My letter to the Mail re: Iain Dale

I was going to blog on this yesterday, and I am glad that I didn't get the chance, since there were further developments overnight.   For those who are not up-to-date on the story, Iain Dale, who is now shortlisted for Tory candidate for Bracknell, rightly took exception to this, in Thursday's Ephraim Hardcastle column in the Daily Mail:

Overtly gay Tory blogger Iain Dale has reached the final stage of parliamentary selection for Bracknell, telling PinkNews: 'I hope any PinkNews readers who live in Bracknell will come to the open primary on October 17 to select their new candidate.

You don't even have to be a Conservative to attend.'

Isn't it charming how homosexuals rally like-minded chaps to their cause? 

Dale wrote a complaint to the Press Complaints Commission, which he posted on his blog.  He then received what he believed was an apology from the editor of the column, Peter McKay, which turned out to be a hoax.  Today, McKay is unrepentant, writing:

Tory blogger Iain Dale complains about an item here yesterday. I mentioned that Dale, who is gay, is hoping to become the Tory candidate at Bracknell, Berkshire, and invited subscribers to PinkNews, the homosexual website, to attend the open primary on October 17, saying: 'You don't even have to be a Conservative to attend.' Dale says my comment - 'Isn't it charming how homosexuals rally likeminded chaps to their cause?' - is homophobic, as is my description of him as 'overtly gay'. He has complained to the Press Complaints Commission, and suggested his readers email complaints. I have nothing against Dale. Nor am I homophobic. But if he wants to become an MP, surely he'll have to become a little less sensitive. Incidentally, the Tories are having their first gay pride event at their Manchester conference next week. They'll promote a new 'gay-friendly' logo, Conservative Pride. Isn't life grand?

Iain invites others who object to complain to McKay and the Mail's editor, Paul Dacre.  I am happy to do so.  Of course, if one were to complain each and every time the Mail engaged in similar behaviour, it would be a full-time job.  But I guess just because you cannot write on every occasion doesn't mean you shouldn't write at all.

Here is what I have emailed to Dacre and McKay

I am writing to register a complaint in response to a pair of Ephraim Hardcastle diary columns, appearing in the Daily Mail on 1st and 2nd of October, which contained some unpleasant, homophobic remarks.

The columns  in question were on the subject of Iain Dale's campaign to become Conservative parliamentary candidate for Bracknell.  Dale will soon participate in an open primary in the constituency to decide who will fight the seat.  On 1st October the Hardcastle column apparently took exception to an interview Dale had given with gay news outlet Pink News, in which he took the opportunity to encourage readers to attend the primary.

Dale was referred to as 'Overtly gay'. Not 'openly', but 'overtly'. It was thereby clearly implied that Dale's honesty about his sexuality, far from being commendable, is instead gratuitous or distasteful. That is a profoundly hurtful and counterproductive message to send in an era when many gay people still experience hostility and prejudice when coming out.

The column from 1st October also contains the suggestion that gay people have a tendency to 'rally like-minded chaps to their cause'.  That is equally pernicious and offensive, adverting, as it does, to two bigoted stereotypes about gay people: that they aggressively seek to 'recruit'  others to a supposed homosexual agenda, and that they conspire together like a secret society.    The comment is a smear on Dale personally, insofar as it suggests that he is behaving underhandedly, and a smear on gay people generally, insofar as it suggests that they are as a group prone so to behave.

The Hardcastle column from Friday 2nd, far from undoing the damage, only compounds the offense.  Dale was perfectly right to see the original column as an attempt to belittle him on grounds of his sexuality.  The writer of Friday's column, by contrast, says that, 'if he [Dale] wants to become an MP, surely he'll have to become a little less sensitive.'  The writer thereby makes it abundantly clear that, in his view, Dale has no right to expect to be able to pursue his career free from homophobic ridicule, and should simply accept that this is his lot in life.  That view belongs in the past, and it is disturbing to see it being peddled in a national newspaper in 2009.

I think it only appropriate that an apology for these deeply unwise comments be published, either in the Hardcastle column itself, or elsewhere in the newspaper, at the earliest convenience of those responsible.  I shall look forward to your response.

Regards,

Soho Politico (author, http://www.sohopolitico.com/)

There: that is my two pennies on the subject.  I doubt it will achieve anything, but hopefully it is a worthwhile symbolic gesture.

Meanwhile, by the same token, perhaps Iain would like to add his voice to the growing condemnation of the Conservative Party's continued association in Europe with Lithuanian MEP Valdemar Tomasevski, who, as I have revealed on this blog, is a supporter of a repressive anti-gay law that Amnesty and other human rights watchdogs have roundly condemned.