Thursday 1 October 2009

Iain Dale shocked at homophobia in the Mail

Sarah at Paperhouse has posted on an ugly item in today's Ephraim Hardcastle column in the Mail. It focuses on blogger and would-be Conservative Parliamentary Candidate Iain Dale. 'Hardcastle' writes:

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 writes:

I am damned if I am going to stay silent when I see a national newspaper indulge in a homophobic attack on me. A year ago, the Richard Kay column in the Daily Mail printed a fairly vile column about my civil partnership - full of innuendo and just plain nastiness. Today, the Ephraim Hardcastle column goes one better.

He has fired off a letter to the PCC, although that is unlikely to get him very far. But Dale then writes something which shows a rather bizarre naivety, stating:

I really thought that we had got away from this sort of thing and it's very sad that we haven't.

Did he really think that? For example, the Mail has twice attacked attempts to counter homophobic bullying. It has suggested young girls experimenting with same-sex kissing is a sign of an approaching apocalypse. It has Littlejohn continually referring to Screaming Lord Mandy and Peter Hitchens claiming We show tolerance to ‘gays’ and get tyranny in return.

And there are plenty of times when the Sun indulges in homophobia, such as with stories about George Michael, H from Steps and Boy George.

Dale writes:

worst of all, if I did say nothing, it would just encourage them to do it again to someone else in the future. I simply cannot do that.

Hmm. So why did only feel the need to complain about tabloid homophobia when he became the target?

2 comments:

  1. Great stuff. You can add a cricket ball to your list of things the Sun's been homophobic about too:

    Your cricket ball is a poof

    ReplyDelete
  2. And who is chairman of the PCC's Editors’ Code of Practice Committee? Step forward the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre, editor of the Daily Mail.

    Iain appears to be showing himself to be rather thin skinned about this. McKay (who Private Eye now call Peter McLie, or the "World's Worst Columnist") is a joke. If Iain gets selected at the open primary, there will undoubtedly be more of the same, and as Nick Davies demonstrated in Flat Earth News, the Daily Mail tends not to apologise unless you've got the means to sue them, and even then you need to be persistent.

    The only PCC worth the acronym was the one in the USA. They produced something useful (so nothing to do with newspapers!).

    ReplyDelete

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