Pride

Here's a sentence I wasn't expecting to write today:

I should have been going to Bristol's Pride, but other plans got in the way.

Pride. It's never been my thing, as I've discussed on these pages before. My sexuality is incidental, not fundamental, to my identity. My politics have primarily been about other issues. 

Pride. It's something that I find a difficult concept in relation to being gay, as I do of *just being* Scottish or British. But just as I'm proud of things many Scots and Brits have done and contributed to the world, I cannot ignore the achievements of those who have blazed a trail for equality.

So I find myself reappraising my view of Pride. I may not have been converted to a Rainbow-flag waving activist*, and I still don't fit into any of the stereotypical gay "tribes" but I do owe a debt of gratitude to those who marched in less open times, and blazed a trail for equality.

I still harbour reservations as to whether Pride as we know it now serves a purpose in advancing equalities; and whether it, or the main LGBT campaigning groups, have a wide enough view of the issues. Whatever; at the very least, it's an opportunity for a party and a festival for those who like that sort of thing.

But it's also an opportunity for something else - something I do take Pride in. It's a chance for Liberal Democrats to celebrate the role they have played in advancing Equal Marriage in the UK. With the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act advancing through Parliament, we have a good story to tell about how Lib Dems in government have pushed it onto the agenda and through the legislative process despite deep divisions on the benches of our coalition partners.

The bill is far from perfect but it is a step forward towards equality within the country; and is a firm example of how we are seeking to build a Fairer Society by participating in government.

And so, today, for the first time, I find myself wishing I had been at Pride. Still, there's always next year...

Andrew

*I don't think I'll ever get the thing about the rainbow flag.

Equal Marriage: Everyone's Invited

"Is not marriage an open question when it is alleged, from the beginning of the world, that such as are in the institution wish to get out; and such as are out wish to get in."

Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1850

So that's it then, society is doomed. The government has formally announced (after heavy trails at the weekend, and an emergency question in the commons yesterday) that not only is Equal Civil Marriage to be legislated for but religious organisations will be able to opt-in and offer Equal Religious Marriages too. 

Beyond this, the Church of England and the Church in Wales will be outside of the option to "opt-in" with Equal CoE/CiW Marriage made illegal - effectively meaning that this issue will have to come back to Parliament if they ever want to pursue this issue themselves.

Civil Partnerships will remain single-gender arrangements, but there will be provision made to allow these to be converted to marriage. There is also provision for transgendered people not to have to their marriages forcefully annulled when they apply for a Gender Recognition Certificate.

So that's it; we're headed off to Hell in a Handcart. Society is now in the grip of Secularists and Sodomists. Political Correctness HAS gone mad and God has been jettisoned in favour of granting rights to every minority that shouts loud enough. Our Christian heritage has been traduced, and traditional marriage has been devalued.

The arguments against Marriage Equality range from the spurious ("the European Court will force Churches to hold gay marriages") to the ridiculous ("it's a first step to legalised Bestiality and Necrophilia"*). I'm sure many of them were deployed when Civil Partnerships were introduced, yet somehow society has survived.

At their root though, they boil down to a fear that a once dominant position in society has been eroded and their influence has been diminished. If marriage were to be redefined - and church marriages ultimately allowed - they would be marginalised further. The majority know how minorities are treated - those in the campaign against equal marriage are desperate to avoid becoming the minority.

This fear may be real but the forecast calamitous results of Equal Marriage are not. In reality, what today has done has opened up the possibility for hundreds of thousands of men and women that they, too, will be able to have their relationship recognised by the state in exactly the same way as their straight family, friends, colleagues.

It will send a message to young gay, bisexual and lesbians that society acknowledges them as equal citizens.

It even allows some of us who are a bit longer in the tooth to imagine (in our less cynical moments at least) that should the circumstances arise, we too could walk up the aisle to declare solemnly and take this man as my lawful wedded...**

A more equal society - with recognition and protection for all minorities - is not to be feared. Such protection should, rightly, extend to those people and organisations who feel they, too, are becoming a minority. Those of us who are in the ascendancy must bear that in mind - the aim is an equal civil society, not a homogenised one. 

Those who do not wish to celebrate Equal Marriage need not, and should not fear compulsion. They, though, should accept that equality before the law - and before a legal definition of marriage -  is good for everyone. Ultimately, they have created an institution that people want to be part of - why fight to keep them out?

Andrew

* Polygamy is normally in this list too - omitted here as there are people for whom such an arrangement works well and, in due course, we should look at recognising their relationships in law too.

**There's another blogpost in there somewhere, but once upon at time I harboured such notions as meeting someone and settling down for the long term. When CPs were introduced I probably still had such thoughts but they long since dissipated. Perhaps I should park my cynicism and become a bunny-boiler...

What would you do with £60 a month?

This is a cross-post from Lib Dem Gains.

This is another post about the Liberal Democrats push to increase the Personal Allowance towards (and beyond) £10,000. I make no apologies for that, although I do promise to focus on other things in future posts.

I mentioned in this post about Caron Lindsay's idea that we should relate the figures of tax saved to real-life examples of what this money could be spent on. It appears that Caron's wise words have been listened to by the party as members got an e-mail from Party President, Tim Farron on Friday.

In it he discussed this issue and launched a website encouraging people to think about how they would spend an extra £60 a month. (This represents* the basic rate tax saved by increasing the Annual Allowance from £6,475 when the coalition took power - which was unchanged from previous year - to £10,000.)

So what are you doing with the £16.67 you're already saving in income tax each month? What would you do with an additional £43.33?

For myself, it'd make things a bit more comfortable while I pay down debt and save for a trip to Australia. I appreciate, though, that that isn't going to help with an economic stimulus, so I shall also purchase new clothes, which are even more desperately needed now I've lost over a stone in weight!

You can respond here and say what you would do? Note that the website asks for an e-mail address which is, presumably, for authentication purposes but may also lead to you being added to a mailing list.

Once you've completed the form, the site will also give you information about the impact of the policy locally. In Bristol, 16,200 people will be taken out of Income Tax altogether.

Andrew

*Pedants note - the actual figure before rounding is £58.75.

A Lib Dem Gain: Vince Cable appoints Les Ebdon as head of OFFA

Cross-post from Lib Dem Gains, first published yesterday evening:

Today, the (Lib Dem) Business, Innovation and Skills Secretary, Vince Cable, appointed Les Ebdon as the head of the new Office for Fair Access (OFFA), the body charged with safeguarding and promoting  fair access to Universities and helping ensure that admission policies do not unfairly discriminate against those in state schools or from less privileged backgrounds.

Tory backbenchers (as well as Michael Gove and, it is said, David Cameron) were against the move, and the right-wing media are crying foul. These pieces, from The Telegraph and The Spectator, are especially sneering (written, coincidentally, by former pupils at, respectively, Eton and Winchester who both studied at Cambridge). Much is made of the rejection of his candidature by the BIS select committee.

These protests smack of faux-indignation at a Government minister rejecting the wishes of parliamentarians and completely overlooking the fact - despite the fact the committee is finally balanced with 5 Tories, 5 Labour and 1 Lib Dem - the sections in the report which specifically questioned Mr Ebdon's suitability were voted down by Conservative members.

The truth is that the idea of a Lib Dem Secretary (with the support of his Tory minister, David Willetts) exercising their right to appoint the person they see most fit for the job. At least two of those committee members - Margot James and Nadhim Zahawi - come from precisely the privately educated, Russell Group University background* that breeds the sort of advantage that Mr Ebdon role seeks to help redress. A group that seem to want to keep the insular cloistered world of the Elite Institutions both insular and cloistered.

I can't pretend to know anything about the merits or otherwise of Mr Ebdon as a candidate, per se, but it does seem from a relatively casual reading of the situation, that Mr Cable has been right in asserting his ministerial power. Judging by the howls of protest from the right, I'm almost certain he is. If so, he has done so at the expense of a conservative/Conservative establishment who seem not to recognise a problem in the system, let alone desire any kind of remedial action.

Andrew

P.S. Lord Bonkers over at Liberal England has written an interesting piece on current University admission policies and contrasts it with his own experiences in the 1970's.

*In fairness, Simon Kirby, who also voted against Mr Ebdon, did not have a private or "elite" education. I couldn't find any information on Rebecca Harris' background.

A Gain for Lib Dem Gains

A cross-post from Lib Dem Gains, my occasional blog which I have neglected of late - this may give me a kick up the proverbial posterior.

Total Politics is currently in the process of publishing the results of their annual awards, voted for by political bloggers across the bloggersphere. Yesterday they published the list of the Top 100 Lib Dem Blogs which I was pleased to see featured the following blogs so highly (amongst many other favourites);

• the excellent Caron's Musings at number 2
• the eclectic, pithy and witty Liberal England at number 3
• the late Andrew Reeves at number 4
• the campaigning Stephen's Liberal Journal at number 5

What I didn't see, and it took a Twitter message from a Lib Dem conference attendee who was up 2.16am to catch his plane to Birmingham to alert me to, was this list: Top 100 Lib Dem Bloggers and, in particular, the entry at number 58.

Given that it has been (let's face it) some time since I updated this blog and that my main blog is largely politics-free, this is very flattering - especially as I didn't even vote for myself. So if you did vote for me, many thanks. Here's to future Lib Dem Gains and more blog posts!

Andrew

A Liberal Wordle

Over on Lib Dem Gains I've mentioned Nick Clegg's speech to mark the first anniversary of the coalition government a couple of times over the past few days. Here's a Wordle word cloud generated from the text of the speech:

The speech reinforced the reasons for entering the coalition government, some of the achievements made and how the party should respond to last week's election results. It also looked to the future and how the party can continue to assert its identity and put its stamp on the government.

No surprises then, the words coalition and government occur so often... but the Lib Dems are aiming to provide a Liberal heart. Examples include the ending of child detention, the extension of the personal allowance for income tax and the Pupil Premium.

Nick quoted research reported on the BBC and elsewhere which suggests that  "75 per cent of our manifesto is being implemented through the coalition agreement, compared to 60 per cent of the Conservative manifesto." 

He also dealt with economic issues both as a reason for the coalition and with reference to a Liberal Democratic vision of a rebalanced, greener economy - learning the lessons of the Eighties and Nineties. Indeed, the economy was a central plank of the speech - it's clear the government believe, not unreasonably, it is on this issue that the coalition will be judged. It is important, therefore, that Lib Dems can point to achievements in this area too.

You can read the speech in full here and I've re-published the section on the economy as part of this post.

Andrew

New ways to view the widow's world

Blogger has introduced a range of new ways to display blogs, which are quite fun. There are a range of five, two of which I've illustrated with screengrabs below.

My favourite, at least for this blog, is Mosaic. Here's a picture of a typical page - and you can see what is generated for you by following this link:

Of course, such a picture-led approach doesn't suit every blog. For Lib Dem Gains, I think this ("Flipcard") is a better look (although I obviously need to post more!):

Click on the links and have a play... you can also use these tools on any blogger blog, so stick in your own or another blog name and see what you get!

Andrew