Last updated at 10:52 PM on 05th April 2010 Lambasted: Shadow home secretary Chris Grayling was heavily criticised for saying people who run B&Bs should decide who stay there The Observer newspaper prides itself on its impeccable 'liberal' credentials. Indeed, the latest edition carries a splendid editorial in support of free speech. Yet the very same paper splashed on its front page a vituperative attack on the shadow home secretary Chris Grayling, who had the audacity to suggest that perhaps people who run bed and breakfast establishments should have the right to decide who sleeps under their own roof. Grayling's comments arose out of a story which this column carried last week about a B&B in Wokingham run by a devout Christian, who turned away a couple of gay men. For the record, I wrote that Susan Wilkinson should not have refused to accommodate Michael Black and John Morgan. In 2010, if you run a boarding house you must expect the occasional same-sex couples as guests. I also went on to say that she was probably in the wrong business, although I condemned the fact that she had been investigated by the police for 'hate crime' and had received vile threats, including one to burn down her home. Some of you emailed disagreeing with me, as is your prerogative. Readers argued that since this was Mrs Wilkinson's own home, she was entitled to pick and choose her guests. That's an argument I respect, even though I don't concur. It is a difference of view among friends, nothing personal. Chris Grayling's opinion was in line with those of you who took me to task. He says that had Mrs Wilkinson been running a High Street hotel, she would have been in the wrong because discrimination is against the law. But since this was her home, different rules applied. That is a perfectly respectable view to take. But Grayling's remarks were secretly taped and passed to The Observer, which decided that this was a major scandal, whose importance outweighed anything else which had happened in the world last week. It was cited as evidence that the entire Conservative Party is anti-gay. The usual hysterical suspects queued up to demand Grayling's resignation. Hereditary Labour lackey Dame Ben Summerskill, the hate-mongering bigot who runs the homosexual pressure group Stonewall, predictably went ballistic. His tried-and-tested tactic is always to howl down and smear anyone who questions any aspect of his own selfish agenda. I've been on the receiving end often enough. It comes with the turf. Even though I have been vocal in supporting civil partnerships and equal rights for gay couples in areas such as housing, health and pensions, I have been tarred as a 'homophobe' because I don't believe 'post-dusk social networking' in public toilets is a way to behave and think that adoptive children should be placed with a man and a woman wherever possible. Self-styled 'liberals' are now trying to destroy the career of a decent politician simply for expressing a point of view which I would guess is held by at least half the population. Secret tape recordings, smear campaigns. These are the disreputable weapons of fascists, not liberals. I have often argued in this column that those who force 'tolerance' down our throats are among the most intolerant bullies on Earth. They only tolerate opinions which chime with their own world view. Anyone who dissents must be traduced and punished. They enforce their beliefs with totalitarian ruthlessness and, under New Labour, often with the full support of the law. Thus, old age pensioners who protest at a gay Pride rally find themselves arrested. Scottish firemen who refused orders to attend a similar event because homosexuality offends their religious devotion are fined and suspended from work. Those who speak out against the fashionable Leftist agenda are not merely wrong, they are denounced as inherently evil. Until the election campaign loomed, anyone who expressed even the mildest reservations about the uncontrolled level of immigration was trashed as 'BNP', 'Little Englander' or 'racist' - the guardianistas' favourite term of abuse. Along with many of our other traditional liberties, New Labour has mounted a sustained assault on freedom of speech. The old idea of 'I abhor what you say, but I would defend to the death your right to say it' has been buried alive. Even Conservative politicians are frightened of their own shadow, scared of uttering any criticism of the modern consensus around 'diversity' lest they be cast into the outer darkness. But, as I wrote last week, 'diversity' and 'tolerance' is a one-way street. I am reliably informed there are gays-only boarding houses which exclude heterosexuals, but I have yet to hear of one being prosecuted for operating such a policy. Unlike Susan Wilkinson they have not been pilloried and threatened. Nor will they be. Nor should they be. With the economic debate dominating the electoral landscape, it is easy to overlook the liberties we have lost over the past 13 years. Freedom of speech is precious and must be defended at all costs. This odious campaign against Chris Grayling is a timely reminder of the nasty, vindictive, intolerant little country we have become under New Labour. Among the forest of signs I spotted driving into Stevenage for last Thursday's recording of Question Time was one pointing motorists in the general direction of 'Tourist Attractions'. Tourist attractions? In Stevenage? I really must get out more. Our streets and motorways are littered with meaningless signposts and overhead gantries. 'Take A Break. Tiredness Kills' shouted one on the M8 in Glasgow. It was nine o'clock in the morning and I'd only been driving for five minutes. Councils are forever adding to the fatuous forest of clutter. Now the Plain English Campaign is protesting there are far too many containing 'too much information about nothing'. Why did the Highways Agency need to spend £76,000 of taxpayers' money on 23 signs alongside the M6 telling motorists that the road is managed by the Highways Agency? And Labour still says there is no scope for cutting waste in public services. Keith Waterhouse once proposed a 'pole tax' on councils who put up too many ridiculous signs. A chainsaw would do the job better. The fad for renaming mundane job titles shows no sign of abating. A man who went for a job as a lifeguard in Wales found the post advertised as a 'wet leisure assistant'. NHS ward sisters have been redesignated as 'modality managers'. These days, Trigger, the roadsweeper from Only Fools And Horses, would find himself described as an 'Environmental Protection Operative'. This craze for euphemism goes hand in hand with the high-viz jacket obsession. Everywhere you look there are jobsworths kitted out in luminous yellow jerkins, zealously enforcing elf 'n' safety rules. At Arsenal's Emirates Stadium, the first-aiders wear high-viz outfits with 'Pitch Rescue' emblazoned on the back. Makes them sound like Thunderbirds. And at Spurs last week, one injured player was escorted from the pitch by about a dozen 'rescuers' equipped with what looked like a mobile army hospital. It was like something from MASH. Whatever happened to the bloke with the bucket and the magic sponge? A fire chief is using a legal loophole to take early retirement. Paul Hayden will leave Hereford and Worcester Fire and rescue Service on his 50th birthday in May. He will receive a £380,000 tax-free lump sum and an index-linked pension worth £60,000 a year. Under revenue guidelines, any fire officer retiring before the age of 55 should be liable to pay 40 per cent tax on his lump-sum. Mr Hayden has been able to avoid that by changing his job title to 'brigade manager' - even though he is still referred to as 'chief fire officer' on the service's website and headed notepaper. Apparently he is one of ten chief officers across Britain using the loophole to retire early and avoid the tax. Others are taking their pensions from 50 but continuing to work on full pay. This is what Labour means when it talks about 'investing in frontline services'. Down in Trumpton, it's trebles all round for Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble and Grubb. ************************************************ When I saw Labour's Gene Hunt poster, I knew instantly it was a spectacular own goal. It didn't take the Tories long to turn the tables. But there was no need to bring out their own version. That picture of the strange Miliband twins standing awkwardly in front of Dave sitting on the bonnet of DCI hunt's Audi Quattro said it all. To be honest, I couldn't get on with Ashes To Ashes, although I enjoyed Life On Mars. Gene Hunt is a great creation, but I've got the box set of The Sweeney for when I want the real thing. Still, he's a symbol of the days when the streets were patrolled by proper coppers, not cardboard cut-outs. As for 'Don't let the Tories take us back to the 1980s', it merely serves as a reminder of how in that decade Mrs Thatcher restored Britain's standing in the world, retook the Falklands, slayed the trades union dragon, slashed taxes and created prosperity. Gordon Brown has turned Britain into an international economic basket case, our troops are bogged down in Afghanistan with no end in sight, taxes are astronomical and the unions are making trouble again. We can live without leg-warmers, Arthur Scargill and mobile phones the size of house bricks. But some of that Eighties enterprise spirit and confidence is exactly what we need right now. Fire up that Quattro.
Richard Littlejohn
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Tuesday, 6 April 2010
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