Part 36 – Vultures Circle Ailing Dewar
Conservative shadow leader, William Hague had already addressed the Spring Harvest festival, attended by 9,000 fundamental Christians. Now, a few months later, he was back, addressing black church leaders at the ‘Faith in the Future’ conference in Brighton. They gave him a standing ovation after he called on the Government to allow national Christian TV and radio stations. Hague told them the state: “should be supporting the Judaeo-Christian values of our society, not undermining them”, adding: “I believe we should support families with an explicit recognition of the value of marriage in the tax and benefit system” and called for society to actively support Christian churches and charities before criticising the Labour Government for attempting to repeal Section 28. William Hague confirmed his strategy to rally the religious to the Conservative cause and met Texas University Professor Malvin Olasky, an influential advisor in the George W Bush presidential campaign. Olasky was quoted in The Dallas Morning News claiming churches and charities and not government should provide social services with “a spiritual dimension to assistance”. Olasky was a vociferous supporter of the poisonous ‘ex-gay’ movement which committed itself to turning gay people ‘straight’.
Labour leader Tony Blair addressed a 6,000 strong rally organised by the African and Caribbean Evangelical Alliance assuring them of his support for faith-based charities. On the same day, The Record reported 30,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses had “swamped” Perth. Their eighth annual festival was held in St Johnstone’s football stadium. The tabloid emphasised how their presence added £1m in tourist cash.
Scotland’s links with US Christian evangelism went back a long way before Scottish Christians lent financial support to slavery. It was, in fact, Scotsman, Rev George M Docherty who was responsible for the addition of the words “under God” in America’s Pledge of Allegiance, recited by millions of children across America every day. Docherty was minister until 1975 at the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington DC where president’s often attended. It began as a sermon questioning why – since the founding father’s had believed the nation’s destiny to be divinely ordained – His name had not been mentioned in the Pledge. With Eisenhower’s agreement, the addition of the words “under God” were introduced in 1954 and legally challenged in 2002, much to Republican President George Bush’s chagrin.
By Monday, 24 April, 2000, The Record gloated: “DEWAR ‘TOO SCARED’ TO DEBATE CLAUSE PLAN”. Failing to engage the First Minister Donald Dewar in a public debate, Brian Souter settled for appearing on BBC’s Question Time with pop star Boy George. The Scottish Daily Mail hit out: “The BBC TV programme Question Time was accused of ‘dumbing down’ last night over its decision to include pop star Boy George as a panellist”. The Mail made a point of the fact that Boy George, a regular columnist in The Daily Express newspaper, once sang: “All war is stupid”. But there was a lot more to Boy George than the media were prepared to admit. In his book ‘Straight’, (Arrow Books, 2005), George O’Dowd wrote of religion: “I wouldn’t call myself religious, although I don’t think you can ever escape the religious convictions passed on by your parents. My mother and father were always described in the press as ‘staunch Catholics’. Mum would often take us to church when we were very young, and all of us kids went to Sunday school, but it was a way of getting us from under her feet. Mum and Dad were hardly strict about us practising our faith. Maybe having six kids to feed took precedence over faith, or maybe it was because, like a lot of people, they lost respect for the Church, as more of its indiscretions were made public. After my mother’s mother passed away I discovered the horrors of her teenage years in a strict Irish convent. If she wet the bed she would be made to wear the wet sheet for the entire day and they were regularly made to feel disgusted with their femininity. My ex-boyfriend Michael was raised by the Christian Brothers in Ireland and suffered physical and mental abuse. That high-handed morality often creates the very thing it seeks to eradicate. Those who are the most disgusted by sex are often the ones who are the most consumed by it”. His comments pre-dated the Catholic Churches’ day of reckoning when barely a day would pass without some new revelation of child-sex abuse amongst its priests.
The Sunday Times suggested that Prime Minister Tony Blair was now ready to allow gays to adopt. Downing Street, on the other hand, dismissed this as “absolute rubbish”. The Record wrote: “Critics say the strategy would force councils to treat all potential parents, including gays, the same”. Felicity Collier from the British Agencies for Adoption and Fostering confessed: “The simple fact is there aren’t enough families coming forward at the moment”.
After being spotted in his ministerial chauffeur-driven car with his partner Reinaldo Avila da Silva, The Record pointed out that Ulster Secretary Peter Mandelson was “20 years older than Da Silva”, and after they had been caught “shopping together” pursed their lips to describe this as a reflection on “the New Labour tolerance of unconventional relationships” before passing the smelling salts to The Mail on Sunday that discovered: “They spent the night at Chequers with the Blairs and their children”.
On Wednesday, 26 April The Scottish Mail headlined: “DEWAR HEART SCARE SPARKS CRISIS”. The First Minister Donald Dewar was forced to go into hospital for major heart surgery leaving Liberal Democrat leader and coalition partner, Jim Wallace to stand in as deputy for three months. The Scottish Express reported: “secret crisis talks”. ‘Keep the Clause’ hovered over the First Minister’s bed. The Mail’s editorial warned: “Mr Dewar can no doubt detect from his hospital bed the rumble of speculation about his future”. With such concern for the First Minister’s well-being there was nothing left to do but turn on Wendy Alexander, who had ‘steam-rollered’ the repeal of Section 28 with “pig-headed determination”. The Record’s ‘Brigadier’ Brown sniffed: “Small wonder signs of strain began to show”.
The Record favoured Henry McLeish as successor, whom they once described as one of the three wise men along with the other former local government officers, Tom McCabe and Jack McConnell who were credited for their willingness to listen to ‘Keep the Clause’. Jack McConnell, the finance minister was otherwise favoured at five to one, Wendy Alexander ten to one and Susan Deacon twenty to one. Iain Macwhirter wrote in The Sunday Herald: “Those ministers whom (Donald Dewar) regarded as his key modernisers - Alexander and Deacon - have been picked off. The ‘lippy women’ have been silenced, and pose no further threat. The Big Macs are now in charge, and their mouthpieces in the press are boasting about how chief whip McCabe is the ‘king-maker’. It is assumed that McLeish will take over as king, though his reign may be relatively short. McConnell - the ‘great communicator’ - is warming up on the sidelines…” Tom McCabe threatened legal action against The Sunday Herald over claims that they had suggested he had leaked information to The Record. Years later, former Labour MP, Lord Foulkes told The Sunday Herald: “Loads of people at Westminster could never understand how Henry (McLeish) became a minister of state even. He used to brief against colleagues all the time. He used to stab people in the back”. McLeish replied: “These comments are beneath contempt and don’t deserve any response whatsoever”.
The Scottish Daily Mail’s, editor, Ramsay Smith carried the headline on the front page: “SOUTER REFERENDUM FINALLY GIVES SCOTS VOTE ON SECTION 28”. Smith’s lap-dog Scottish Political editor, Hamish Macdonell dutifully wrote up his editorial opinion.
Brian Souter’s glorified opinion poll was already under scrutiny. In Glasgow, legal advice was sought on how Souter obtained names on the electoral register, which was, in any case, 18 months out of date. David Macauley from ‘Keep the Clause’ explained the ballot paper for BBC Scotland News. There were just two questions: “I vote to retain Clause 28 (Section 2a)” and “I vote to repeal Clause 28 (Section 2a)”. ICM and a Bristol company called Vote IT had been hired along with John Cowdall, a former deputy returning officer for Britain’s European elections. Vote IT had only been in existence for a year. The Scottish Sun reported: “Mr Cowdall said he expected the turnout to be somewhere between the 30 to 35 per cent for local elections and 70 to 75 per cent for parliamentary polls”. While ICM assured there would be no accompanying notes to persuade anyone which way they should vote, Souter planned to spend £150,000 on another poster advertising campaign begging voters to KEEP THE CLAUSE. Tim Hopkins of the Equality Network called the ‘referendum’: “Offensive, undemocratic and discredited. It’s like Ian Paisley running an opinion poll on the Good Friday Agreement. As an opinion poll, the whole thing has so many holes you could drain cabbage in it”.
While John Cowdall, given the controversy, wanted Vote IT’s premises kept secret, its location in the offices of a mail order company on the third floor of a Victorian red-brick street near Piccadilly Station in Manchester was soon public knowledge. The Scotsman described gristly, “in the foyer of the building, the founder, sternly Victorian, a man who would clearly have no truck with non-heterosexuals, stares from a portrait” and noted that the mail order catalogue was “aimed at women of a certain age and modish men time-locked in 1976”.
Despite being frightened into invisibility, The Mail on Sunday warned: “Security firm staff will police the poll count, which could be a target for mass protests by gay rights campaigners”.
With former Scottish Mirror editor, Peter Cox, now editing The Sunday Mail, he had an opportunity to show he shared none of the views of his former columnist, Jack Irvine. The editorial blasted: “The so-called referendum on Section 28 that Brian Souter is bankrolling is exposed today as a total sham. He is pumping £1million of his money into a bizarre and ever-more-desperate attempt to buy into the laws of this country. The organisation he is using is a tuppeny-ha’penny outfit whose biggest contract so far is a poll on dustbins for the South Ribble Borough Council in Lancashire. Lined up against him is a ‘Repeal the Clause’ organisation with just £198 in the bank and debts of £400. They are so broke they have to ask people who don’t want their leaflets if they can have them back”. In fact, while Souter was spending an estimated £2m, Tim Hopkins had hastily convened Scrap the Clause. It had no office, paid staff, transport or even their own phone line. Their bank statement read: £198.24!
In preparation for Souter’s so-called ‘referendum’, Jack Irvine’s Media House announced the results of another poll showing 43 per cent of teachers of primary and secondary schools supporting the Government’s efforts to repeal with 35 per cent opposed and 19 per cent undecided. Talking up the result, this appeared in Scotland on Sunday as: “…Less than half of Scotland’s teachers back the government’s attempt to repeal Section 28”. The Mail on Sunday roared: “Teachers vote down repeal of Section 28”.
In a very different poll, Dr Geoff Scobie, senior psychologist at Glasgow University charged Scots men with being too worried about being labelled gay to express emotions to each other. An opinion poll by NOP of a thousand men showed 62 per cent of Scots guys would not kiss a man while 23 per cent said they would only if they were extremely drunk or in the midst of celebrating a sporting victory. Glasgow’s Evening Times accompanied the report with a picture of footballer Ally McCoist laying on his back on the pitch while team mate Paul ‘Gazza’ Gascoigne leant over to kiss him.
The media were still circling Donald Dewar who was well enough to attend the important debate in the Scottish Executive on Section 28 before his operation. The idea of Labour’s coalition partner, a Liberal Democrat leader in charge of the Executive in Donald’s absence sent shivers down The Scottish Daily Mail’s spine. “The last thing we want is a Liberal Democrat in charge”; a Labour insider told them. The Record’s editorial spat: “That’s right, the man whose dismal little rabble came in fourth, with 14 per cent of the Scottish election vote, will be the face and leader of Scotland… Labour - the largest party in Scotland’s parliament - will effectively be rudderless until (Dewar) gets back… if he gets back”. Weighing up possible contenders, The Mail cast a wary eye over Wendy Alexander “who will before long emerge from under the black cloud of Section 28”. Thanks to The Record, ‘wee Wendy’ was now the most well known face on the Executive. In an editorial, they remarked bitterly: “Clause 28 may not have done Wendy Alexander any favours with the public - but at least it now knows who she is”. The tabloid was already rushing to boost the profile of their favourite contender: Henry McLeish. Faithful reporter Carlos Alba obliged. A picture appearing to go back some years was captioned: “FAMILY MAN”, which included McLeish’s first wife Margaret and daughter Clare. After her death he married again. Alba wrote that he combined “political talent with genuine decency”. Whoring her family-values agenda to Scotland on Sunday, Mrs Katie Grant spat: “I notice that the unattached Ms Alexander has taken to bagging the seat next to the First Minister. I say to Donald, don’t even think of it unless you want your life to be dominated henceforth by the wagging finger. I could make a joke about Warfarin here but good taste prevents me”.
The Scottish Daily Mail’s reporter Hamish Macdonell penned a report over “Wendy’s talkshops”, accusing her of “setting up a spate of quangos for cronies”. These “cronies” were apparently proliferating at an alarming rate. “12 task forces, a rate of one a month… including funding to black and ethnic minority groups…” The MSP explained that volunteers who were only paid travel expenses ran most of them, like groups dealing with initiatives for the homeless.
The Fraserburgh Herald’s editorial demanded: “Those MSPs who are refusing to listen to the voice of the people should resign immediately, and the first to go should be the Political Correct Wendy Alexander who has spearheaded the move to repeal Clause 28. Instead of wasting her time on irrelevancies such as Clause 28, and setting up Quangos for pals in the Labour Party, Ms Alexander in her capacity as Communities Minister should be doing something to deal with the scourge of drugs which is sweeping the country”.
Attacks on “Miss Wendy Alexander” continued unabated, notably after the publication of the Scottish Affairs Committee report on poverty, which advised the Executive on the handling of poverty. The Scottish Daily Mail thought they had found something in the report that had criticised her and snarled: “‘Headline-grabber’ Alexander savaged by the spin-busters” while The Record sniggered: “WENDY’S ON THE RACK”. A letter from David Marshall, Chairman of the Scottish Affairs Committee sharply rebuked The Mail: “I must protest about your coverage… in particular the way you chose to vilify Communities Minister Wendy Alexander. The report does not at any stage single out Miss Alexander for criticism of any sort. On the contrary the only reference to her… states: ‘We are particularly grateful to the Minister for Communities… Her appearance marked the first occasion which a Minister from the Scottish Executive gave oral evidence to a select committee’. The comment on ‘headline grabbing initiatives’… was a caution rather than a rebuke and refers specifically to ‘both the UK Government and the Scottish Executive’, but makes no reference to individual ministers… The committee’s hard work and positive recommendations to take the most serious problem in Scotland have been ignored in favour of unjustified personal attacks”.
On Thursday, 27 April, 2000, the Executive met to debate the general principals of the Ethical Standards in Public Life (Scotland) Bill, primarily concerned with codes of conduct for local councils but famous for including the repeal Section 28. It would be just the first stage looking at the general principles of the Bill and a vote on whether it should pass on to the second stage. The Scottish Daily Mail bawled: “…The clause fails to mention marriage as the pre-eminent family relationship”. The Record sobbed: “At one stage fewer than 30 of the 129 MSPs were in the chamber during the debate… The appalling attendance shocked on-lookers…” (But where were the press when the Scottish Executive debated domestic violence)? With the press now in attendance, Wendy Alexander stood up to say: “Consultation is not about listening to whoever shouts the loudest or whoever employs the most sophisticated PR machines, nor is it about pulling out the largest cheque book”. On ‘Keep the Clause’, she said: “What has been paraded has been simplistic and misleading. A campaign expensive to mount but perhaps with a cheapness all of its own… The tone and tactics of the Keep the Clause campaign has itself revealed why repeal does matter. For we seek a Scotland that looks to the future and does not allow itself to be dragged back to an indifferent and intolerant past which had too little room for inclusion and human solidarity”. Education minister Sam Galbraith added: “When you start basing your judgment on behalf of minorities on opinion polls, then you have a very poor democracy”.
SNP MSP, Nicola Sturgeon’s column in The Scottish Daily Express pointed out that “in the Scotland’s Schools bill, going through Parliament now, there is a clause that says: ‘The Scottish Ministers may issue guidance to education authorities … and education authorities shall, in discharging those functions, have regard to any such guidance’. If the Government can include a clause like that in the schools Bill there is no reason why there should not be a similar provision relating to guidance on sex education. That would give parents a guarantee that the spirit of guidance would be translated into classroom practise. It’s a simple idea, but one that will settle this argument”. Proposing such an amendment to the Ethical Standards in Public Life Bill, the SNP would only succeed in surrounding sexuality with a covert warning sign that sent a message to teachers: Handle with care. It was more relaxed ideas and attitudes that were needed; all the more challenging now that such a virulent campaign orchestrated by militant religionists and moral conservatives had surfaced.
‘Brigadier’ Brown stormed: “The Parliament of closed minds and cloth ears sat in its cocoon on the Mound and shut itself off from Scottish public opinion”. He accused Wendy Alexander of being “back in her most infuriating finger-wagging lecture style”. He was furious that the Bill should pass so effortlessly by 103 votes to 16 with five abstentions, he despaired of the “number of Labour Ministers and MSPs” who want Section 28 retained, and moaned: “…They sat silent”. He had a word of warning for the SNP who “backed the ‘Scrap the Clause’ Movement” in “a particularly weasel-worded way”. Reminding them: “Stagecoach tycoon Brian Souter has put his personal fortune behind the ‘Keep the Clause’ campaign - as well as donating cash to the Nationalists. Will he be satisfied with their spokeswoman Nicola Sturgeon’s oh-so-carefully worded formula ‘The SNP supports the repeal, recognising that for some people this is an issue of conscience’?”
By Saturday, 29 April, The Scottish Daily Mail headlined the words of a doctor on how: “Dewar (was) ‘jumping the heart surgery queue…’” The quote also sniped at how the ailing, “First Minister (was) getting free private care on the NHS”.
Next - Part 37: The broken ballot and the ‘gay law mob’.
garry@garryotton.com
