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  • Tissue_PriceTissue_Price Posts: 9,039
    isam said:

    isam said:

    If there was such a thing as rationing of food, and somebody was found to be defrauding the rations and over claiming that would be a crime

    If years later we found that the need for rationing had been over stated, and therefore the rations were too strict, would we pardon the man who took more than his fair share?

    Classy analogy.
    If I were a gay man who had been convicted of being gay when it was an offence I would be quite proud and like it to be known that I was the kind of person who was true to himself and proven right

    Seems to me it benefits the establishment more than the individual to put the prosecution down the memory hole
    An apology and a pardon isn't the same as forgetting about it. Quite the reverse, surely?
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,636
    Pong said:

    This is pretty horiffic;

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-31698154

    Excellent journalism though.

    That's truly awful.
  • AnorakAnorak Posts: 6,621
    Pulpstar said:

    Pong said:

    This is pretty horiffic;

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-31698154

    Excellent journalism though.

    God I hope he has a painful death.
    One matching the crime would seem appropriate. Where's Vlad when you need him? (not Putin, the other one)
  • chestnutchestnut Posts: 7,341
    Scott_P said:

    Miliband is the least popular Labour Prime Ministerial choice in thirty years, well behind Neil Kinnock in both his 1987 and 1992 campaigns.
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-2015/11446252/Campaign-Calculus-Only-Ed-Miliband-can-stop-Labour-now.html

    Cameron's rating is up on 2010.

    That's a repeat of Thatcher in 1983 and Blair in 2001.

    Lowest poll rating of any winner in last 40 years is 33%. Miliband is on 18%.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 61,963
    Mr. Chestnut, indeed, the election will be very interesting, however it turns out.
  • isamisam Posts: 41,118

    isam said:

    isam said:

    If there was such a thing as rationing of food, and somebody was found to be defrauding the rations and over claiming that would be a crime

    If years later we found that the need for rationing had been over stated, and therefore the rations were too strict, would we pardon the man who took more than his fair share?

    Classy analogy.
    If I were a gay man who had been convicted of being gay when it was an offence I would be quite proud and like it to be known that I was the kind of person who was true to himself and proven right

    Seems to me it benefits the establishment more than the individual to put the prosecution down the memory hole
    An apology and a pardon isn't the same as forgetting about it. Quite the reverse, surely?
    Grandstanding to make current politicians feel good, nothing else. Achieves nothing

    The fact that it isn't illegal now and no one thinks it should be is the apology. Free market over statism
  • edmundintokyoedmundintokyo Posts: 17,708
    edited March 2015

    Pulpstar said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Pulpstar said:

    @Thescreamingeagles I'm not sure if you've done it in your post, but the way alot of the media is banding about the word coalition when they actually mean one of:

    Coalition
    Confidence & supply
    Bill by bill support

    Really ticks me off.

    I use coalition in the way that Shadsy will pay out.

    IE a formal coalition.
    What are your thoughts on potential DUP c&s for both sides ? And on DUP c&s for a Con-Lib Dem coalition. I can honestly see it coming to that.
    Gordon Brown offered The DUP a lot of pork and they voted with Labour on some key issues.

    I suspect they will enter into a Confidence and Supply arrangement with whichever party offers enough pork.

    My other prediction is we won't have a guaranteed five year coalition. Maybe 2/3 years and a possible break clause.
    I guess if Con + LD gets to 315 then the DUP doesn't actually have to give c&s even, they could just abstein the budget.
    Surely if Clegg,Alexander,Swinson,Webb etc have all been ejected the remaining Lib Dems
    who include people like Huppert wont necessarily allow the Tories to govern again and may back the Rainbow Coalition as a way of trying to start detoxification in advance of 2020?

    Possibly, but these will be people who have just learned that in their particular seats they can survive a Lib/Con coalition. Will they want to roll the dice and find out whether they can survive a Lib/Lab coalition as well?

    PS. This is probably moot as the chances of the LibDems being able to choose between rival coalitions get quite slim as their number of seats drops.
  • Tissue_PriceTissue_Price Posts: 9,039
    justin124 said:

    The detail of today's YouGov reveals a Tory lead of 2.15%. Rounding of party % shares put it up to 3%.

    How unfortunate.
  • JackWJackW Posts: 14,787
    isam said:

    isam said:

    If there was such a thing as rationing of food, and somebody was found to be defrauding the rations and over claiming that would be a crime

    If years later we found that the need for rationing had been over stated, and therefore the rations were too strict, would we pardon the man who took more than his fair share?

    Classy analogy.
    If I were a gay man who had been convicted of being gay when it was an offence I would be quite proud and like it to be known that I was the kind of person who was true to himself and proven right

    Seems to me it benefits the establishment more than the individual to put the prosecution down the memory hole
    Very laudable .... except a criminal conviction for a sex crime does tend to have a less than favourable reception from employers, colleagues, neighbours and to some degree from less enlightened friends and family.

  • Anorak said:

    Patrick said:

    We had an interesting energy debate here the other day. This is potentially very significant:

    http://www.physics-astronomy.com/2015/02/lockheed-martins-new-compact-fusion.html#.VPN5li40fh7

    The holy grail of the energy world is to achieve a relatively cheap easy and scalable fusion reaction. It looks very much as if this will be achieved in the not too distant future. And then the Middle East is fucked.

    Heard every two yars for the last forty.
    There have indeed been many false dawns in the fusion journey. FWIW I work in the energy industry and am hugely interested in all the technological and political issues around it. I read ALOT of stuff about it. The scale and speed of advancement in many areas of high tech from biosciences to AI, from materials science to powergen is amazing. I do believe that mankind will crack fusion power soon enough on the large, industrial scale and not long thereafter on the 'powers your car or your house' scale. It will be gamechanging in many unpredictable ways.

    (and as a provocative aside I also think it entirely likely that mankind will soon enough develop the medical capability to overcome ageing and death. Now that will be truly transformative - and probably not in any good ways at all).
  • The news today is unremittingly horrible with the murder of Becky Watts, the disgraceful report on Furness General Hospital maternity unit and the serious case review in Oxford into sexual abuse. It is all just depressing and in particular in regard to Furness and Oxford reports when are people going to be held account and jailed
  • SmarmeronSmarmeron Posts: 5,099
    @Pulpstar
    Lack of empathy, and the belief that the victim "deserved" it, is a common occurrence the world over.
    It is why the news today is full of child abuse stories.
    How common is this disgusting attitude? All too common, and it even shows itself daily on this site, but no one notices.
  • isamisam Posts: 41,118
    JackW said:

    isam said:

    isam said:

    If there was such a thing as rationing of food, and somebody was found to be defrauding the rations and over claiming that would be a crime

    If years later we found that the need for rationing had been over stated, and therefore the rations were too strict, would we pardon the man who took more than his fair share?

    Classy analogy.
    If I were a gay man who had been convicted of being gay when it was an offence I would be quite proud and like it to be known that I was the kind of person who was true to himself and proven right

    Seems to me it benefits the establishment more than the individual to put the prosecution down the memory hole
    Very laudable .... except a criminal conviction for a sex crime does tend to have a less than favourable reception from employers, colleagues, neighbours and to some degree from less enlightened friends and family.

    So you think men who were convicted of being gay in the 60s are still shunned and discriminated by society because of it? Doubt it
  • Tissue_PriceTissue_Price Posts: 9,039
    Smarmeron said:

    @Pulpstar
    Lack of empathy, and the belief that the victim "deserved" it, is a common occurrence the world over.
    It is why the news today is full of child abuse stories.
    How common is this disgusting attitude? All too common, and it even shows itself daily on this site, but no one notices.

    Who exactly are you smearing, please?
  • Surely those convicted of blasphemy and witchcraft should receive posthumous pardons as well.
  • SmarmeronSmarmeron Posts: 5,099
    @Tissue_Price
    Smearing?
  • justin124justin124 Posts: 11,527
    DavidL said:

    antifrank said:

    On topic, the polls are hard to read right now. It may be that the Conservatives are finally getting their much-predicted swingback. But it's far from clear yet, and even believers in the phenomenon will struggle to guess how far the Conservatives might rise in the polls.



    Swingback, if it is occurring at all, is modest and late.
    .
    It is hardly late when if has been happening for two years! More pertinent is how much further will it go - or will it be partially reversed in the final month before polling day as was the case in 10 of the last 14 elections?
  • AnorakAnorak Posts: 6,621
    Patrick said:

    Anorak said:

    Patrick said:

    We had an interesting energy debate here the other day. This is potentially very significant:

    http://www.physics-astronomy.com/2015/02/lockheed-martins-new-compact-fusion.html#.VPN5li40fh7

    The holy grail of the energy world is to achieve a relatively cheap easy and scalable fusion reaction. It looks very much as if this will be achieved in the not too distant future. And then the Middle East is fucked.

    Heard every two yars for the last forty.
    There have indeed been many false dawns in the fusion journey. FWIW I work in the energy industry and am hugely interested in all the technological and political issues around it. I read ALOT of stuff about it. The scale and speed of advancement in many areas of high tech from biosciences to AI, from materials science to powergen is amazing. I do believe that mankind will crack fusion power soon enough on the large, industrial scale and not long thereafter on the 'powers your car or your house' scale. It will be gamechanging in many unpredictable ways.

    (and as a provocative aside I also think it entirely likely that mankind will soon enough develop the medical capability to overcome ageing and death. Now that will be truly transformative - and probably not in any good ways at all).
    A HUGE plus point to the fusion research you linked to is that it's being done my Lockheed Martin. This is not a lunatic in a garage, or an over-excited researcher at Warwick University, or a bonkers scheme funded by DARPA. This is hard cash from a private business being used by some of the biggest brains on the planet with an excellent support infrastructure. Fingers crossed.
  • isamisam Posts: 41,118
    Anorak said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Pong said:

    This is pretty horiffic;

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-31698154

    Excellent journalism though.

    God I hope he has a painful death.
    One matching the crime would seem appropriate. Where's Vlad when you need him? (not Putin, the other one)
    Why is wanting a painful death for this person ok? I have often said I wanted such an outcome for Lee Rigbys killers, and get dogs abuse from the guardianistas on here
  • Tissue_PriceTissue_Price Posts: 9,039
    Smarmeron said:

    @Tissue_Price
    Smearing?

    You seem to be suggesting that victim-blaming is a daily occurrence on this site.
  • It was not until the early 1990's that the Police stopped raiding gay mens homes. Until recently it was illegal for gay sex to occur in dwellings where more than two adults were in residence.

    Some police chief used to organise raids on parties on gay peoples houses with great relish. The Metropolitan police were very keen for example. These raids would by weird co incidence often have tabloid photographers outside and would often make for salacious tabloid fodder about deviant sex parties with lots of nice pictures of those being arrested.

    The same would happen with undercover operations against cottaging (meeting places at certain public toilets, layby's or heathlands).

    Your chance of being arrested would greatly vary around country depending how important different forces felt about keeping the gays in their place.

    It was not that unusual for gays pubs to be still to be raided by the police long after decriminalisation looking for immoral goings on. Gay pubs only started losing their heavy wooden doors and almost anonymous looks in the 1990's.


    So yeah there were very real consequences of those arrests and many are still on the sexual offenders list as a result.

  • SmarmeronSmarmeron Posts: 5,099
    @Tissue_Price
    You seem to be suggesting it doesn't happen. I think it does, but you don't notice.
  • Tissue_PriceTissue_Price Posts: 9,039
    justin124 said:

    DavidL said:

    antifrank said:

    On topic, the polls are hard to read right now. It may be that the Conservatives are finally getting their much-predicted swingback. But it's far from clear yet, and even believers in the phenomenon will struggle to guess how far the Conservatives might rise in the polls.



    Swingback, if it is occurring at all, is modest and late.
    .
    It is hardly late when if has been happening for two years! More pertinent is how much further will it go - or will it be partially reversed in the final month before polling day as was the case in 10 of the last 14 elections?
    Yes, there's quite a handy little graph up there. Some people are so focused on the blue line that they don't look at the black one.
  • AnorakAnorak Posts: 6,621
    edited March 2015
    isam said:

    Anorak said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Pong said:

    This is pretty horiffic;

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-31698154

    Excellent journalism though.

    God I hope he has a painful death.
    One matching the crime would seem appropriate. Where's Vlad when you need him? (not Putin, the other one)
    Why is wanting a painful death for this person ok? I have often said I wanted such an outcome for Lee Rigbys killers, and get dogs abuse from the guardianistas on here
    Fair point. With Rigby's killlers it would be seen by some as an elevation to martyrdom, which is one reason against. But still, fair point: the lack of remorse and utter barbarity shown in both cases is comparable.
  • FlightpathFlightpath Posts: 4,012
    edited March 2015
    Pong said:

    Indigo said:

    Indigo said:

    He had the option to quietly ease in Gay Marriage without a big song and dance, to sell it as some "tidying up", and deprecate it as "not a big deal because most of it was in civil partnerships"

    Instead he rubbed his social conservative core's face in it, and show-boated it for all he was worth, and insulted anyone on the right of his party who expressed even qualified reservation to the policy. .

    No he didn't. That is pure fantasy. What's more, it was a free vote.
    Pffft. It wasn't mentioned the entire campaign, didn't appear in the manifesto, until four days before the election we brought out "Contract for Equalities" which said it would 'consider' recognising civil partnerships as marriage if elected, no wonder the traditionalists were pissed off. If that had been a whipped vote the party would have imploded on the spot, and Cameron knew he didn't have to because it would carry on Labour votes.



    No he didn't. That is pure fantasy. What's more, it was a free vote.

    Agree entirely. He did the right thing in the right way. In doing so he set a benchmark for what we should consider acceptable behaviour regarding the State's relationship with the citizen.
    Maybe, that will be cold comfort on the opposition benches now the traditionalists have moved to join the kippers.
    The traditionalists are literally dying off.

    It was the conservatives clause 4 moment, that dave stumbled on by chance.
    I think the manifesto said it would allow parliament to 'consider' civil marriage.
    Parliament did and the tories had a free vote.
    Since then there have been 3 instances, either friends of my wife or family of her friends, where there have been gay marriages. They are decent people... what would 'traditionalists' have me say to them?
    Quite why any Conservative so called traditionalist should be 'pissed off' by this is a mystery to me. The polling seems to indicate the opposite. Only pure bred bigots would be pissed off.
  • taffystaffys Posts: 9,753
    http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/cardiff-council-leader-phil-bale-8757046

    Is labour really going to take its top target in Wales????

  • Tissue_PriceTissue_Price Posts: 9,039
    Smarmeron said:

    @Tissue_Price
    You seem to be suggesting it doesn't happen. I think it does, but you don't notice.

    At a guess you're defining victims rather more loosely than "victims of crime".
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,538
    isam said:

    JackW said:

    isam said:

    isam said:

    If there was such a thing as rationing of food, and somebody was found to be defrauding the rations and over claiming that would be a crime

    If years later we found that the need for rationing had been over stated, and therefore the rations were too strict, would we pardon the man who took more than his fair share?

    Classy analogy.
    If I were a gay man who had been convicted of being gay when it was an offence I would be quite proud and like it to be known that I was the kind of person who was true to himself and proven right

    Seems to me it benefits the establishment more than the individual to put the prosecution down the memory hole
    Very laudable .... except a criminal conviction for a sex crime does tend to have a less than favourable reception from employers, colleagues, neighbours and to some degree from less enlightened friends and family.

    So you think men who were convicted of being gay in the 60s are still shunned and discriminated by society because of it? Doubt it
    The criminal law changes all the time. It's possible that in the future the use and distribution of cannabis will be decriminalised; or the age of consent to sex may be reduced; but I'm not convinced that people who were correctly convicted under the legislation as it was should therefore qualify for a pardon.

    There's a further issue in that some people who were convicted under the old legislation against gross indecency or buggery were guilty of what would be treated as offences under current law (Oscar Wilde, for example).

  • JackWJackW Posts: 14,787
    isam said:

    JackW said:

    isam said:

    isam said:

    If there was such a thing as rationing of food, and somebody was found to be defrauding the rations and over claiming that would be a crime

    If years later we found that the need for rationing had been over stated, and therefore the rations were too strict, would we pardon the man who took more than his fair share?

    Classy analogy.
    If I were a gay man who had been convicted of being gay when it was an offence I would be quite proud and like it to be known that I was the kind of person who was true to himself and proven right

    Seems to me it benefits the establishment more than the individual to put the prosecution down the memory hole
    Very laudable .... except a criminal conviction for a sex crime does tend to have a less than favourable reception from employers, colleagues, neighbours and to some degree from less enlightened friends and family.

    So you think men who were convicted of being gay in the 60s are still shunned and discriminated by society because of it? Doubt it
    It is not simply a matter of discrimination today and gay men have been prosecuted for consensual sex until the equalisation of the age of consent more recently.

    This measure seems a reasonable step that corrects a situation that has blighted the lives of many gay people in the recent past.

  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,411

    It was not until the early 1990's that the Police stopped raiding gay mens homes. Until recently it was illegal for gay sex to occur in dwellings where more than two adults were in residence.

    Some police chief used to organise raids on parties on gay peoples houses with great relish. The Metropolitan police were very keen for example. These raids would by weird co incidence often have tabloid photographers outside and would often make for salacious tabloid fodder about deviant sex parties with lots of nice pictures of those being arrested.

    The same would happen with undercover operations against cottaging (meeting places at certain public toilets, layby's or heathlands).

    Your chance of being arrested would greatly vary around country depending how important different forces felt about keeping the gays in their place.

    It was not that unusual for gays pubs to be still to be raided by the police long after decriminalisation looking for immoral goings on. Gay pubs only started losing their heavy wooden doors and almost anonymous looks in the 1990's.


    So yeah there were very real consequences of those arrests and many are still on the sexual offenders list as a result.

    Don't want to sound homophobic but public loos are for emptying bowels and bladders, not bollocks.
  • Ishmael_XIshmael_X Posts: 3,664
    Smarmeron said:

    @Tissue_Price
    You seem to be suggesting it doesn't happen. I think it does, but you don't notice.

    Links now please, if it happens "daily on this site". Or retract and b*gger off.
  • SmarmeronSmarmeron Posts: 5,099
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 61,963
    F1: Alonso to miss Australia:
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/31713292
  • JonnyJimmyJonnyJimmy Posts: 2,548

    Surely those convicted of blasphemy and witchcraft should receive posthumous pardons as well.

    Scots have rejected half of that already..

    "Witchcraft pardon plea rejected"

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/tayside_and_central/7278899.stm
  • AnorakAnorak Posts: 6,621
    It's a bloody big island betweeen the Pacific and Indian Oceans. How the hell did he miss it?
  • isamisam Posts: 41,118
    edited March 2015
    JackW said:

    isam said:

    JackW said:

    isam said:

    isam said:

    If there was such a thing as rationing of food, and somebody was found to be defrauding the rations and over claiming that would be a crime

    If years later we found that the need for rationing had been over stated, and therefore the rations were too strict, would we pardon the man who took more than his fair share?

    Classy analogy.
    If I were a gay man who had been convicted of being gay when it was an offence I would be quite proud and like it to be known that I was the kind of person who was true to himself and proven right

    Seems to me it benefits the establishment more than the individual to put the prosecution down the memory hole
    Very laudable .... except a criminal conviction for a sex crime does tend to have a less than favourable reception from employers, colleagues, neighbours and to some degree from less enlightened friends and family.

    So you think men who were convicted of being gay in the 60s are still shunned and discriminated by society because of it? Doubt it
    It is not simply a matter of discrimination today and gay men have been prosecuted for consensual sex until the equalisation of the age of consent more recently.

    This measure seems a reasonable step that corrects a situation that has blighted the lives of many gay people in the recent past.

    It gives politicians an excuse to pat themselves on the back, that's the reason it's being done

    Achieves nothing. Would only be worth doing if it were the current politicians that enacted or carried out the law under which the men were convicted

    But we live in a time where vacuous words and empty platitudes impress people more than ever, so I guess it will get traction
  • SmarmeronSmarmeron Posts: 5,099
    @Ishmael_X
    Complain to OGH. I don't have to dance because you say so.
  • JackWJackW Posts: 14,787
    Pulpstar said:

    It was not until the early 1990's that the Police stopped raiding gay mens homes. Until recently it was illegal for gay sex to occur in dwellings where more than two adults were in residence.

    Some police chief used to organise raids on parties on gay peoples houses with great relish. The Metropolitan police were very keen for example. These raids would by weird co incidence often have tabloid photographers outside and would often make for salacious tabloid fodder about deviant sex parties with lots of nice pictures of those being arrested.

    The same would happen with undercover operations against cottaging (meeting places at certain public toilets, layby's or heathlands).

    Your chance of being arrested would greatly vary around country depending how important different forces felt about keeping the gays in their place.

    It was not that unusual for gays pubs to be still to be raided by the police long after decriminalisation looking for immoral goings on. Gay pubs only started losing their heavy wooden doors and almost anonymous looks in the 1990's.


    So yeah there were very real consequences of those arrests and many are still on the sexual offenders list as a result.

    Don't want to sound homophobic but public loos are for emptying bowels and bladders, not bollocks.
    Pulpstar in "No Mile High Sex For Me" shock revelation.

  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    isam said:

    JackW said:

    isam said:

    JackW said:

    isam said:

    isam said:

    If there was such a thing as rationing of food, and somebody was found to be defrauding the rations and over claiming that would be a crime

    If years later we found that the need for rationing had been over stated, and therefore the rations were too strict, would we pardon the man who took more than his fair share?

    Classy analogy.
    If I were a gay man who had been convicted of being gay when it was an offence I would be quite proud and like it to be known that I was the kind of person who was true to himself and proven right

    Seems to me it benefits the establishment more than the individual to put the prosecution down the memory hole
    Very laudable .... except a criminal conviction for a sex crime does tend to have a less than favourable reception from employers, colleagues, neighbours and to some degree from less enlightened friends and family.

    So you think men who were convicted of being gay in the 60s are still shunned and discriminated by society because of it? Doubt it
    It is not simply a matter of discrimination today and gay men have been prosecuted for consensual sex until the equalisation of the age of consent more recently.

    This measure seems a reasonable step that corrects a situation that has blighted the lives of many gay people in the recent past.

    It gives politicians an excuse to pat themselves on the back, that's the reason it's being done

    Achieves nothing
    Says someone who isn't a victim of a prosecution under an unjust law.

    It achieves a lot for people who are alive today who did nothing wrong. Or do you think they deserve to be criminals?

    If someone was convicted of eg protecting the Jews under Nazi Germany should they be viewed as a criminal today? What we're saying is that these people who are alive today aren't criminals and should be marked as such. There is no just reason whatsoever to treat them as criminals when the law, not them, was wrong. Or do you think the law was right?
  • Ishmael_XIshmael_X Posts: 3,664
    Smarmeron said:

    @Ishmael_X
    Complain to OGH. I don't have to dance because you say so.

    No, but if you claim something happens "every day" and then can't link to it you look a bit of a blowhard; or, in Auberon Waugh's immortal words, a "thick, self-important, leftie shit".

    As you don't want to look like that, I am sure you will now see sense and provide a link.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    isam said:

    Achieves nothing. Would only be worth doing if it were the current politicians that enacted or carried out the law under which the men were convicted

    But we live in a time where vacuous words and empty platitudes impress people more than ever, so I guess it will get traction

    Then if it achieves nothing to the people alive today convicted of these crimes, why are there people alive today who are campaigning to get this fixed? They think it achieves something for them.

    What is the harm?
  • isamisam Posts: 41,118
    edited March 2015

    isam said:

    JackW said:

    isam said:

    JackW said:

    isam said:

    isam said:

    If there was such a thing as rationing of food, and somebody was found to be defrauding the rations and over claiming that would be a crime

    If years later we found that the need for rationing had been over stated, and therefore the rations were too strict, would we pardon the man who took more than his fair share?

    Classy analogy.
    If I were a gay man who had been convicted of being gay when it was an offence I would be quite proud and like it to be known that I was the kind of person who was true to himself and proven right

    Seems to me it benefits the establishment more than the individual to put the prosecution down the memory hole
    Very laudable .... except a criminal conviction for a sex crime does tend to have a less than favourable reception from employers, colleagues, neighbours and to some degree from less enlightened friends and family.

    So you think men who were convicted of being gay in the 60s are still shunned and discriminated by society because of it? Doubt it
    It is not simply a matter of discrimination today and gay men have been prosecuted for consensual sex until the equalisation of the age of consent more recently.

    This measure seems a reasonable step that corrects a situation that has blighted the lives of many gay people in the recent past.

    It gives politicians an excuse to pat themselves on the back, that's the reason it's being done

    Achieves nothing
    Says someone who isn't a victim of a prosecution under an unjust law.

    It achieves a lot for people who are alive today who did nothing wrong. Or do you think they deserve to be criminals?

    If someone was convicted of eg protecting the Jews under Nazi Germany should they be viewed as a criminal today? What we're saying is that these people who are alive today aren't criminals and should be marked as such. There is no just reason whatsoever to treat them as criminals when the law, not them, was wrong. Or do you think the law was right?
    I think the law was wrong and if you read my initial post I said were I a gay man who was prosecuted for being so I would wear it like a badge of honour to show I was true to myself

    Ease yourself off that moral high ground
  • IndigoIndigo Posts: 9,966
    edited March 2015


    Pong said:

    Indigo said:

    Indigo said:

    He had the option to quietly ease in Gay Marriage without a big song and dance, to sell it as some "tidying up", and deprecate it as "not a big deal because most of it was in civil partnerships"

    Instead he rubbed his social conservative core's face in it, and show-boated it for all he was worth, and insulted anyone on the right of his party who expressed even qualified reservation to the policy. .

    No he didn't. That is pure fantasy. What's more, it was a free vote.
    Pffft. It wasn't mentioned the entire campaign, didn't appear in the manifesto, until four days before the election we brought out "Contract for Equalities" which said it would 'consider' recognising civil partnerships as marriage if elected, no wonder the traditionalists were pissed off. If that had been a whipped vote the party would have imploded on the spot, and Cameron knew he didn't have to because it would carry on Labour votes.



    No he didn't. That is pure fantasy. What's more, it was a free vote.

    Agree entirely. He did the right thing in the right way. In doing so he set a benchmark for what we should consider acceptable behaviour regarding the State's relationship with the citizen.
    Maybe, that will be cold comfort on the opposition benches now the traditionalists have moved to join the kippers.
    The traditionalists are literally dying off.

    It was the conservatives clause 4 moment, that dave stumbled on by chance.
    I think the manifesto said it would allow parliament to 'consider' civil marriage.
    Parliament did and the tories had a free vote.
    Since then there have been 3 instances, either friends of my wife or family of her friends, where there have been gay marriages. They are decent people... what would 'traditionalists' have me say to them?
    Quite why any Conservative so called traditionalist should be 'pissed off' by this is a mystery to me. The polling seems to indicate the opposite. Only pure bred bigots would be pissed off.
    The manifesto didn't mention it, it was in a document called "Contract for Equalities" launched to no fanfare at all 4 days before the election.

    Interesting to see you describe members of your party with strong religious convictions as purebred bigots, just as well you don't want them to vote for you.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,411
    @JckW Well a public loo is hardly making love on a windswept moor under the moonlight. It just seems unremittingly tacky and unhygienic to me at least !
  • JonnyJimmyJonnyJimmy Posts: 2,548



    So yeah there were very real consequences of those arrests and many are still on the sexual offenders list as a result.

    Only if they haven't bothered to get themselves removed from the register

    https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-removal-of-offenders-convicted-of-buggery-and-indecency-between-men-from-the-sex-offender-register-schedule-4-sexual-offences-act-2003
  • JackWJackW Posts: 14,787
    isam said:

    JackW said:

    isam said:

    JackW said:

    isam said:

    isam said:

    If there was such a thing as rationing of food, and somebody was found to be defrauding the rations and over claiming that would be a crime

    If years later we found that the need for rationing had been over stated, and therefore the rations were too strict, would we pardon the man who took more than his fair share?

    Classy analogy.
    If I were a gay man who had been convicted of being gay when it was an offence I would be quite proud and like it to be known that I was the kind of person who was true to himself and proven right

    Seems to me it benefits the establishment more than the individual to put the prosecution down the memory hole
    Very laudable .... except a criminal conviction for a sex crime does tend to have a less than favourable reception from employers, colleagues, neighbours and to some degree from less enlightened friends and family.

    So you think men who were convicted of being gay in the 60s are still shunned and discriminated by society because of it? Doubt it
    It is not simply a matter of discrimination today and gay men have been prosecuted for consensual sex until the equalisation of the age of consent more recently.

    This measure seems a reasonable step that corrects a situation that has blighted the lives of many gay people in the recent past.

    It gives politicians an excuse to pat themselves on the back, that's the reason it's being done

    Achieves nothing. Would only be worth doing if it were the current politicians that enacted or carried out the law under which the men were convicted
    If politicians do the right thing then they may indeed deserve "to pat themselves on the back"

    Your second point is gibberish as it implies no law might be changed or repealed unless those MP's or peers that passed the legislation undertook the change.

    Care to further support your view on various EU Acts over the past 40 years ?!?

  • Ishmael_XIshmael_X Posts: 3,664
    Pulpstar said:

    @JckW Well a public loo is hardly making love on a windswept moor under the moonlight. It just seems unremittingly tacky and unhygienic to me at least !

    Do the moorland sheep not have ticks, where you come from?
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,937
    I would have a little more respect for Ed Miliband if he took a rather more principled stand in expressing his immediate interest in ending industrial-scale rape in Labour's urban fiefdoms and bringing its perpetrators to court - and spent rather less time wibbling on about pardoning historical crimes.

  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    isam said:

    I think the law was wrong and if you read my initial post I said were I a gay man who was prosecuted for being so I would wear it like a badge of honour to shoe I was true to myself

    Ease yourself off that moral high ground

    No, because I have the moral high ground. You may want to wear that as a badge of honour, some don't. Some view it as a shame that should be expunged. Why do you want to deny them that right?

    This isn't some meaningless apology for stuff commited centuries ago like Blair apologising for our role in slavery (when if anything we fought to abolish that). This is affecting the lives of people who are alive now. You write that off and you write them off by denying their wishes
    as being irrelevant and claiming it is "only" for the establishment.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,538

    isam said:

    JackW said:

    isam said:

    JackW said:

    isam said:

    isam said:

    If there was such a thing as rationing of food, and somebody was found to be defrauding the rations and over claiming that would be a crime

    If years later we found that the need for rationing had been over stated, and therefore the rations were too strict, would we pardon the man who took more than his fair share?

    Classy analogy.
    If I were a gay man who had been convicted of being gay when it was an offence I would be quite proud and like it to be known that I was the kind of person who was true to himself and proven right

    Seems to me it benefits the establishment more than the individual to put the prosecution down the memory hole
    Very laudable .... except a criminal conviction for a sex crime does tend to have a less than favourable reception from employers, colleagues, neighbours and to some degree from less enlightened friends and family.

    So you think men who were convicted of being gay in the 60s are still shunned and discriminated by society because of it? Doubt it
    It is not simply a matter of discrimination today and gay men have been prosecuted for consensual sex until the equalisation of the age of consent more recently.

    This measure seems a reasonable step that corrects a situation that has blighted the lives of many gay people in the recent past.

    It gives politicians an excuse to pat themselves on the back, that's the reason it's being done

    Achieves nothing
    Says someone who isn't a victim of a prosecution under an unjust law.

    It achieves a lot for people who are alive today who did nothing wrong. Or do you think they deserve to be criminals?

    If someone was convicted of eg protecting the Jews under Nazi Germany should they be viewed as a criminal today? What we're saying is that these people who are alive today aren't criminals and should be marked as such. There is no just reason whatsoever to treat them as criminals when the law, not them, was wrong. Or do you think the law was right?
    Many court records of the circumstances of convictions have been destroyed. How would you distinguish between people guilty of what would be crimes today, and people who were engaged in consensual sex between adults?
  • SmarmeronSmarmeron Posts: 5,099
    @Ishmael_X
    "There are none so blind as those who refuse to see"
    Quotations are fun aren't they?
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    Sean_F said:

    Many court records of the circumstances of convictions have been destroyed. How would you distinguish between people guilty of what would be crimes today, and people who were engaged in consensual sex between adults?

    Based on the crime they were convicted of. Someone convicted of buggery which is not a crime now - expunge. Someone convicted of rape or child abuse - still a crime.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,937
    Ishmael_X said:

    Pulpstar said:

    @JckW Well a public loo is hardly making love on a windswept moor under the moonlight. It just seems unremittingly tacky and unhygienic to me at least !

    Do the moorland sheep not have ticks, where you come from?
    Now you are straying into a whole different world. That of Welsh Leisure Centres....
  • AnorakAnorak Posts: 6,621
    edited March 2015
    isam said:

    isam said:

    JackW said:

    isam said:

    JackW said:

    isam said:


    Classy analogy.

    If I were a gay man who had been convicted of being gay when it was an offence I would be quite proud and like it to be known that I was the kind of person who was true to himself and proven right

    Seems to me it benefits the establishment more than the individual to put the prosecution down the memory hole
    Very laudable .... except a criminal conviction for a sex crime does tend to have a less than favourable reception from employers, colleagues, neighbours and to some degree from less enlightened friends and family.

    So you think men who were convicted of being gay in the 60s are still shunned and discriminated by society because of it? Doubt it
    It is not simply a matter of discrimination today and gay men have been prosecuted for consensual sex until the equalisation of the age of consent more recently.

    This measure seems a reasonable step that corrects a situation that has blighted the lives of many gay people in the recent past.

    It gives politicians an excuse to pat themselves on the back, that's the reason it's being done

    Achieves nothing
    Says someone who isn't a victim of a prosecution under an unjust law.

    It achieves a lot for people who are alive today who did nothing wrong. Or do you think they deserve to be criminals?

    If someone was convicted of eg protecting the Jews under Nazi Germany should they be viewed as a criminal today? What we're saying is that these people who are alive today aren't criminals and should be marked as such. There is no just reason whatsoever to treat them as criminals when the law, not them, was wrong. Or do you think the law was right?
    I think the law was wrong and if you read my initial post I said were I a gay man who was prosecuted for being so I would wear it like a badge of honour to show I was true to myself

    Ease yourself off that moral high ground
    Other people may act differently to you. It's not a case of "everyone who thinks differently to me is wrong".

    Many jobs require a declaration of a criminal record. A conviction for cottaging at a time when it was one of the only ways to meet other gay men would lead to the job application being tossed out regardless of the offence. Many would find it deeply humiliating to disclose such an offence and shouldn't have to.

    I feel dirty. Defending Miliband like that.
  • JackWJackW Posts: 14,787
    Pulpstar said:

    @JckW Well a public loo is hardly making love on a windswept moor under the moonlight. It just seems unremittingly tacky and unhygienic to me at least !

    Pulpstar in "Night Time Windy Sex Romps Shocker"

  • IndigoIndigo Posts: 9,966

    isam said:

    JackW said:

    isam said:

    JackW said:

    isam said:

    isam said:

    If there was such a thing as rationing of food, and somebody was found to be defrauding the rations and over claiming that would be a crime

    If years later we found that the need for rationing had been over stated, and therefore the rations were too strict, would we pardon the man who took more than his fair share?

    Classy analogy.
    If I were a gay man who had been convicted of being gay when it was an offence I would be quite proud and like it to be known that I was the kind of person who was true to himself and proven right

    Seems to me it benefits the establishment more than the individual to put the prosecution down the memory hole
    Very laudable .... except a criminal conviction for a sex crime does tend to have a less than favourable reception from employers, colleagues, neighbours and to some degree from less enlightened friends and family.

    So you think men who were convicted of being gay in the 60s are still shunned and discriminated by society because of it? Doubt it
    It is not simply a matter of discrimination today and gay men have been prosecuted for consensual sex until the equalisation of the age of consent more recently.

    This measure seems a reasonable step that corrects a situation that has blighted the lives of many gay people in the recent past.

    It gives politicians an excuse to pat themselves on the back, that's the reason it's being done

    Achieves nothing
    Says someone who isn't a victim of a prosecution under an unjust law.

    It achieves a lot for people who are alive today who did nothing wrong. Or do you think they deserve to be criminals?

    If someone was convicted of eg protecting the Jews under Nazi Germany should they be viewed as a criminal today? What we're saying is that these people who are alive today aren't criminals and should be marked as such. There is no just reason whatsoever to treat them as criminals when the law, not them, was wrong. Or do you think the law was right?
    When the age of consent is lowered do we apologies to all the young men convicted of raping their girlfriend who was then under the age of consent but now isn't ? I am sure we can agree a rape conviction is in the same league as gross indecency.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,538
    edited March 2015

    Sean_F said:

    Many court records of the circumstances of convictions have been destroyed. How would you distinguish between people guilty of what would be crimes today, and people who were engaged in consensual sex between adults?

    Based on the crime they were convicted of. Someone convicted of buggery which is not a crime now - expunge. Someone convicted of rape or child abuse - still a crime.
    But a man who had sex with a boy would have been convicted of buggery or gross indecency in the past.
  • isamisam Posts: 41,118

    isam said:

    I think the law was wrong and if you read my initial post I said were I a gay man who was prosecuted for being so I would wear it like a badge of honour to shoe I was true to myself

    Ease yourself off that moral high ground

    No, because I have the moral high ground. You may want to wear that as a badge of honour, some don't. Some view it as a shame that should be expunged. Why do you want to deny them that right?

    This isn't some meaningless apology for stuff commited centuries ago like Blair apologising for our role in slavery (when if anything we fought to abolish that). This is affecting the lives of people who are alive now. You write that off and you write them off by denying their wishes
    as being irrelevant and claiming it is "only" for the establishment.
    Because times have moved on, the people convicted have been proven correct and everyone accepts the establishment of the time was wrong. It's just politicians trying to win votes by imposing today's values on the past
  • isamisam Posts: 41,118
    JackW said:

    isam said:

    JackW said:

    isam said:

    JackW said:

    isam said:

    isam said:

    If there was such a thing as rationing of food, and somebody was found to be defrauding the rations and over claiming that would be a crime

    If years later we found that the need for rationing had been over stated, and therefore the rations were too strict, would we pardon the man who took more than his fair share?

    Classy analogy.
    If I were a gay man who had been convicted of being gay when it was an offence I would be quite proud and like it to be known that I was the kind of person who was true to himself and proven right

    Seems to me it benefits the establishment more than the individual to put the prosecution down the memory hole
    Very laudable .... except a criminal conviction for a sex crime does tend to have a less than favourable reception from employers, colleagues, neighbours and to some degree from less enlightened friends and family.

    So you think men who were convicted of being gay in the 60s are still shunned and discriminated by society because of it? Doubt it
    It is not simply a matter of discrimination today and gay men have been prosecuted for consensual sex until the equalisation of the age of consent more recently.

    This measure seems a reasonable step that corrects a situation that has blighted the lives of many gay people in the recent past.

    It gives politicians an excuse to pat themselves on the back, that's the reason it's being done

    Achieves nothing. Would only be worth doing if it were the current politicians that enacted or carried out the law under which the men were convicted
    If politicians do the right thing then they may indeed deserve "to pat themselves on the back"

    Your second point is gibberish as it implies no law might be changed or repealed unless those MP's or peers that passed the legislation undertook the change.

    Care to further support your view on various EU Acts over the past 40 years ?!?

    Second isn't gibberish as it implies no such thing
  • isamisam Posts: 41,118
    Should we withdraw any medals for bravery awarded to soldiers in the Iraq war if we find that the war was definitely a result of lies on Blairs part?
  • Ishmael_XIshmael_X Posts: 3,664

    isam said:

    I think the law was wrong and if you read my initial post I said were I a gay man who was prosecuted for being so I would wear it like a badge of honour to shoe I was true to myself

    Ease yourself off that moral high ground

    No, because I have the moral high ground. You may want to wear that as a badge of honour, some don't. Some view it as a shame that should be expunged. Why do you want to deny them that right?

    This isn't some meaningless apology for stuff commited centuries ago like Blair apologising for our role in slavery (when if anything we fought to abolish that). This is affecting the lives of people who are alive now. You write that off and you write them off by denying their wishes
    as being irrelevant and claiming it is "only" for the establishment.
    Sorry, but that is outrageous beyond all belief. Where do you think Liverpool and Bristol got their money from? Do you think cotton was the only thing the rich cotton merchants of Lancashire traded in?
  • AnorakAnorak Posts: 6,621
    isam said:

    isam said:

    I think the law was wrong and if you read my initial post I said were I a gay man who was prosecuted for being so I would wear it like a badge of honour to shoe I was true to myself

    Ease yourself off that moral high ground

    No, because I have the moral high ground. You may want to wear that as a badge of honour, some don't. Some view it as a shame that should be expunged. Why do you want to deny them that right?

    This isn't some meaningless apology for stuff commited centuries ago like Blair apologising for our role in slavery (when if anything we fought to abolish that). This is affecting the lives of people who are alive now. You write that off and you write them off by denying their wishes
    as being irrelevant and claiming it is "only" for the establishment.
    Because times have moved on, the people convicted have been proven correct and everyone accepts the establishment of the time was wrong. It's just politicians trying to win votes by imposing today's values on the past
    I wish that were true. How many footballers come out as gay? How much homophobic abuse do you hear at matches? How do you think an openly gay couple would fare on Tower Hamlets high street? Just 'cos it's legal doesn't mean it's globally accepted.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,538
    Anorak said:

    isam said:

    isam said:

    JackW said:

    isam said:

    JackW said:

    isam said:


    Classy analogy.

    If I were a gay man who had been convicted of being gay when it was an offence I would be quite proud and like it to be known that I was the kind of person who was true to himself and proven right

    Seems to me it benefits the establishment more than the individual to put the prosecution down the memory hole
    Very laudable .... except a criminal conviction for a sex crime does tend to have a less than favourable reception from employers, colleagues, neighbours and to some degree from less enlightened friends and family.

    So you think men who were convicted of being gay in the 60s are still shunned and discriminated by society because of it? Doubt it
    It is not simply a matter of discrimination today and gay men have been prosecuted for consensual sex until the equalisation of the age of consent more recently.

    This measure seems a reasonable step that corrects a situation that has blighted the lives of many gay people in the recent past.



    If someone was convicted of eg protecting the Jews under Nazi Germany should they be viewed as a criminal today? What we're saying is that these people who are alive today aren't criminals and should be marked as such. There is no just reason whatsoever to treat them as criminals when the law, not them, was wrong. Or do you think the law was right?
    I think the law was wrong and if you read my initial post I said were I a gay man who was prosecuted for being so I would wear it like a badge of honour to show I was true to myself

    Ease yourself off that moral high ground
    Other people may act differently to you. It's not a case of "everyone who thinks differently to me is wrong".

    Many jobs require a declaration of a criminal record. A conviction for cottaging at a time when it was one of the only ways to meet other gay men would lead to the job application being tossed out regardless of the offence. Many would find it deeply humiliating to disclose such an offence and shouldn't have to.

    I feel dirty. Defending Miliband like that.
    OTOH, having sex in a public place, like a public toilet, can be an offence under the Sexual Offences Act 2003. Do we say that it remains an offence, if committed after 2003, but merits a pardon if committed before then/

  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    isam said:

    isam said:

    I think the law was wrong and if you read my initial post I said were I a gay man who was prosecuted for being so I would wear it like a badge of honour to shoe I was true to myself

    Ease yourself off that moral high ground

    No, because I have the moral high ground. You may want to wear that as a badge of honour, some don't. Some view it as a shame that should be expunged. Why do you want to deny them that right?

    This isn't some meaningless apology for stuff commited centuries ago like Blair apologising for our role in slavery (when if anything we fought to abolish that). This is affecting the lives of people who are alive now. You write that off and you write them off by denying their wishes
    as being irrelevant and claiming it is "only" for the establishment.
    Because times have moved on, the people convicted have been proven correct and everyone accepts the establishment of the time was wrong. It's just politicians trying to win votes by imposing today's values on the past
    You are categorically wrong. Without it being expunged it is STILL on their record. They are still convicted criminals with all that entails. This can affect job applications, visa applications etc for people alive now.

    If you think that time has moved on then this should be simple. Clear them of wrongdoing. The political circus will move on but the ones suffering now won't anymore.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,538

    isam said:

    isam said:

    I think the law was wrong and if you read my initial post I said were I a gay man who was prosecuted for being so I would wear it like a badge of honour to shoe I was true to myself

    Ease yourself off that moral high ground

    No, because I have the moral high ground. You may want to wear that as a badge of honour, some don't. Some view it as a shame that should be expunged. Why do you want to deny them that right?

    This isn't some meaningless apology for stuff commited centuries ago like Blair apologising for our role in slavery (when if anything we fought to abolish that). This is affecting the lives of people who are alive now. You write that off and you write them off by denying their wishes
    as being irrelevant and claiming it is "only" for the establishment.
    Because times have moved on, the people convicted have been proven correct and everyone accepts the establishment of the time was wrong. It's just politicians trying to win votes by imposing today's values on the past
    You are categorically wrong. Without it being expunged it is STILL on their record. They are still convicted criminals with all that entails. This can affect job applications, visa applications etc for people alive now.

    If you think that time has moved on then this should be simple. Clear them of wrongdoing. The political circus will move on but the ones suffering now won't anymore.
    Would the conviction not be spent?
  • isamisam Posts: 41,118
    Anorak said:

    isam said:

    isam said:

    I think the law was wrong and if you read my initial post I said were I a gay man who was prosecuted for being so I would wear it like a badge of honour to shoe I was true to myself

    Ease yourself off that moral high ground

    No, because I have the moral high ground. You may want to wear that as a badge of honour, some don't. Some view it as a shame that should be expunged. Why do you want to deny them that right?

    This isn't some meaningless apology for stuff commited centuries ago like Blair apologising for our role in slavery (when if anything we fought to abolish that). This is affecting the lives of people who are alive now. You write that off and you write them off by denying their wishes
    as being irrelevant and claiming it is "only" for the establishment.
    Because times have moved on, the people convicted have been proven correct and everyone accepts the establishment of the time was wrong. It's just politicians trying to win votes by imposing today's values on the past
    I wish that were true. How many footballers come out as gay? How much homophobic abuse do you hear at matches? How do you think an openly gay couple would fare on Tower Hamlets high street? Just 'cos it's legal doesn't mean it's globally accepted.
    Don't hear much homophobic abuse at football matches,... Tower hamlets is a bad example because the reason for homophobia there is the mass immigration of a socially backward society. Maybe ed should apologise for that?
  • Ishmael_XIshmael_X Posts: 3,664
    Smarmeron said:

    @Ishmael_X
    "There are none so blind as those who refuse to see"
    Quotations are fun aren't they?

    So it happens daily, but you won't link to it "just because".

    Blowhard.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    Ishmael_X said:

    isam said:

    I think the law was wrong and if you read my initial post I said were I a gay man who was prosecuted for being so I would wear it like a badge of honour to shoe I was true to myself

    Ease yourself off that moral high ground

    No, because I have the moral high ground. You may want to wear that as a badge of honour, some don't. Some view it as a shame that should be expunged. Why do you want to deny them that right?

    This isn't some meaningless apology for stuff commited centuries ago like Blair apologising for our role in slavery (when if anything we fought to abolish that). This is affecting the lives of people who are alive now. You write that off and you write them off by denying their wishes
    as being irrelevant and claiming it is "only" for the establishment.
    Sorry, but that is outrageous beyond all belief. Where do you think Liverpool and Bristol got their money from? Do you think cotton was the only thing the rich cotton merchants of Lancashire traded in?
    What I said was true. Slavery existed since time immemorial. We were one of the first nations to abolish it and we used our naval power to fight against the triangular trade.
  • JackWJackW Posts: 14,787
    Sean_F said:

    isam said:

    JackW said:

    isam said:

    JackW said:

    isam said:

    isam said:

    If there was such a thing as rationing of food, and somebody was found to be defrauding the rations and over claiming that would be a crime

    If years later we found that the need for rationing had been over stated, and therefore the rations were too strict, would we pardon the man who took more than his fair share?

    Classy analogy.
    If I were a gay man who had been convicted of being gay when it was an offence I would be quite proud and like it to be known that I was the kind of person who was true to himself and proven right

    Seems to me it benefits the establishment more than the individual to put the prosecution down the memory hole
    Very laudable .... except a criminal conviction for a sex crime does tend to have a less than favourable reception from employers, colleagues, neighbours and to some degree from less enlightened friends and family.

    So you think men who were convicted of being gay in the 60s are still shunned and discriminated by society because of it? Doubt it
    It is not simply a matter of discrimination today and gay men have been prosecuted for consensual sex until the equalisation of the age of consent more recently.

    This measure seems a reasonable step that corrects a situation that has blighted the lives of many gay people in the recent past.

    It gives politicians an excuse to pat themselves on the back, that's the reason it's being done

    Achieves nothing
    Says someone who isn't a victim of a prosecution under an unjust law.

    It achieves a lot for people who are alive today who did nothing wrong. Or do you think they deserve to be criminals?

    If someone was convicted of eg protecting the Jews under Nazi Germany should they be viewed as a criminal today? What we're saying is that these people who are alive today aren't criminals and should be marked as such. There is no just reason whatsoever to treat them as criminals when the law, not them, was wrong. Or do you think the law was right?
    Many court records of the circumstances of convictions have been destroyed. How would you distinguish between people guilty of what would be crimes today, and people who were engaged in consensual sex between adults?
    Perhaps Sean you process the cases that are possible which would likely be the most recent ones and probably those causing most hurt and not use difficult cases as an excuse for inaction ?

  • isamisam Posts: 41,118

    isam said:

    isam said:

    I think the law was wrong and if you read my initial post I said were I a gay man who was prosecuted for being so I would wear it like a badge of honour to shoe I was true to myself

    Ease yourself off that moral high ground

    No, because I have the moral high ground. You may want to wear that as a badge of honour, some don't. Some view it as a shame that should be expunged. Why do you want to deny them that right?

    This isn't some meaningless apology for stuff commited centuries ago like Blair apologising for our role in slavery (when if anything we fought to abolish that). This is affecting the lives of people who are alive now. You write that off and you write them off by denying their wishes
    as being irrelevant and claiming it is "only" for the establishment.
    Because times have moved on, the people convicted have been proven correct and everyone accepts the establishment of the time was wrong. It's just politicians trying to win votes by imposing today's values on the past
    You are categorically wrong. Without it being expunged it is STILL on their record. They are still convicted criminals with all that entails. This can affect job applications, visa applications etc for people alive now.

    If you think that time has moved on then this should be simple. Clear them of wrongdoing. The political circus will move on but the ones suffering now won't anymore.
    No I'm not get over it
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    isam said:

    isam said:

    isam said:

    I think the law was wrong and if you read my initial post I said were I a gay man who was prosecuted for being so I would wear it like a badge of honour to shoe I was true to myself

    Ease yourself off that moral high ground

    No, because I have the moral high ground. You may want to wear that as a badge of honour, some don't. Some view it as a shame that should be expunged. Why do you want to deny them that right?

    This isn't some meaningless apology for stuff commited centuries ago like Blair apologising for our role in slavery (when if anything we fought to abolish that). This is affecting the lives of people who are alive now. You write that off and you write them off by denying their wishes
    as being irrelevant and claiming it is "only" for the establishment.
    Because times have moved on, the people convicted have been proven correct and everyone accepts the establishment of the time was wrong. It's just politicians trying to win votes by imposing today's values on the past
    You are categorically wrong. Without it being expunged it is STILL on their record. They are still convicted criminals with all that entails. This can affect job applications, visa applications etc for people alive now.

    If you think that time has moved on then this should be simple. Clear them of wrongdoing. The political circus will move on but the ones suffering now won't anymore.
    No I'm not get over it
    Yes you are. People are alive now who are affected by this: true or false?
  • AnorakAnorak Posts: 6,621
    edited March 2015
    isam said:

    Anorak said:

    isam said:

    isam said:

    I think the law was wrong and if you read my initial post I said were I a gay man who was prosecuted for being so I would wear it like a badge of honour to shoe I was true to myself

    Ease yourself off that moral high ground

    No, because I have the moral high ground. You may want to wear that as a badge of honour, some don't. Some view it as a shame that should be expunged. Why do you want to deny them that right?

    This isn't some meaningless apology for stuff commited centuries ago like Blair apologising for our role in slavery (when if anything we fought to abolish that). This is affecting the lives of people who are alive now. You write that off and you write them off by denying their wishes
    as being irrelevant and claiming it is "only" for the establishment.
    Because times have moved on, the people convicted have been proven correct and everyone accepts the establishment of the time was wrong. It's just politicians trying to win votes by imposing today's values on the past
    I wish that were true. How many footballers come out as gay? How much homophobic abuse do you hear at matches? How do you think an openly gay couple would fare on Tower Hamlets high street? Just 'cos it's legal doesn't mean it's globally accepted.
    Don't hear much homophobic abuse at football matches,... Tower hamlets is a bad example because the reason for homophobia there is the mass immigration of a socially backward society. Maybe ed should apologise for that?
    You must attend different matches. The Tower Hamlets point illustrates there are real reasons (regrettable though they may be) which mean that cleaning up peoples records is a good and just thing to do. You can easily substitute Tower Hamlets for parts of Belfast and countless other places in the UK and come to the same conclusion.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,538
    edited March 2015
    JackW said:

    Sean_F said:

    isam said:

    JackW said:

    isam said:

    JackW said:

    isam said:

    isam said:

    If there was such a thing as rationing of food, and somebody was found to be defrauding the rations and over claiming that would be a crime

    If years later we found that the need for rationing had been over stated, and therefore the rations were too strict, would we pardon the man who took more than his fair share?

    Classy analogy.
    If I were a gay man who had been convicted of being gay when it was an offence I would be quite proud and like it to be known that I was the kind of person who was true to himself and proven right

    Seems to me it benefits the establishment more than the individual to put the prosecution down the memory hole
    Very laudable .... except a criminal conviction for a sex crime does tend to have a less than favourable reception from employers, colleagues, neighbours and to some degree from less enlightened friends and family.

    So you think men who were convicted of being gay in the 60s are still shunned and discriminated by society because of it? Doubt it
    It is not simply a matter of discrimination today and gay men have been prosecuted for consensual sex until the equalisation of the age of consent more recently.

    This measure seems a reasonable step that corrects a situation that has blighted the lives of many gay people in the recent past.

    It gives politicians an excuse to pat themselves on the back, that's the reason it's being done

    Achieves nothing
    Says someone who isn't a victim of a prosecution under an unjust law.


    Many court records of the circumstances of convictions have been destroyed. How would you distinguish between people guilty of what would be crimes today, and people who were engaged in consensual sex between adults?
    Perhaps Sean you process the cases that are possible which would likely be the most recent ones and probably those causing most hurt and not use difficult cases as an excuse for inaction ?

    The campaign is for a blanket pardon for 49,000 people convicted under the old legislation. I think that would be wrong. It would mean pardoning a substantial number of people who had committed what would be treated as serious offences under modern legislation.

    For the same reason, I disliked the blanket pardon that was given to people who were shot for desertion in WWI. A fair number of them were guilty of serious offences.

  • JonnyJimmyJonnyJimmy Posts: 2,548
    edited March 2015

    isam said:

    isam said:

    isam said:

    I think the law was wrong and if you read my initial post I said were I a gay man who was prosecuted for being so I would wear it like a badge of honour to shoe I was true to myself

    Ease yourself off that moral high ground

    No, because I have the moral high ground. You may want to wear that as a badge of honour, some don't. Some view it as a shame that should be expunged. Why do you want to deny them that right?

    This isn't some meaningless apology for stuff commited centuries ago like Blair apologising for our role in slavery (when if anything we fought to abolish that). This is affecting the lives of people who are alive now. You write that off and you write them off by denying their wishes
    as being irrelevant and claiming it is "only" for the establishment.
    Because times have moved on, the people convicted have been proven correct and everyone accepts the establishment of the time was wrong. It's just politicians trying to win votes by imposing today's values on the past
    You are categorically wrong. Without it being expunged it is STILL on their record. They are still convicted criminals with all that entails. This can affect job applications, visa applications etc for people alive now.

    If you think that time has moved on then this should be simple. Clear them of wrongdoing. The political circus will move on but the ones suffering now won't anymore.
    No I'm not get over it
    Yes you are. People are alive now who are affected by this: true or false?
    Only I they want to be. Their convictions would be spent and they have had over a decade to get themselves removed from the register
  • AnorakAnorak Posts: 6,621
    Ishmael_X said:

    Smarmeron said:

    @Ishmael_X
    "There are none so blind as those who refuse to see"
    Quotations are fun aren't they?

    So it happens daily, but you won't link to it "just because".

    Blowhard.
    As we've been discussing, that's not illegal any more. Thank you very much I'm here all week.
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,568
    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    And I wouldn't support a party that tells a significant percentage of the population that they have less rights than other citizens simply because of their sexual preferences.

    The sentiment is good, but parties that can't tell the difference between "less" and "fewer" will never get a pedant swing vote...

    Wherea, of course, a pedant with expertise in the art would appreciate we are talking about a singular right (to form a partnership with the adult of your choice) but in one case it is a circumscribed right.

    I will acknowledge that, in my haste, I typed "less rights" rather than "a lesser right" but utterly contest the concept of it being "fewer rights"
    I demand a televised debate.

  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    edited March 2015

    isam said:

    isam said:

    isam said:

    I think the law was wrong and if you read my initial post I said were I a gay man who was prosecuted for being so I would wear it like a badge of honour to shoe I was true to myself

    Ease yourself off that moral high ground

    No, because I have the moral high ground. You may want to wear that as a badge of honour, some don't. Some view it as a shame that should be expunged. Why do you want to deny them that right?

    This isn't some meaningless apology for stuff commited centuries ago like Blair apologising for our role in slavery (when if anything we fought to abolish that). This is affecting the lives of people who are alive now. You write that off and you write them off by denying their wishes
    as being irrelevant and claiming it is "only" for the establishment.
    Because times have moved on, the people convicted have been proven correct and everyone accepts the establishment of the time was wrong. It's just politicians trying to win votes by imposing today's values on the past
    You are categorically wrong. Without it being expunged it is STILL on their record. They are still convicted criminals with all that entails. This can affect job applications, visa applications etc for people alive now.

    If you think that time has moved on then this should be simple. Clear them of wrongdoing. The political circus will move on but the ones suffering now won't anymore.
    No I'm not get over it
    Yes you are. People are alive now who are affected by this: true or false?
    Only I they want to be. Their convictions would be spent and they have had over a decade to get themselves removed from the register
    Wrong. Convictions are only spent for some things.

    My job requires a CRB check that checks for unspent convictions too.
  • StereotomyStereotomy Posts: 4,092
    isam said:

    isam said:

    I think the law was wrong and if you read my initial post I said were I a gay man who was prosecuted for being so I would wear it like a badge of honour to shoe I was true to myself

    Ease yourself off that moral high ground

    No, because I have the moral high ground. You may want to wear that as a badge of honour, some don't. Some view it as a shame that should be expunged. Why do you want to deny them that right?

    This isn't some meaningless apology for stuff commited centuries ago like Blair apologising for our role in slavery (when if anything we fought to abolish that). This is affecting the lives of people who are alive now. You write that off and you write them off by denying their wishes
    as being irrelevant and claiming it is "only" for the establishment.
    Because times have moved on, the people convicted have been proven correct and everyone accepts the establishment of the time was wrong. It's just politicians trying to win votes by imposing today's values on the past
    Actually unless "pardon" means doctoring all the old records so that the convictions never happened, I'm pretty sure a pardon is imposing today's values on the present.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,937
    edited March 2015

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    And I wouldn't support a party that tells a significant percentage of the population that they have less rights than other citizens simply because of their sexual preferences.

    The sentiment is good, but parties that can't tell the difference between "less" and "fewer" will never get a pedant swing vote...

    Wherea, of course, a pedant with expertise in the art would appreciate we are talking about a singular right (to form a partnership with the adult of your choice) but in one case it is a circumscribed right.

    I will acknowledge that, in my haste, I typed "less rights" rather than "a lesser right" but utterly contest the concept of it being "fewer rights"
    I demand a televised debate.

    Probably the only one you're going to get!
  • JonnyJimmyJonnyJimmy Posts: 2,548

    isam said:

    isam said:

    isam said:

    I think the law was wrong and if you read my initial post I said were I a gay man who was prosecuted for being so I would wear it like a badge of honour to shoe I was true to myself

    Ease yourself off that moral high ground

    No, because I have the moral high ground. You may want to wear that as a badge of honour, some don't. Some view it as a shame that should be expunged. Why do you want to deny them that right?

    This isn't some meaningless apology for stuff commited centuries ago like Blair apologising for our role in slavery (when if anything we fought to abolish that). This is affecting the lives of people who are alive now. You write that off and you write them off by denying their wishes
    as being irrelevant and claiming it is "only" for the establishment.
    Because times have moved on, the people convicted have been proven correct and everyone accepts the establishment of the time was wrong. It's just politicians trying to win votes by imposing today's values on the past
    You are categorically wrong. Without it being expunged it is STILL on their record. They are still convicted criminals with all that entails. This can affect job applications, visa applications etc for people alive now.

    If you think that time has moved on then this should be simple. Clear them of wrongdoing. The political circus will move on but the ones suffering now won't anymore.
    No I'm not get over it
    Yes you are. People are alive now who are affected by this: true or false?
    Only I they want to be. Their convictions would be spent and they have had over a decade to get themselves removed from the register
    Wrong. Convictions are only spent for some things.

    My job requires a CRB check that checks for unspent convictions too.
    Yawn.

    Wrong.

    http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2012/05/01/law-to-wipe-gay-sex-convictions-given-royal-assent/
  • JackWJackW Posts: 14,787
    Sean_F said:

    JackW said:

    Sean_F said:

    isam said:

    JackW said:

    isam said:

    JackW said:

    isam said:

    isam said:

    If there was such a thing as rationing of food, and somebody was found to be defrauding the rations and over claiming that would be a crime

    If years later we found that the need for rationing had been over stated, and therefore the rations were too strict, would we pardon the man who took more than his fair share?

    Classy analogy.
    If I were a gay man who had been convicted of being gay when it was an offence I would be quite proud and like it to be known that I was the kind of person who was true to himself and proven right

    Seems to me it benefits the establishment more than the individual to put the prosecution down the memory hole
    Very laudable .... except a criminal conviction for a sex crime does tend to have a less than favourable reception from employers, colleagues, neighbours and to some degree from less enlightened friends and family.

    So you think men who were convicted of being gay in the 60s are still shunned and discriminated by society because of it? Doubt it
    It is not simply a matter of discrimination today and gay men have been prosecuted for consensual sex until the equalisation of the age of consent more recently.

    This measure seems a reasonable step that corrects a situation that has blighted the lives of many gay people in the recent past.

    It gives politicians an excuse to pat themselves on the back, that's the reason it's being done

    Achieves nothing
    Says someone who isn't a victim of a prosecution under an unjust law.


    Many court records of the circumstances of convictions have been destroyed. How would you distinguish between people guilty of what would be crimes today, and people who were engaged in consensual sex between adults?
    Perhaps Sean you process the cases that are possible which would likely be the most recent ones and probably those causing most hurt and not use difficult cases as an excuse for inaction ?

    The campaign is for a blanket pardon for 49,000 people convicted under the old legislation. I think that would be wrong. It would mean pardoning a substantial number of people who had committed what would be treated as serious offences under modern legislation.

    I agree.

    Individuals or relatives of convicted deceased persons should be able to apply.

  • "How many footballers come out as gay?"

    Not many -- and after what happened to Justin Fashanu (disowned by his own brother among others) I can hardly blame them.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,636
    that's an effective paddies/skybet arb
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,937
    BREAKING NEWS: Phone hacking was "rife" at Mirror Group Newspapers' three national titles from 1999 to 2006, a court has heard.

    Well, Ed, Labour, the Left - will you condemn Mirror Group in the same unambiguous terms as you condemned NewsCorp for exactly this?
  • JackWJackW Posts: 14,787

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    And I wouldn't support a party that tells a significant percentage of the population that they have less rights than other citizens simply because of their sexual preferences.

    The sentiment is good, but parties that can't tell the difference between "less" and "fewer" will never get a pedant swing vote...

    Wherea, of course, a pedant with expertise in the art would appreciate we are talking about a singular right (to form a partnership with the adult of your choice) but in one case it is a circumscribed right.

    I will acknowledge that, in my haste, I typed "less rights" rather than "a lesser right" but utterly contest the concept of it being "fewer rights"
    I demand a televised debate.

    The fewer the better. Less is often more.

  • Ishmael_XIshmael_X Posts: 3,664

    Ishmael_X said:

    isam said:

    I think the law was wrong and if you read my initial post I said were I a gay man who was prosecuted for being so I would wear it like a badge of honour to shoe I was true to myself

    Ease yourself off that moral high ground

    No, because I have the moral high ground. You may want to wear that as a badge of honour, some don't. Some view it as a shame that should be expunged. Why do you want to deny them that right?

    This isn't some meaningless apology for stuff commited centuries ago like Blair apologising for our role in slavery (when if anything we fought to abolish that). This is affecting the lives of people who are alive now. You write that off and you write them off by denying their wishes
    as being irrelevant and claiming it is "only" for the establishment.
    Sorry, but that is outrageous beyond all belief. Where do you think Liverpool and Bristol got their money from? Do you think cotton was the only thing the rich cotton merchants of Lancashire traded in?
    What I said was true. Slavery existed since time immemorial. We were one of the first nations to abolish it and we used our naval power to fight against the triangular trade.
    We took it and turned it into a global industry, and the triangular trade was only there to fight against because we created it. I'm firmly against apologies, but also against the rewriting of history.
  • StereotomyStereotomy Posts: 4,092
    JackW said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    And I wouldn't support a party that tells a significant percentage of the population that they have less rights than other citizens simply because of their sexual preferences.

    The sentiment is good, but parties that can't tell the difference between "less" and "fewer" will never get a pedant swing vote...

    Wherea, of course, a pedant with expertise in the art would appreciate we are talking about a singular right (to form a partnership with the adult of your choice) but in one case it is a circumscribed right.

    I will acknowledge that, in my haste, I typed "less rights" rather than "a lesser right" but utterly contest the concept of it being "fewer rights"
    I demand a televised debate.

    The fewer the better. Less is often more.

    And less is even more often fewer
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    Ishmael_X said:

    Ishmael_X said:

    isam said:

    I think the law was wrong and if you read my initial post I said were I a gay man who was prosecuted for being so I would wear it like a badge of honour to shoe I was true to myself

    Ease yourself off that moral high ground

    No, because I have the moral high ground. You may want to wear that as a badge of honour, some don't. Some view it as a shame that should be expunged. Why do you want to deny them that right?

    This isn't some meaningless apology for stuff commited centuries ago like Blair apologising for our role in slavery (when if anything we fought to abolish that). This is affecting the lives of people who are alive now. You write that off and you write them off by denying their wishes
    as being irrelevant and claiming it is "only" for the establishment.
    Sorry, but that is outrageous beyond all belief. Where do you think Liverpool and Bristol got their money from? Do you think cotton was the only thing the rich cotton merchants of Lancashire traded in?
    What I said was true. Slavery existed since time immemorial. We were one of the first nations to abolish it and we used our naval power to fight against the triangular trade.
    We took it and turned it into a global industry, and the triangular trade was only there to fight against because we created it. I'm firmly against apologies, but also against the rewriting of history.
    We created it? So Spain and Portugal did nothing before us?

  • Robert, have you changed the way you embed pictures into thread headers?
  • chestnutchestnut Posts: 7,341
    edited March 2015
    Front page of the BBC has another Asian, grooming gang story coupled with phone hacking rife at the Daily Mirror and then systemic failure at an NHS trust with suppressed investigations "early in 2010".

    Ed to take the day off?
  • Ishmael_XIshmael_X Posts: 3,664

    Ishmael_X said:

    Ishmael_X said:

    isam said:

    I think the law was wrong and if you read my initial post I said were I a gay man who was prosecuted for being so I would wear it like a badge of honour to shoe I was true to myself

    Ease yourself off that moral high ground

    No, because I have the moral high ground. You may want to wear that as a badge of honour, some don't. Some view it as a shame that should be expunged. Why do you want to deny them that right?

    This isn't some meaningless apology for stuff commited centuries ago like Blair apologising for our role in slavery (when if anything we fought to abolish that). This is affecting the lives of people who are alive now. You write that off and you write them off by denying their wishes
    as being irrelevant and claiming it is "only" for the establishment.
    Sorry, but that is outrageous beyond all belief. Where do you think Liverpool and Bristol got their money from? Do you think cotton was the only thing the rich cotton merchants of Lancashire traded in?
    What I said was true. Slavery existed since time immemorial. We were one of the first nations to abolish it and we used our naval power to fight against the triangular trade.
    We took it and turned it into a global industry, and the triangular trade was only there to fight against because we created it. I'm firmly against apologies, but also against the rewriting of history.
    We created it? So Spain and Portugal did nothing before us?
    Sure, they had a part in it. That doesn't mean we didn't.
  • FrankBoothFrankBooth Posts: 9,928

    BREAKING NEWS: Phone hacking was "rife" at Mirror Group Newspapers' three national titles from 1999 to 2006, a court has heard.

    Well, Ed, Labour, the Left - will you condemn Mirror Group in the same unambiguous terms as you condemned NewsCorp for exactly this?

    Yet more evidence that Miliband did the right thing on phone hacking. Hope he has the sense to acknowledge it.
  • GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 22,386

    BREAKING NEWS: Phone hacking was "rife" at Mirror Group Newspapers' three national titles from 1999 to 2006, a court has heard.

    Well, Ed, Labour, the Left - will you condemn Mirror Group in the same unambiguous terms as you condemned NewsCorp for exactly this?

    Will Piers end up in the Clink? ;)

  • GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 22,386
    edited March 2015

    Robert, have you changed the way you embed pictures into thread headers?

    Now your running PB in OGH's absence, any chance we could get a thread looking at the full obliteration possibly being faced by the Lib's? :smiley:
  • FrankBoothFrankBooth Posts: 9,928
    GIN1138 said:

    BREAKING NEWS: Phone hacking was "rife" at Mirror Group Newspapers' three national titles from 1999 to 2006, a court has heard.

    Well, Ed, Labour, the Left - will you condemn Mirror Group in the same unambiguous terms as you condemned NewsCorp for exactly this?

    Will Piers end up in the Clink? ;)

    I would imagine there would be a vociferous public campaign to see this national treasure pardoned.
  • logical_songlogical_song Posts: 9,932
    isam said:

    isam said:

    isam said:

    I think the law was wrong and if you read my initial post I said were I a gay man who was prosecuted for being so I would wear it like a badge of honour to shoe I was true to myself

    Ease yourself off that moral high ground

    No, because I have the moral high ground. You may want to wear that as a badge of honour, some don't. Some view it as a shame that should be expunged. Why do you want to deny them that right?

    This isn't some meaningless apology for stuff commited centuries ago like Blair apologising for our role in slavery (when if anything we fought to abolish that). This is affecting the lives of people who are alive now. You write that off and you write them off by denying their wishes
    as being irrelevant and claiming it is "only" for the establishment.
    Because times have moved on, the people convicted have been proven correct and everyone accepts the establishment of the time was wrong. It's just politicians trying to win votes by imposing today's values on the past
    You are categorically wrong. Without it being expunged it is STILL on their record. They are still convicted criminals with all that entails. This can affect job applications, visa applications etc for people alive now.

    If you think that time has moved on then this should be simple. Clear them of wrongdoing. The political circus will move on but the ones suffering now won't anymore.
    No I'm not get over it
    ISAM is never wrong!
  • taffystaffys Posts: 9,753
    I feel for George Osborne as he compiles his last budget of the parliament.

    He has it in his power to save one of Scotland's major industries through North Sea tax cuts

    Trouble is, the amount he does is for Scotland is inversely proportional to the good it will do the tories...
  • GIN1138 said:

    Robert, have you changed the way you embed pictures into thread headers?

    Now your running PB in OGH's absence, any chance we could get a thread looking at the full obliteration possibly being faced by the Lib's? :smiley:
    I've written one, I'm comparing Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems to King Leonidas and the Spartans, but am hanging fire until the Ashcroft polling is out.
This discussion has been closed.