Tony Blair predicts Britain will have an openly gay prime minister

[varun]

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=621586

First the grey vote, now the gay vote


By Andrew Grice, Political Editor
19 March 2005


Tony Blair predicts Britain will have an openly gay prime minister, Michael Howard admits he was wrong to push Section 28 through Parliament and Charles Kennedy has dismissed the Tory leader's conversion to gay rights as skin-deep.

The gay vote - estimated at 2.65 million people - today becomes the latest political battleground ahead of the election expected in May. It follows the struggle for the female vote - fought in the pages of Cosmopolitan magazine - and Labour's efforts to woo the grey vote in the Budget...

[Newsjock]

1. Maybe he knows it's a fact just a bit earlier than he's saying

Not that I'd claim him as one of ours, ewwww.

[shraby]

2. Is he bringing up the gay issue

because he watched Bush use it in our election?

[OneBlueSky]

3. he's coming out? . . . damn . . . n/t

.

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[tjwmason]

5. It may be a cynical ploy

But he's actually right. I doubt that there would be much fuss about it - though I can't think of any gay senior politicians who could fulfill the role for some time.

A lot of fuss was made about having an unmarried P.M. - until Edward Heath. A lot of fuss was made about having a woman P.M. - until Maggie Thatcher. A lof of fuss was made about having a Catholic P.M. (the P.M. appoints Church of England Bishops) - but nobody batted an eye-lip at Iain Duncan Smith as Tory leader. Barely anybody mentioned that the current Tory leader (Michael Howard) is Jewish.

The irony is that looking at the list above, it implies that the first gay British P.M. could well be a Conservative - that would be an interesting one for the freeper homophobes.

[Langley85]

6. American "Christian Conservatives"

would probably pressure our government to sever relations with Britain.

[Meeker Morgan]

7. The freeper homophobes ...

... like Tony Blair (because of the war) and don't even notice that he's sort of a socialist.

[tjwmason]

8. I saw a 'thank Tony Blair' thread on FR recently

Apparently some freeper type has erected a web-site where Americans can go and post a message of thanks to the Prime Minister; they were all sloberring over him (I'm wonderring about their idolisation of these 'strong men'...) - somebody should have noted that he has given Britain the first openly gay cabinet minister, has equalised the ages of consent for straight and gay sex, and has now given Britain de facto gay marriage.

I think that the best trans-Atlantic analogy would be that Blair is actually the British version of Bill Clinton.