Killing a gay man is no worse than killing a disc jockey

24 June 2006

Similarly, when it came to the popular ‘light’ question at the end of the programme, the audience and panel were united in their opinion that Heather Mills McCartney had been appallingly badly treated by the press and that there should some form of redress. Once again, my guess is that the general public thinks Ms Mills McCartney unspeakably awful and deserving of pretty much everything she gets. This supposition is based largely upon anecdotal evidence, but also upon the fervour with which the Fleet Street red-tops have stuck the boot in to the woman: they know their audience.

There is an enormous dichotomy between the views of the general public as evidenced in opinion polls and those of our elected politicians (local or national), the broadcast media, the judiciary and the sorts of people who wish to spend a Thursday evening in a studio watching Question Time. It is a fundamental split which, it seems, grows wider by the week. There are certain things which you simply will not find a Question Time panellist — or audience member — daring to utter. For example: that the sentence imposed upon the two thugs who killed the barman was unjust unless every sentence for unprovoked murder carries a tariff of 28 years. That we should have little sympathy for a woman who, whatever her plight, out of hatred visits a death sentence upon a succession of disparate men.