The veteran LGBT campaigner says the former Prime Minister’s aides “were terrified I might try and kiss him, or superglue myself to the Cabinet table”.
It looks to be the least bad medium-term means of settling the future of abortion laws in Northern Ireland.
It knows that it can continue the policy of staying out of the institutions in Belfast and London without damaging its long-term strategy. Unionists need them to work.
It has fascinated me since growing up in a single parent family on the outskirts of Belfast – before attending the lowest-performing secondary school in Northern Ireland.
We feel a commission, a working group, an inquiry coming in – to look these inconsistencies, accidents of history and quirks, to see if some tidying-up is required.
By accepting that 16 and 17 year olds in Scotland could vote on their future during the Scottish referendum, we undermined the case for not extending the franchise further.
Also: Sargeant’s son to contest his seat at Welsh by-election; and Labour may use direct rule to align Northern Irieland with the mainland on abortion and gay marriage.
Those who voted against same-sex marriage were more likely to support Leadsom than those who voted for the legislation, whilst the opposite was true for Gove.
Ulster citizens deserve the same marriage rights as their fellow Britons. But a recent bid to secure them through the courts was wrong.
Also: Green MSP hits out at nationalist hardliners; cracks appear in DUP’s gay marriage position; and Northern Irish Labour officers resign over infiltration.
Over time, proposals have either been denounced as politically correct nonsense, or embraced with an enthusiastic “me, too”-ism. Neither approach is exactly rigorous.
The Scottish Conservative leader is fine-tuning the art of intervening on the subject in a way which emphasises not just her own liberal credentials, but the Party’s.
An under-informed London media is allowing the province to be cruelly misrepresented. Ulster voices are the only antidote.
I was instrumental this year in getting the gay pardon legislation extended to Northern Ireland. Significantly, this was accomplished with the assent of the DUP.
Also: Davies defends Welsh devo-sceptics; Tory peer spearheads bid for gay marriage in Ulster; Davidson attacks SNP’s policy vacuum; and Foster comes out swinging for Brexit.