something of the night - a little bit of politics

GEORGE MICHAEL POLITICS: An interesting little spat has broken out in the Reading East constituency. Labour candidate Tony Page has upset Tories by mentioning his cottaging convictions in his election material. Interestingly, the local Conservatives reject Page's claims that they've been poking about in his past planning to make political capital out of the record, and that they're homophobic, but clearly local chairman Paul Swaddle still has trouble with whole issue:

"For someone who has personally been involved with fighting for people's rights it was annoying to say the least.

"The Banner reads as though we were trying to get information about Mr Page that was not already in the public domain - and that we were mud-slinging it around.

"He is trying to make light of his convictions. What someone does in the privacy of their homes is up to them, but he broke the law, not once but twice. The law would still have been broken even if it were a man and a woman."

Mr Swaddle added: "One of our previous chairmen, Richard Willis, was gay, so to try and insinuate that somehow we are homophobic is wrong."

Ah, well, if there was a gay in the party at some point in the past, then there's no way that they could possibly be homophobic, then. That's alright. We don't know if Mr. Swaddle has any details on the conviction rates for men and women having sex in public.