Talking rubbish

Of all the contrived, phony, hand-wringing, nonsense I have seen, today’s leader in the Independent comes out close to the top.

 

There is a rather unpleasant message carried between the lines of the Foreign Secretary's extraordinary public statement denying he had had an "improper relationship" with a male aide, or indeed "with any man". It is the idea that scandal still attaches to the fact that a politician may be gay.

 

Claiming to detect the whiff of homophobia in Hague’s statement that he had not had an affair with his SpAd, is stretching the point way past breaking.  It may have escaped the Independent’s notice, but Hague is married.  To a woman.  Suggestions that he is gay strike at the very heart of his relationship with his wife – they suggest that he never loved, never married her for the right reasons.  It is a particularly offensive suggestion, and the Hagues are perfectly within their rights to counter it as heavily as possible.  Suggesting that this is homophobic is the far side of pathetic.