme of gay law reform; “I have to say the Prime Minister Tony Blair did require a little bit of persuading. He was initially very nervous about things like equalising the age of consent, getting rid of Section 28, introducing civil partnerships and so on. He was really nervous about some of these very basic things, like equal age of consent because he thought it would play badly with the public.” Pink News, yesterday.

Marriage: Rod Liddle's Got Issues

The Sunday Times' Rod Liddle talks to some gays of note who are opposed to equal marriage.
You'll never guess who...

Philip Hensher: Let's Make Some Noise

Do you think the noise of the gay marriage debate has outweighed its importance?
Oh, yes, gay people are always making too much noise, aren’t they?

Well, yes, many gay people are relatively noisy about gay rights. But others regard marriage as the reverse of freedom.
It’s about freedom of choice. I’m sorry if you think gay people make too much noise. We were forced to be silent until recently, you see. 

Philip Hensher interviewed in The Sunday Times. 

Droll irony lost on stupid interviewer shock!
Well done, sir.

The Sunday Times: Poll!

People support gay marriage by 56% to 36% who are opposed, pretty typical of our previous polling on the subject. There are the same demographic patterns that we've seen in other polling on the subject - women are more supportive of gay marriage than men, and young people are MUCH more supportive than over 60s. Asked if David Cameron should continue with the proposed changes in the face of opposition from some Conservative MPs the figures were very similar - 51% think he should continue regardless, 36% think he should abandon the policy.
There is very little perception that supporting gay marriage will help the Conservatives electorally. Only 9% think it will help them, 17% damage them, 66% think it will make no difference (needless to say, people's perception of whether it will help or hurt the Conservatives is not necessarily the same as whether it will. Polling on how policies directly affect voting intention is extremely dubious, but what there is suggests it is very much a case of swings and roundabouts - they lose about the same as they gain).
Asked how they would react to their own son or daughter being gay, 63% of people say they would be very or fairly comfortable with it. 17% say they would be fairly uncomfortable, 8% very uncomfortable. 

The Times.

Alan Turing: Pardon?

It was not simply the fact that homosexuality was illegal that made Turing’s life apparently unbearable, but that the overwhelming majority of the rest of society, back then, believed it to be a disgusting practice, as bad in its way as being a foreigner. We were, of course, a more conservative country in the 1950s; a smoky land of antimacassars, church attendance and almost no blacks.
Now some of our most eminent scientists, including Stephen Hawking, want Turing’s conviction overturned, erased from the record.
Does this do any good? Doesn’t it devalue the battle that has been fought for 40 years by gay rights campaigners, for legality and, later, equality under the law, to suggest that Turing’s case was a grotesque anomaly, an isolated instance of prejudice by a reactionary state, which can be suddenly put right by an emollient statement from the prime minister?
If we pardon Turing retrospectively, shouldn’t we also pardon convicted homosexuals who were not possessed of genius — who were, to put it bluntly, a bit thick, or completely useless? The boring, workaday clerks and the bus drivers and the plumbers and the greengrocers, who were subjected to treatment no less horrible. Should brilliance — and Turing certainly possessed that — make someone a special case under the law, deserving of different treatment?
I fear that this replaces one prejudice with another; I suspect that the scientists who are demanding this pardon think of themselves as exceptions, distinct from the masses, caviar to the general. They believe that, as a consequence of their learning, they stride above the morass and should be dealt with differently...

Rod Liddle, The Sunday Times.
It's rare that I agree with Rod Liddle, but he's quite right in the above.
I can see no good that an official posthumous pardon would do.
Will Turing rise from his grave and say "thank you"?
What happened to Alan was a great crime, but it happened to thousands of other men, their names not known.
You could even argue Turing got special treatment, by not being sent to prison.
It is also unclear if he commited suicide, or if so for what reason.
Here's a link to the Telegraph on the letter that Hawking co-signed - proof that genius can still be vacuous.
I bet Alan Turing would think this was all a bunch of stuff and nonsense that boils no cabbages, and then went back to work.

Sunday Times: Big Hugs!

Modern middle-class men are not content with shaking hands with our friends; it feels stiff, formal and a bit old-fashioned. We like to show our affection with a more passionate meeting of chests. Those chaps who don’t want to be considered gay make this clear by beating down on their fellow huggers’ backs with their hands and playing them like a drum which, if you’re being hugged by a proper homophobe, can hurt a bit.

From The Sunday Times' 50 point guide on how to be middle class.
It's funny cause it's true etc.

• Graphic by the wonderful Barbara Kruger.

Thought For The Day: Rupert Everett

When you’re young, you don’t care. I was busy constructing my identity — I didn’t give a damn about what anybody else felt. 
Looking back, I wish I’d not said tons of things. A lot of what I thought about life was just wrong! But it’s too late to worry about that now. Families are like desert islands, aren’t they? You’re all stuck there together, so you might as well get on. There’s no point in regrets. 
 [My mother] has met my boyfriend, but I’d imagine she still wishes I had a wife and kids. She thinks children need a father and a mother and I agree with her. I can’t think of anything worse than being brought up by two gay dads. 
Some people might not agree with that. Fine! That’s just my opinion. I’m not speaking on behalf of the gay community. In fact, I don’t feel like I’m part of any “community”. The only community I belong to is humanity and we’ve got too many children on the planet, so it’s good not to have more. 
The curious thing is that, as I’ve grown older, I find myself agreeing with my mother on lots of things. I look around at this new world we’ve created and I find it scary. We all share our problems on TV. We shed tears on X Factor. My mother would be far more stoic. After we lost my father, she just said: “This is how it is. Let’s get on with it”. She was right... 

The Sunday Times.

His mum said; "In the past, I have said that I wish Rupert was straight and, I probably still feel that. I’d like him to have a pretty wife. I’d like him to have children. He’s so good with children. He’d make a wonderful father. But I also think a child needs a mummy and a daddy. I’ve told him that and he takes it very well. He doesn’t get angry with me. He just smiles."

Aren't posh people odd?

PS A companion piece in The Sunday Times says; 'The actor Rupert Everett will upset fellow homosexuals [sic] with his views on parenting - WHEN Rupert Everett, the actor, came out of the closet more than 20 years ago he was heralded as a champion of gay rights.'
It's debatable when he came out, but no-one has ever thought Rupert was "a champion of gay rights."

Clare Balding: From "Dyke On A Bike" To "National Treasure"

It could be said that 2012 has belonged to two women. Both of them uncommonly fond of dogs and horses. Both on the television quite a bit, most noticeably during the Diamond Jubilee and the Olympics, but neither much given to either a) histrionics, or b) high-maintenance hairdos. Both well acquainted with the eccentricities of the British upper class, and the going in the 2.30 at Sandown... 

Hilariously fawning piece in The Times - Clare Balding, National Treasure.
Strangely neglects to mention the Press Complaints Commission upheld her complaint after Sunday Times' writer AA Gill called her "a dyke".

PS Clare has been elevated to "national treasure" status in the last few weeks by The Daily Mail, The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, The Independent, Mumsnet and Radio Times. I think it's as vacuous a phrase as "gay icon". Can't be arsed to post links, so Google it.

PPS 'OLYMPICS host Clare Balding has revealed she thought she was a DOG as a kid – and even wore a collar in the house.' The Sun. You couldn't make it up etc etc.

Grayson Perry: Pure Class

‘There is no such thing as good or bad taste,’ argues Grayson Perry. ‘Good taste is just something that doesn’t alienate your peers, that helps you fit in with your tribe’

Bold as brass
“Naturalness is a bit boring,” says Perry. The working class prefers “beauty you can measure with a ruler”: spray tans, big hair, fake breasts if you’re a woman, tattoos and pumped-up pecs if you’re a man — who ideally boasts a dazzling set of wheels.”

Goody two-shoes
“Underpinning all middle-class taste is an unconscious desire to project the idea that I am a nice person, with a shiny house, a shiny car and a shiny wife. Branded consumerism: bad taste. Organic food and cultural capital: good taste. But the good taste seems to involve a lot of consumerism, too.” Middle-class essentials include coffee, Ikea, Cath Kidston, olive oil, “retro vintage” and “green” baby clothes.

Tough at the toff
For the upper class, “taste is dictated by their ancestors beyond the grave. They don’t really have any taste at all; they’re just trying to hang on to what they’ve got. They’ll live in a tired house and drive a Morris Traveller. The posher the person, the less they have to prove.”

Postscript to a smashing Sunday Times Magazine interview with Grayson Perry.
Grayson has a new TV series and exhibition on the class/taste nexus coming up.
All in the Best Possible Taste with Grayson Perry starts on Tuesday at 10pm on Channel 4.
The Vanity of Small Differences is at London's Victoria Miro gallery from Thursday.
Can't wait.

Update: Start The Week: Grayson Perry at Charleston Festival.

Gay Marriage: Look At Me! Look At Me!

PoliticsHome has got some nice graphics for the latest YouGov/Sunday Times poll on gay marriage.
They conclude it's unconvincing for the Tory right to say the issue is a "distraction", when a majority of people now support it.
Here it is broken down by age...

• Conducted May 10th-11th. Original online versions appear to have disappeared into the ether...

Gay Marriage: It's Over

At last!
Over the last few weeks the Sunday papers have been filled to the AA Gills with articles about gay marriage, but I can't see any stand-alone pieces today.
Apart from the cover feature in The Sunday Times Magazine - but fittingly, this isn't so much about gay marriage as about gay divorce.
The piece appears to have been partly prompted by the recent story of the legal hoo-ha over the "million pound gay divorce settlement" between a financier, Peter Lawrence, and actor, Don Gallagher.
This was a gift to the press, coming with perfect timing during March's Great Gay Marriage Debate.
Much of the subtext to reporting was showing the folly of same-sex partnerships - though, to their credit, The Times and Sunday Times, have been among the most enthusiastic supporters of marriage equality.
The Sunday Times feature is fine; celebrity examples - Elton John and David Furnish hurrah! are compared and contrasted with Matt Lucas and Kevin McGee Oh noes!!! - plus some real life case studies, and stuff that sounds like it's come from a 'So You're Getting Gay Divorced...' leaflet from the solicitors.
Oh and what a cover photo, too.
Well, they all have those funny, little gay dogs. don't they?
Stereotypical for sure, but I think it's quite amusing, nonetheless.