Some of you will have read elsewhere about the Greencoat Boy pub in Westminster, which refused to serve members of the Labour LGBT Group. The Deputy Manager of the pub said he wouldn't have taken the booking if he had known who they were. Complaints were made and the incident is being investigated by the Police. The Deputy Manager has also been suspended pending an investigation by his employers, Punch Taverns.
All that much is known. What isn't known is that while the rumpus was kicking off in the Greencoat Boy pub (just along from my old shop, Politico's), Labour Chief Whip Nick Brown (who lives nearby) walked into the pub with a male friend. The Labour LGBT people assumed he was there to be part of their meeting but they were soon disabused. When one of them asked Brown to intercede with the pubs deputy manager he looked blankly, turned around and left the venue, clearly not wishing to become involved. As you may imagine, the Labour LGBT members were less than impressed that Mr Brown, who was outed a decade ago by a tabloid newspaper, took a decidedly uncomradely, and some would say cowardly, course of action.
Bizarre.
15 comments:
I hadn't realised just how extensive the Chief Whip's responsibilities were.
I was going to say that maybe Punch Taverns would spot the opportunity for some PR and go after the gay pound by renaming it to The Rainbow Coat Boy, but Jimmy's joke is a lot funnier than mine.
was his friend gordon? it would explain where he's been.......
Mr Dale,
With Balls outed today in PMQ's as Alf Garnet how do you feel about this latest addition to the West Ham supporting fraternity?
http://fxbites.blogspot.com/2010/06/young-gifted-and-white.html
I'm not sure, but I think you may be gay Iain
Well, I wouldn't let any Labour party members into my pub either, if they identified themselves as such in advance.
What's LGBT?
Kay, "LGBT" is an awkward set of tiles to be left with in Scrabble.
Perhaps Nick Brown didn't want to become part of the story. In this day and age an MP throwing their weight around would get short shrift from the public.
"The Deputy Manager of the pub said he wouldn't have taken the booking if he had known who they were."
'The Deputy Manager of the pub is alleged to have said'.
From The Independent: According to members of the society, the pub's management took offence to the group's display banner which the manager told members would cause "offence to customers".
...
A spokesman for Punch Taverns denied the group were refused drinks because of their sexuality. He also disputed whether the duty manager had made the statement about bookings.
Pub's property. Pub's rules. Or at least it should be. In Statist Britain it no longer is. We are not free to discriminate and be judged on that discrimination. People forced by law to get along do not get along for long.
If a pub wants to irrationally discriminate let it, and it will wither soon enough. Legislating intolerance to behind the curtain unfairly disadvantages those businesses and people who are already tolerant and welcoming.
If you want to encourage tolerance you don't do it by legislating as if everyone is a racist homophobe. Lowest commmon denominator socialism strikes again!
OH, according to Pink News, Iain can't be gay because he's overweight.
However, he might be Lesbian if I understand the article correctly.
Why has he been suspended?
Iain, perhaps Nick Brown did not want to be associated with the behaviour that was being displayed.
The fact that you are in a minority group does not mean that you can get away with any sort of behaviour.
That said, we do not know what went on other than the barest facts to present the manager on duty in the worst light possible.
interesting that you didn't post when this first came out.
But when you can get some anti Labour slant into the story you do
why am i not suprised !
"Kay, "LGBT" is an awkward set of tiles to be left with in Scrabble."
Still better than being stuck with the 'Q', though...
The objection was to the banner not to their sexualities (plural).
If Nick Brown, a local, took it for granted that he could walk in with a male friend, it seems pretty unlikely that the duty manager and/or the regular clientele was homophobic. Would you take a male friend into a homophobic pub for a friendly drink?
Actually, if you were taking any friend into your local pub for a friendly drink would you want to expose him/her to the unpleasantness caused by your intervention against the duty manager on behalf of a group of strangers who were causing offence to a (group of) regular(s)?
If I had been put in Nick Brown's position I hope that I should have told them to put the banner away because it was just plain bad manners, but if that was likely to cause extra unpleasantness to my guest I might well have followed his example.
So it appears to me that Labour LBGT and The Independent are trying to make out that a case of offensive behaviour by that group is an example of homophobia by Nick Brown's local. Why were they allowed to unfurl a banner in a pub in the first place? Isn't that against Health and Safety regulations?
Regarding the LGBTZWXYQ thing - oh please...who cares...live and let live. BUT, if it was my pub, and I knew they were Labour peeps, I wouldn't have let them in either ;o)
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