Thirty Years From Bermondsey

Well into the 1990s, the word “straight” had no colloquial meaning beyond “honest”, except perhaps in homosexual subcultures, so that what is now its almost equally familiar use might then have been known to Peter Tatchell and to Simon Hughes, but would not have been known to the general electorate of Bermondsey or anywhere else.

My London Progressive Journal colleague though he now is, Tatchell would lower the age of consent to 14 and thus legalise almost every act of which any Catholic priest has ever been so much as accused. Furthermore, in The Guardian on 26th June 1997, Tatchell wrote:

“The positive nature of some child-adult relations is not confined to non-Western cultures. Several of my friends – gay and straight, male and female – had sex with adults from the ages of 9 to 13. None feel they were abused. All say it was their conscious choice and gave them great joy. While it may be impossible to condone paedophilia, it is time society acknowledged the truth that not all sex involving children is unwanted, abusive and harmful.”

In 1981, Michael Foot refused to endorse Tatchell as a candidate for the House of Commons. In 2010, David Cameron offered Tatchell a seat in the House of Lords.