Oh dear. The Evening Standard diary have a little story today saying that the new junior Defence Minister Kevan Jones is the first defence minister who is gay. Except he is not. Gay, that is. He has a long standing girlfriend. Perhaps the wrong conclusion was drawn because he used to be a flatmate of Nick Brown.
Some of Jones's colleagues are urging him to take action against the Evening Standard, quoting Jason Donovan's legal case against The Face magazine as a precedent. Jones, however, is laughing it off, and all credit to him.
UPDATE: It seems m'Learned Friend has encouraged the ES to, ahem, amend their story.
UPDATE2: MoD lawyers have been very busy this afternoon on this story, particularly with one or two broadcast media outlets.
..and laugh it off he should. Why this kind of "revelation" is newsworthy in this day and age is beyond me.
ReplyDeleteIt's questionable whether he would have been the first even if he was gay.
ReplyDeleteI know so many gay men who have 'long standing girlfriends' and wives. Maybe he is gay, so what?
ReplyDeleteI thought you were going to say Liam Fox anyway.
Really, I could not care less what his sexual preferences are. He could be a one legged, half cast, single parent Jewish green Martian living in an open relationship with three Dagenham Girl Pipers in a cardboard house kitted out with a model railway layout and a full set of bondage gear in the back garden of the Lord Montagu of Beaulieu's London home, as long as he does the Damn' job properly.
ReplyDelete"He has a long standing girlfriend."
ReplyDeleteAnd?
Who the hell cares these days. If he can do the job it's all that matters.
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ReplyDeletecanvas is quite right to point that out.
ReplyDeleteIt seems the facts have got in the way of a rubbish story.
Wasn't Ian Harvey at the Ministry of Defence or its predecessor?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1413699/How-the-legal-framework-still-works-against-homosexuals.html
Ian Harvey was a junior foreign office minister.
ReplyDeleteI agree with anonymous 3.07, though I think they mean 'half caste' rather than 'half cast'. Then again...
only tories would use the repugnant phrase 'half caste', yes?
ReplyDeletePS> Hiya Conand - long time no see! :)
Half Caste 'Repugnant'?
ReplyDeleteTo whom?
How about Half Breed, then?
How about Half Pissed?
half pissed is completely understandable.
ReplyDelete;)
drop the old fashipned racist words though> soooo 20th century...
Well, Ivor Caplin was a junior Defence Minister for a while, but decided not to stand for Hove again in 2005.
ReplyDeleteApart from that, who gives a toss?
old fashioned
ReplyDeleteold fashioned old fashioned
Portillo?
ReplyDeleteBut why is this an issue?
As for ministerial appointments generally, the MOD must surely think itself fortunate that self-imagined towering intellects like Balls or his missus aren't there. Or the little squirt Bradshaw. Or Harman. Or Hoon - ah, yes, that's one cross already carried . . .
I thought everybody was gay these days. I certainly am, but in a non practising way.
ReplyDeleteTo sue for libel you need to show that the innocent bystander will think less of a person as a result of the claimed libel.
ReplyDeleteClearly those colleagues encouraging him to sue consider that being gay is a slur on his charachter.
Bigots!
Jones will have problems at MoD because the little squirt asked stupid questions about how much General So and So had spent on his official residence yet refused to push for improvments in soldiers' conditions! MoD is his reward for being Brown's grovelling little soldier asking stupid questions or making ridiculous complaints about Tories. Expect the MoD (miltary side) to ignore the wee twit.....
ReplyDeletein the paper today (Independent) it said George Osborne told Peter Mandie (while they hanging out in Corfu together) some really juicy gossip about Liam Fox ...
ReplyDeleteWill Mandie dish?
;)
How very right-off to advise legal action over a suggestion that he was gay. They'd tie themselves up in homophobic knots within minutes.
ReplyDeleteIf he can do the job better than that non-entity Hoon then so what as to his personal interests.
ReplyDeleteAnyone that Nick Brown climbed on top of would soon become a flat mate.
ReplyDeleteI hope things have moved on and that being "accused" of being gay is not really a big deal.
ReplyDeleteIt's a bit like being accused of being ginger, which I know is a lot worse, but still...sic transit.
What disgusts me is that someone in the Cabinet is a Mandelson, which is about as pervy and mendacious as one can get, apart from being a Brown, that is.
If friends are telling him that the Jason Donovan case is a useful precedent, then he needs to change his friends. It beggars belief that the Evening Standard even thinks there is anything here worth reporting.
ReplyDelete@ Canvas
ReplyDeleteYeah, "20th century" notwithstanding, I like the old fashioned racist words. Do I tell you what vocabulary is 'acceptable'? Certainly not. So don't try it on.
I believe in calling a spade a spade. What might you call it?
Iain these are genuine questions, that I have been trying to fine a satisfactory answer to, for some time. So I would be most thankful for some well thought out serious answers. Although I fully understand why you might not want to answer any of them.
ReplyDeleteDo gay people in general define being gay as having regular or not sexual activity with a member of the same sex?
Or
Do gay people in general not have an opinion on the matter, or care one way or another.
Or
Do gay people in general define being gay as a preference or ability to fall passionately in love with a member of the same sex, to the point of maybe life time commitment?
I ask this, because at this moment we seem to have a British/European/American political elite of which half are married, over half are effectively Roman Catholics and almost all of them are having sex with members of the same sex, on a casual or full time basis.
It has been suggested by some 'crazy' conspiracy theorists that this is because of a Papal Jesuit/Zionist take over of much of the western worlds party political class.
These 'crazy' conspiracy theorists, seem also to have a conclusive amount of circumstantial and direct historically well documented evidence to support this view.
It is said that Tony Blair is a Knight of Malta, which is a Jesuit masonic order under the control of the Pope. Also that Gordon Brown is an above 33 degree Scottish rite free mason, which is also a Jesuit masonic order under control of the Pope.
I cant list them all now, but it seems to be a fact that almost the entire Labour cabinet have made a blood oath to a foreign power, namely the Pope in Rome.
Doing so is clearly high treason. Doing so and actually acting against the interests of the crown is even worse.
So Iain; do you have an explanation as to why our Gracious Majesty has not had Tony Blair and Gordon Brown locked up in the Tower already?
Because it seems to me, that the only reason why she has not even considered doing so, can only be because The Queen of England herself is still subservient to The Papal Powers, and she knows it. So Lizzy and her lot are basically in on the EU/New World Order deal, whether they like it or not.
One more question Iain.
Is it generally know in the gay community, that the Pope is said by 'completely crazy' conspiracy theorists to be openly gay, or not?
Atlas shrugged
Now I have heard it all.
ReplyDeleteLola - I am deeply offended by your suggestion that Jewish Martians are green.
ReplyDeleteIf they are proper Orthodox Jewish Martians, everyone knows they are purple.
Good for him! It is so offensive when people kick up a flaming song and a dance when it is suggested they are gay, as if they have been accused of being a murderer.
ReplyDeleteCanvas - mixed race? Mullato?, half cast is OK - only it is not if you are being deliberately offensive, which is the opposite of what was being.
ReplyDeleteJudith. I do apologise. You are quite right. It's the one legged jewish martians that emigrated to a small planet in the vicinity of beetlejuice that are green - something to do with the particular wavelengths of that planets suns radiation I understand.
Lola - I'm sure you weren't trying to be offensive - but you should realise the terms mulatto and half caste are considered impolite and potentially offensive.
ReplyDeleteWell, Lola, I reluctantly accept your apology, but reserve the right to get huffy about it every so often, when in the mood.
ReplyDeleteHow can anyone sue a newspaper for suggesting they are gay? I am gay. Would I be able to sue a newspaper if it reported that I was heterosexual? Oh dear, we rally do have a long way to go.
ReplyDeleteOf course Jason Donovan is as straight as a nine bob note.
ReplyDeleteIt has always been common knowledge around here, in the louche North East. Can you just not cope with this sort of thing in Tehran-on-Thames?
ReplyDelete