The Westminster Village (which is what passes for the beltway in the UK) was rocked over the past week by the rather startling denial from Foreign Secretary William Hague over his relationship with a special advisor Christopher Myers.
The allegation specifically was a rather spurious piece by political blogger Guido Fawkes which noted that as Hague and Myers had been photographed in “casual clothing” and had even shared a hotel room together on the election trail that must mean one should question their *gasp* sexuality. It should be noted that Hague is married and happily so but the suggestions kept mounting which led to a rather shocking rebuttal by Hague coinciding with Myer’s resignation.
The statement was rather emotional and pointedly noted that the Hagues had tried and failed several times for a child with miscarriages happening each time. That Hague is hurt by these allegations is obvious but this was a mistake by Hague who could have let the whole thing die on its own.
My god though, a possible homosexual? In government?! Holding one the great offices of state no less! Whatever next? A black man becoming Prime Minister?! Heaven forbid! My god we Brits can be such a homophobic, prudish, snobbish and almighty racist bunch of bastards sometimes.
The thing is if William Hague is gay so what? What Hague does in his private life is not in the public interest. He deserves to be left alone to conduct his private affairs with dignity. The tenuous link between the manufactured drama over Hague’s sexuality and the questions over Myer’s suitability for the job as special advisor is laughable anyway
After the bomb had been dropped and with chaos reigning Guido Fawkes quite happily goes on holiday. That’s very nice, maybe I should try that sometime only instead with his family and drag his reputation through the mud and see how he likes it.
What this unsavoury episode has shown is that despite repeated attempts by the media to hook the public on this story (vital in order to build momentum to get a big outcome such as a resignation) nobody really is that bothered. This isn’t the 1990s or even the 2000s. People just don’t really care anymore about what people do their private life and rightly so.
Sexuality should never be a barrier to high office and by pushing these crazy rumours the media and the blogosphere have shown that they simply don’t get the new morality in Britain today.
In any case the problem is that in all the drama about William Hague’s sexuality Fawkes’ original point (that Myers wasn’t qualified to do the job and that Hague had broken the code on hiring special advisers) is now completely lost and buried in an avalanche of petty homophobic nonsense which begs the question as to why Fawkes and co bothered to mention it at all.
Fawkes should be ashamed of himself.
