Greg Barker:
The Conservative Party MP, Greg Barker has left his wife and children to shack up with a man, apparently the local painter and decorator. The tabloids smell hypocrisy.
In the past Barker has voted against gay-friendly legislation, including four readings of the Adoption and Children Bill - a measure allowing unmarried couples, both straight and homosexual, to adopt children....The charges of hypocrisy are not entirely unjustified against a senior member of a party which claims, "... the family will be at the heart of our social policy... the evidence that families provide the best environment for bringing up children is now overwhelming". However, the press would do better savaging Barker for his lamentable role as the leading standard bearer for global warming and all the rest of the anti-industry, middle-class dinner party pseudo-science that the Conservatives are peddling under the Cameron.
...Since the split Barker has quietly removed any mention of his wife and children from his own website. Previously he highlighted his family lifestyle in newsletters sent to constituents and his children featured in discussions on matters such as litter collection.
As for his behaviour in abandoning his wife and children, as the long-suffering Jane Clark might have said, what do you expect when you sleep with below stairs types?
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2 comments:
I have a different take on the charge of hypocrisy - i.e. that it is illusory. Greg has never even had a chance to vote on anything particularly relevant to gay rights - and the last time he rebelled was in favour of supposedly gay legislation.
I take your word for it praguetory. I have no idea of Barker's voting record and even less interest in his sex life. The point I was trying to make - and I accept it got lost somehow - was that the party (any party) lays itself and its MPs open to charges of hypocrisy, when it starts pronouncing on moral issues.
It is a recent development. Not so long ago, official party policy would avoid moral issues like the plague. However, now both major parties currently think the state has the right to intrude into every aspect of individuals' lives and so they have a policy for every aspect of our behaviour. If MPs fail to live up to their party's rhetoric they can expect only limited sympathy, therefore, when politically hostile tabloids go after them.
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