As LGBT activists worldwide celebrate anti-homophobia day we are reminded of prevailing prejudice
WE'VE said it before in the pages of this paper, but it merits saying again.
NEW Labour spin doctors are adding up the political cost of the heavy-handed expulsion of Walter Wolfgang and Steve Forrest from the party conference.
CYNICAL observers have suggested that, if Neville Chamberlain had signed a memorandum of understanding with Hitler, along the lines of the undertakings sought by the government now from some torture states, Walter Wolfgang would never have come to Britain to torment new Labour.
NO wonder that the Labour leadership has done all it can to prevent any discussion of the Iraq war at its party conference.
NORTHERN Ireland's unionist politicians have fallen at the first hurdle in the race to put decades of blinkered sectarianism behind them and to embrace reconciliation.
GIVING a standing ovation to the sacked Gate Gourmet workers costs nothing. It leaves everyone with a warm glow, but it requires something more concrete if the ovation is not to be seen as shallow posturing.
RECOVERING former leftie Peter Hain purports to believe that socialists and trade unionists are only opposed the government's reliance on the private sector to "reform" public services because "people are always uncomfortable about change."
IF you were looking for examples of just how damaging new Labour's "I can be a bigger bastard than the Tories" attitude has been, you would need to look no further than the proposals put forward by the local authority employers on the future of the Local Government Pension Scheme.
FOR any case-hardened old class warrior, these are parlous times indeed.
WHATEVER happened to that nice, cuddly, touchy-feely police commissioner Ian Blair who, we were advised, should not be made to resign over the cold-blooded killing of Jean Charles de Menezes because he would be replaced by someone much more right-wing?