Most gay men have realised that the Oppressed Victimhood party is totally over

Some of my best friends are gay — but now I can go one better than that: one of them is HIV positive.

Some of my best friends are gay — but now I can go one better than that: one of them is HIV positive. ‘But that’s brilliant news!’ I told my friend when he spilled the beans the other day. ‘Now I can go round claiming victim cred by association. And if anyone makes an Aids joke I can be, like, seriously offended and put on a solemn voice and say: “Actually, you know, if you had an HIV positive friend like I do…”.’ My friend agreed that being HIV positive was a very handy thing to be, in this respect. But on further consideration, we decided it would have carried more victim cred weight in the days before anti-retroviral drugs when a) it was a death sentence; and b) being gay won you many more oppressed-minority brownie points.

Personally I blame Ken Livingstone. Remember in his 1980s GLC days how shamelessly he courted the pink vote with his taxpayer-funded gay parades and lavish grants to any organisation run by crop-headed women with dungarees and CND badges? Well that all ended when he worked out there was more electoral mileage in shamelessly playing up to the prejudices of his Islamist constituents instead. And clearly, much as Ken might have liked it, you can’t court both minorities at the same time: not when one of them thinks the only suitable fate for the other one is to be thrown off a high rock, hanged from a crane or buried under a wall.

Maybe there’s some connection between these socio-political shifting tides and the fact that the majority of my most deeply sound right-wing friends (though not, I don’t think, my new mate Lord Tebbit) are gay.