The conundrum of ‘Britain’s first gay Prime Minister’ |
It is said of Wes Streeting that if he takes over from Keir Starmer, he would be Britain’s first gay Prime Minister. But I’m not so sure that’s true (more of which later). And even if it is true, I’m worried about what Britain’s first gay Prime Minister might do. Mr Streeting’s record so far on gay and trans issues is, to put it politely, a cause for concern and it’s far from clear what would happen if he got the top job. To borrow a phrase from his resignation letter this week: where we need direction, we have drift.
You may be thinking already that it doesn’t matter whether Mr Streeting is gay or not and I’d agree with you to some extent. In fact, it’s an indication of how far we’ve come that sexuality hasn’t come up much in the discussions. Forty years ago, being gay would have ruled Mr Streeting out as leader (unless he hid the fact) and even 20 years ago, when civil partnerships were introduced, it would still have been controversial or a topic of discussion at least. But now: not an issue. As a friend of mine put it recently, being gay doesn’t make you interesting like it used to, and that’s funny and it’s true because the ultimate aim of equality has been achieved: it makes no difference.
But it’s not the whole story sadly, because just as we might be about to get a gay Prime Minister and it doesn’t matter, there’s been a concomitant rise in identitarian politics and activism, often based on gender and race. There’s also an intense, often nasty, debate about LGBTQ issues such as self-ID and conversion therapy. So intense and nasty is the debate that there isn’t even agreement about LGBTQ itself. Is it too long? Or not long enough? Is LGBTQ even a thing? The was added to try to keep everyone........