A number of news reports have interested me during the course of the past two or three days, the first of which appeared in The Sunday Times (26^th February 2006.)

It appears that by virtue of laws enacted to prevent discrimination against gays, gay clubs will be forced to allow entry to heterosexuals.  That a fairly drafted piece of anti-discrimination legislation should achieve this result does not surprise me.  What does surprise is that gays did not see it coming.  Well drafted fair laws that seek to achieve social justice do just that, they prohibit any discrimination within their ambit.  Thus heterosexuals who wish to visit good bars and clubs that happen to be gay, will be able to do so.  Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, you might say.

The second article, which is found in The Times (27^th February 2006) reports comments purportedly made by Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, on Sunday morning television (ITV – Jonathan Dimbleby’s programme) the previous day.  He took the view that Muslims had to accept free speech and that those who wished to live under Sharia Law had the option of leaving the country.  I cannot say that my politics are the same as those of Mr Phillips, but ever since I first saw him on The London Programme in the early eighties, I have always listened to what he has had to say.  It was refreshing to hear his comments, which comprise no more than reasonable, common sense.  However, I did have to reflect that such is the state of our current politically correctness, these comments could not have been made by a white Englishman, without having caused a great furore.

The last report, by Greg Hurst (accompanied by a leading article) also appeared in The Times (27^th February 2006) and related to, amongst other things, the asking of written questions by MPs.  We are advised that the cost of providing an answer to each question amounts to £138.00.  We are further advised that a lot of silly written questions are asked, mostly by new MPs trying to “get known” (largely, I understand, by way of the dastardly www.TheyWorkForYou.com.) 

Perhaps I am wrong, but I had the distinct impression that The Times considered this sort of thing a Bad Thing.  Leaving aside the question of how the “£138.00 per question” cost is calculated[1], the written question has always been an important method of extracting information from Government, so what’s the beef?  If Government actually gave straight, honest answers every time, then perhaps some of the “cost” would be saved.  The sort of people who register for information on the TheyWorkForYou site are not likely to be impressed by the asking of silly questions anyway, so the odd MP (or researcher) who drafts such questions will shoot himself in the foot.  In any event, the answers are sometimes far more silly than the question ever knew how to be, particularly when the question was very serious and worthy in the first place, which the majority of them are.