Culture wars, identity politics and free speech: Rod Liddle and Peter Tatchell in conversation

ROD LIDDLE: I am honoured to be speaking to you, Peter, on this anniversary of 50 years of causing havoc with the British establishment. You’re one of very few political heroes of mine. I know very few people in the country who are as committed to what they believe in as you. Now a film is being made about your life, isn’t it? It’s going to be on Netflix and it’s called Hating Peter Tatchell, which a lot of people have done over the years. How did that come about?

PETER TATCHELL: The film maker, Chris Amos, approached me several years ago and said, ‘No one has ever made a film about you and about your 50-plus years of campaigning, I want to do it.’ So, I thought, well why not?

RL: I’m just hoping that somewhere along the way you make some money out of this, Pete, because you haven’t done much for yourself in the last 50 years. Are you going to get any dosh out of this?

PT: The film was made on a shoestring so I don’t think anybody is going to be getting much money out of it.

RL: Let’s go back to the beginning. You’re Australian, born in Melbourne and came here as an act of cowardice, I might point out, Mr Tatchell, to avoid the draft in 1971-ish.

PT: Not entirely. Well, first of all, I left Australia because I had a moral and political objection to Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam war. I regard that as an unjust war so I wasn’t prepared to serve.

RL: A catastrophic war, yes.

PT: Probably I should have stayed and gone to prison but yes, you’re right, I cowardly left the country and came to Britain.

RL: My guess is that your political journey has always been rooted in that time of revolution, upheaval and awareness, which sprang out across Europe particularly in ’68, is that roughly right?

PT: Well, my first political awareness was much earlier — in 1963, when I was aged 11, I heard about the bombing of a black church in Birmingham, Alabama, where four young girls about my own age were murdered.