Friday, November 05, 2010

Pot... kettle...

Rather surprising to see Simon Hughes, the Lib Dems deputy leader, pop up on the Ten O'Clock News to have a go at Phil Woolas, who he said had come "severely unstuck" after being found guilty of smearing his Lib Dem opponent during the election, behaviour that Hughes called "unacceptable".

Perhaps Hughes has forgotten that he benefited from dirty tricks when he was first elected as MP for Bermondsey in 1983 as his team ran a homophobic campaign against the Labour candidate, Peter Tatchell, that involved billing Hughes as "the straight choice" and wearing stickers saying "I've been kissed by Peter Tatchell".

Hughes, who revealed that he was bisexual four years ago, apologised for the 1983 campaign when he was running for his party's leadership and said that he never wanted to see a campaign run like that again. He is completely right, of course, but it might have been better to let another Lib Dem give Woolas a pasting. Glass houses and all that.

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