January 20, 2026 • 58 mins
When Lord Chris Smith stood in a crowded hall in Rugby and said, “My name is Chris Smith... and I’m gay,” British politics took a giant leap forward. In this episode, we trace the path from coming out to the Blair-era equality reforms that reshaped life for LGBTQ people in the UK.
Chris discusses tabloid hostility, the response of his constituents, and the small moments that mark a cultural shift. He walks us through some of his defining achievements in government: equalising the age of consent, repealing Section 28, ending bans in the armed forces, securing goods and services equality, and the arrival of civil partnerships. He shows how ordinary people coming out moved public opinion faster than politicians or headlines.
Chris also shares how he chose to reveal his HIV status years later, inspired by a speech from Nelson Mandela.
If this podcast was inspiring, follow us on social media, share the episode with a friend, and leave a review.
This episode was hosted by Jonathan Chambers and James Alexander
Editing by Hannah Stewart
Music: Mystify created by AlterEgo
Visit our website, https://tvfh.co.uk
Follow us on Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/theviewfromherepodcast
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Episode Transcript
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Chris (00:01):
There were a thousand people in the hall, and I said,
My name is Chris Smith.
I'm the Labour MP for IslingtonSouth and Finsbury, and I'm
gay.
Intro (00:11):
A group of us in the Gay Liberation Fund hit on the idea
of holding a gay pride march tochallenge that shameful view.
Equality, and for some peoplein Stonewall like me, equality
was kind of like what you got toas a starting point.
Jonathan (00:27):
Welcome to the View From Here, the podcast that
explores the lives of key peoplein the LGBTQ Plus movement.
I'm Jonathan.
And I'm James.
We hope you enjoy the podcast.
James (00:42):
Today we're joined by Lord Chris Smith, the UK's first
openly gay cabinet minister anda key figure in the legislative
fight for LGBTQ relates.
Jonathan (00:51):
We talked to Chris about coming out and living with
HIV in the 1980s.
He shares what it's like to beout in the corridors of power
and why visibility stillmatters.
James (01:00):
This is an animal podcast exploring an often difficult
period of LGBTQ history.
And as such, this seriescontains discussions of suicide,
conversion therapy, homophobia,transphobia, drug use, strong
language, and graphic sexualdescriptions.
But it also has a lot of joyand lumps along the way.
Chris (01:31):
Thank you for inviting me.
Jonathan (01:33):
I would like to take you back, if that's alright, to
your early days in London.
You were born, if you don'tmind me sharing, in 1951.
And if you think about yourchildhood in the kind of late
50s, early 60s in London, wasthere a moment that you remember
thinking, oh, I'm not like theother boys?
Chris (01:54):
Uh in fact, no.
I uh I came very late to therealization that uh I was
different, and then began tocelebrate that difference.
I grew up, in fact, in Watford,just to the north of London.
That was where I spent thefirst 10 years of my life, and
(02:14):
then our family all moved up toEdinburgh, and uh so all my
teenage years were in Edinburgh,and if you'd asked me at the
age of 20 where do you comefrom, I would unerringly have
said uh Scotland.
Uh, but then I came toCambridge as a student and ended
(02:38):
up uh working for the virtuallythe whole of my life in London.
So uh I came back to where Ihad originally started.
James (02:48):
I had actually a similar journey.
I grew up in in London andmoved at the age of 11 to
Scotland, so it's quite it'samazing the cultural difference
between England and Scotland.
I now live in and live inLondon again.
You said that you came out, oryou came to the realization that
you were, I suppose, differentat a later age.
What what was what were youraffections at that point?
How did that make you feel?
Chris (03:09):
Well, I had already uh become um a counsellor in uh
Islington.
I was uh beginning to embark ona political career, and I
realized uh that I was gay.
And uh I never made anyparticular secret of the fact
(03:32):
that I was gay.
I uh I had boyfriends, I hadflings, I uh went to gay uh pubs
and clubs, but uh I had not atthat point said anything about
myself in public.
That uh came later, just afterI was uh elected as an MP.
James (03:54):
And we're gonna get onto that, but but just in terms of a
political career as you wereyou were embarking on it at that
point, you were electedcouncillor, realizing that you
were gay, did that make youthink, oh wow, how how am I
gonna uh combine these twoaspects of my life?
Being, you know, particularlyin the 70s and 80s, did it feel
(04:14):
something about how hard thatwas potentially gonna make your
career?
Chris (04:17):
It it did, uh, because you have to remember back in the
70s and 80s uh and indeed intothe early 90s, there was a lot
of homophobia, especially in thetabloid press.
Uh there was uh it it very muchwasn't mainstream to uh to be
(04:42):
gay.
I thought at the time this isgoing to make a political career
uh a little bit difficult.
But I decided nonetheless Iwanted to get involved in
politics because I believed itwas the way in which you could
most readily change the worldand change the way in which
(05:05):
society worked.
And I certainly wasn't going togive up my sexuality in order
to do so.
James (05:13):
And and just you know, the the the Labour Party at that
time, obviously, again, we'regonna come on to this, some of
the amazing achievements of thatyou were part of and you led as
part of the Tony Bears Labourgovernment.
But but the Labour Party youwere in at that point, was there
homophobia there?
Did you experience homophobia?
Chris (05:31):
Oh, yeah, so yes.
Uh there were some uh MPs whoweren't particularly enlightened
on this uh set of issues, uh,but also the Labour Party did
not have very good policy atthat time, and um there was a
(05:52):
big um effort to try and get newpolicy in support of uh LGBT
rights uh through the LabourParty conference mechanism.
We had to work very hard,especially on some of the major
trade unions.
(06:13):
Uh one of the key turningpoints was when the National
Union of Mine Workers had, as itthen was, this is all before
the big miners' strike in theearly 80s, but the NUM changed
its policy, and that helped totrigger quite a number of other
(06:36):
trade unions changing their uhview on uh LGBT equality, and
that made it much easier to getuh uh better policy agreed
through the Labour Conference.
Jonathan (06:50):
I'd love to go on a small tangent because I would
imagine people who listen tothis don't necessarily know how
one becomes an MP.
Could you give us just the kindof cliff notes of the selection
process and how that works withthe interviews with the party?
And then also with that how youpresented yourself during
those, whether you kept yoursexuality to yourself, whether
(07:13):
it was something that you keptpublic during the process?
Chris (07:16):
Well, in those days, it's slightly different now.
In those days, the selection ofuh an MP or the selection of a
parliamentary candidate was doneby what was known as the
general committee of the localconstituency party.
This comprised representativesof each of the ward parties.
(07:43):
There were at the time eight ornine wards within the
constituency.
It uh had representatives uh onit of affiliated trade unions,
and they made the decision, andyou had to get nominations from
ward parties and from tradeunions, and then those
(08:07):
nominations uh came to thegeneral committee who would meet
and they'd interview thenominated candidates and vote as
to who was going to be thecandidate.
And I can uh remember I wasgoing through the selection
(08:27):
process for Islington, South andFinsbury, and a number of the
wards uh had already nominated,and I had sort of expected that
they would nominate me, and theydidn't.
And uh there were only twowards left to nominate, and at
(08:49):
that point I was almost on theverge of giving up the attempt,
but I decided to press on withit, and somewhat to my surprise,
both of those uh final wardsnominated me.
And so I came into the finalselection uh process as the only
(09:10):
candidate who had two wardnominations rather than just
one, and I won the selection.
James (09:17):
And and homophobia wasn't a feature of it wasn't a
feature.
Chris (09:21):
Uh as I mentioned, I I had never made any particular
secret of the fact that I wasgay.
A lot of the uh members of thegeneral committee knew, but uh I
I hadn't stood up in front ofan audience and said anything.
(09:42):
Uh that was to come later.
James (09:45):
So actually you ran for election in 1979 and
unsuccessfully, but then managedto get elected in 1983 in in
Isington south of Vinsbury.
Chris (09:55):
No 1979 was a cutting of teeth exercise uh uh in Epsom
and Yule.
Uh uh I managed to save mydeposit.
I was up against a 26,000 Torymajority.
And I can tell you uh theexperience of walking down Epsom
(10:17):
High Street on a Saturdaymorning with a red rosette on is
an experience only for thebrave.
James (10:25):
Oh, fantastic.
So you did get elected in 1983,where you actually served until
2005 as MP, uh, and then cameout in 1984.
Talk us through that moment asa as a sitting MP.
The first, uh in fact, you werelike, I think at that time the
first MP to come outvoluntarily, talk us through
what happened.
(10:45):
What's the story?
Chris (10:46):
Well, I can remember during the course of the
election campaign.
My agent, uh wonderful womancalled Liz Phillipson, had been
really worried what what wouldhappen if during the course of
the election campaign we were ata public meeting and someone in
the audience leapt up and said,uh, we don't want to hear from
(11:10):
him, he's gay.
Now she was all for having aburly working class member of
the party ready to pounce atthat point.
But I can remember saying toher, No, there's only one way to
deal with this if the issuedoes arise, and that's for me to
say, yes, I am.
(11:31):
So what?
Next question, please.
It it never arose during thecourse of the campaign.
I was elected in 1983 forIslington South.
Uh I had a wafer-thin majorityof 363 votes, but nonetheless I
(11:52):
decided uh that at some point Iwanted to say something publicly
about myself.
I had a colleague who was uh MPfor a northern seat, who was
gay, never ever came out.
He was being hounded by thepress.
He had reporters sitting incars outside his uh little block
(12:16):
of flats every night, uhrecording who was going in and
out.
He had people rummaging throughhis dustbins, uh uh he was
being harassed at everyopportunity, and I just decided
I don't want to go through that.
And uh the way that you respondis you remove the story, and
(12:41):
the best way of removing thestory is to tell it yourself,
exactly, and so um I decided Iwanted to say something about
myself and who I was, but theonly question was uh what would
be the right moment.
And I uh was invited to go upto rugby in 1984 because rugby
(13:10):
council had just changedpolitical control, and the
incoming Tory leader of thecouncil had decided he was going
to remove sexual orientationfrom the list of things the
council would not discriminateagainst in its employment
policy.
Wow.
(13:30):
He was effectively saying, I donot want LGBT people coming to
work for Rugby Council.
Um there was a lot of uh ofrage and anger and anxiety about
this, and a big march and rallywas called for the Saturday
(13:51):
lunchtime in the middle ofrugby.
And because I had saidsupportive things about uh LGBT
rights, uh the organizersinvited me to come up and speak.
And uh I can remember sittingon the train going up to rugby,
uh writing this very boringspeech, and uh I walked into the
(14:17):
hall where the rally was takingplace.
It had already started, therewere a thousand people in the
hall, and as I walked up to takemy seat on the platform, I just
suddenly thought uh this is theplace to do it.
Because the issue here is allabout the ability of anyone, no
(14:41):
matter what their sexualorientation happens to be, to do
an equally good job as anyoneelse working for rugby council.
And I just thought exactly thesame thing applies to MPs.
And uh so uh this was about tenminutes before I was due to
(15:03):
speak.
I have to say it was uh some ofthe scariest ten minutes of my
life.
I'm I was shaking like a leaf,because of course no one had
ever done this before.
James (15:17):
And um Did you really on looking back on it have no idea
what was going to happen afteryou said that?
Chris (15:22):
I um well, I thought the atmosphere in the hall was going
to be supportive, but uh I hadno idea what the outside world
would make of it.
And uh I stood up and began myspeech, and I said, My name is
Chris Smith, I'm the Labour MPfor Islington South and
(15:44):
Finsbury, and I'm gay.
At which point uh the entireaudience got to their feet and
gave me a standing ovation.
It's it's the only time I'veever had a standing ovation 20
seconds into a speech.
And uh I have to say I haven'tregretted that moment for a
(16:05):
single instant ever since.
I then for the next week gotletters from people all around
the country.
Now you have to remember thisis 1984, no social media.
Um I got letters, and some ofthe letters said uh
(16:26):
congratulations, well done, goodon you.
Uh I think the letters thatmeant the most were the ones
that said, Thank you for whatyou've said, it's made things
easier for me.
James (16:40):
Yeah.
Chris (16:41):
And if I manage to make things easier just for one or
two people, then it was worthdoing.
James (16:49):
Yeah.
And what about the hate?
Chris (16:52):
Uh uh interestingly, apart from a shouted bit of
abuse across the street in uhIslington, none of my
constituents raised the issue orcomplained.
It it took the hostile press uhquite a while to catch up with
(17:15):
the news.
And uh for the next few years,whenever an article appeared in
the Daily Telegraph, I would getnine or ten uh letters
following it, uh all of whichwould quote Deuteronomy at me.
If something appeared in theSun, I would get nine or ten
(17:38):
letters which were quite oftenracist as well as homophobic.
James (17:43):
Oh wow.
Wow.
And that continued for quitesome time then.
Chris (17:48):
It did.
And of course, for nine years Iwas still the only openly gay
MP in the House of Commons.
James (17:57):
Uh it's now teeming with that um uh you could you could
almost do a social history ofBritain based on the volume and
veracity of letters that youreceived uh over the period of
time you were in Parliament.
Did you did you regret notcoming out before the election,
before the parliament?
Did you did you almost wantsomebody to say to ask that
(18:18):
question in a tower hall?
Chris (18:19):
It's a really interesting question to which I honestly
don't know the answer.
I was, I suppose, concernedabout uh what the response
electorally might be, although Iwas absolutely prepared to be
open and upfront and honestabout it uh if it did arise, but
(18:45):
I hadn't really thought I needto say something in public until
after I'd been elected.
You have to remember though, Ihad this wafer-thin majority.
Yeah.
It wasn't the easiestcircumstances in which to decide
to do this.
And interestingly, uh thesubsequent uh 1987 general
(19:17):
election, uh I was the toptarget seat for the then Social
Democrats uh in the country.
They were second, uh the Torieswere way behind.
And uh even though the Toriesnationally in uh '87 were
running quite a homophobiccampaign, they were making uh an
(19:41):
awful lot, for example, aboutthe tabloid story of uh the
rather wonderful book uh JennyLives With Eric and Martin,
which uh had uh been found in ateacher's center in Islington.
And the tabloids were Wentbananas about it, and the Tories
(20:03):
used that in their nationalcampaigning.
But locally, the Tory partynever mentioned anything about
me being gay.
The SDP, however, were notquite as uh uh as measured, and
um they were using itmercilessly on doorsteps.
(20:25):
I can remember we were trainingour canvasses what uh should
you do if this issue arises on adoorstep?
And we said uh if it does, youhave three lines to use.
Line number one, isn't it goodto have an MP who's honest for a
(20:46):
change?
Line number two, but you knowthat Chris Smith works for
everyone, no matter who or whatthey are.
Line number three, if neitherline one nor line two worked,
you don't mean to tell me you'reprejudiced, do you?
And uh during the entirecampaign in 1987, no one had to
(21:12):
get to line three.
James (21:13):
Oh, brilliant.
Well that that is verypositive, apart from, of course,
the negative campaign.
What what were the attack linesthat they were using?
Chris (21:21):
Oh, uh just uh usual you don't want to vote for him, he's
he's gay.
James (21:27):
Really, just as as as openly as that.
Chris (21:31):
Just reminding people that uh that was who I was.
Jonathan (21:37):
There was an MP who was social democrat at the time
who ran against Peter Tatchell,and I cannot remember his name,
but his tagline was the straightchoice, is my memory from that
period.
We talked about the reaction toyou coming out from the press,
from voters.
But what was the reaction likein the house?
Chris (21:57):
Uh my favorite reaction was uh uh dear old Edwina Curry,
who uh she hadn't yet had heraffair with John Major, but uh
she was uh a very uh prominentuh figure in the house.
This was a few days after I'ddone the rugby thing, and I was
(22:21):
uh queuing up uh in the members'tea room for a cup of to buy a
cup of tea, and uh lots of MPssitting around on armchairs, and
uh Edwina comes marching inthrough the doors, comes up to
me in a very loud voice.
She says, Chris, I gatheryou've come out.
(22:43):
Well done, and turned on herheel and marched out again.
The uh on the whole, theresponse from my fellow MPs was
uh was very supportive.
There were some who probablyshould have known better, who
(23:04):
averted their eyes when they uhuh saw me coming down the
corridor towards them, but uhmost were very supportive and uh
and especially the it was NeilKinnock who was the leader of
the uh party at the time.
Both he and the senior figuresin the shadow cabinet, uh people
(23:28):
like John Smith and uh BrianGould were very supportive.
Jonathan (23:33):
And when you when a person has a public profile and
they come out publicly, comingout doesn't always only affect
them.
So did you have did your familyhave any impact from you coming
out?
Chris (23:47):
My uh my parents uh lived up in rural Scotland.
In fact, the um amidst all theletters that I got the week
after the rugby speech, uh theonly two uh letters which were
anything other than supportivewere a letter from my father and
(24:09):
a letter from my mother.
Uh this was they were saying,you know, we're shocked, we
think this is unnatural, etc.
etc.
Oh, so this was you actuallyalways coming up, you came your
parents were not I hadn't I hadnot previously told my parents.
Oh wow.
So having made the speech inrugby, before I got on the train
(24:35):
to come back uh to London, I uhhad to find a phone box and
phone my parents.
And uh I did the classic uhMum, there's something I've been
meaning to tell you for a longtime.
And by the way, you're about toread about it in the press
(24:57):
tomorrow.
Uh and uh in the phone call,she was um very um calm and uh
unperturbed and uh quitesupportive.
But then I got a letter from myfather, and it was followed by
a letter from my mother uh thatweren't at all supportive.
(25:22):
Now, within two years, theywere inviting my boyfriend to
come and stay.
So they just needed time, andum I don't think they got any
flack at all as uh as a resultof uh my having come out, or not
(25:44):
that they ever told me aboutanyway.
James (25:46):
Well, that's fantastic.
So you I guess came out in1984, and then a few years later
you were diagnosed uh as HIVpositive in 1987.
Talk us through that period inyour life, how that then having
gone through I guess the elationof coming out and being
(26:09):
elected, coming out, coming outto your family as you've just
talked about, then then findingout that that you were HIV
positive at a time when that wasa very scary.
Chris (26:22):
It it was very scary.
And uh at the time I wasdiagnosed, I uh assumed this was
a death sentence.
I can remember vividly uh oneof my doctors um saying to me,
uh, I uh I I don't know what uhyour prognosis is going to be.
(26:47):
Uh you may get an opportunisticinfection uh very soon, and um
this may be really serious, butyou may be able to live for
quite a quite a long while.
The thing is, he said, you needto get used to living with
(27:10):
uncertainty.
And um it was a really goodpiece of advice.
It it's actually not bad advicefor anyone, but uh it was
particularly good advice when uhnone of us knew what the
outcome of uh uh of an HIVdiagnosis was going to be.
(27:32):
And of course, within a fewyears uh combination therapy
came along and uh the uh viralload became undetectable, and um
it has uh happily remained soever since.
Jonathan (27:47):
But I would love to talk about that period between
1987 and 1996, which is when theVancouver conference was where
they understood that actually ifthey combined the three
different therapies, they couldsuppress the viral node.
You know, during that period oftime, lots of people had
medication that made themanemic, made them very sick.
They struggled to adhere to itbecause it was multiple pills
(28:10):
multiple times a day.
Did you go through that?
Did you experience that?
Chris (28:14):
I was quite rapidly put on to AZT monotherapy.
I like to think it bought metime, uh, although ultimately it
failed, of course, um, asmonotherapy would.
But I remember they triedvarious other things as well.
Uh uh uh there was a horribledrug called Alpha Interferon
(28:40):
that um uh you had to inject.
And um I uh went to thehospital to uh try and learn how
to inject myself in my thigh.
And um I fainted as uh uh as asuh the needle came down, and
(29:02):
the next thing I knew I was flatout on the floor and they were
waking me up.
And uh so uh for the next yearwhile I was on this Alpha
Interferon, uh my uh partner hadto do it for me, and he would
uh inject it in the bum.
(29:22):
Uh he said it was really goodwhen he was feeling particularly
annoyed with me.
Um that um it was a horribledrug.
It made you feel completelyrotten for 24 hours, and then uh
you were okay for the next 24hours, and then you had to have
it again.
Oh wow.
(29:43):
Um I'm so glad that uh theydecided it uh fairly rapidly it
wasn't doing any good.
James (29:50):
And so, in terms of the wider society that you were
living in at that time aroundthe period of the HOV crisis,
and and how I I guess how thatactually stoked up a lot more
homophobia.
It it was a very scary time formany people, of course, lots of
LGBT people.
(30:11):
You know, you getting adiagnosis in that period, but
also presumably knowing otherpeople that had been diagnosed
and hadn't been so lucky andhadn't taken to the treatment.
How how how what was it likeliving through that period of
time?
Chris (30:25):
It was uh it was it was very difficult.
I had a number of friends whouh were affected, well, one or
two of them died.
The public sentiment was reallyum very adverse.
For anyone uh uh diagnosed withHIV, they really were affected
(30:52):
in some ways by two diseases uhthe disease of HIV itself, but
also the disease of stigma thatuh came with it.
And uh you just had to try andlive through that.
Uh I had made a deliberatedecision so long as I was uh
(31:14):
able to uh go about doing adecent job and acting uh as an
MP and then as a shadow ministeruh without uh uh any uh let or
hindrance.
So long as that was the case.
I wasn't going to uh sayanything publicly.
(31:35):
Uh eventually I did, of course,but uh that uh came in 2005, so
long after I had uh in factbeen diagnosed.
Jonathan (31:47):
And we'll come on to coming out publicly as as being
HIV positive.
There was a campaign during theI want to say late 1980s, early
1990s, where the governmentsent leaflets to every
household.
And some people I asked reflecton that time and they think it
saved a lot of lives, and forsome people they feel like it
(32:10):
was it made everyone terrifiedof gay people.
Do you remember that campaign?
You were in opposition at thetime?
Chris (32:18):
I remember it vividly.
It um uh it was full of uhtombstones and icebergs.
Jonathan (32:25):
Don't die of ignorance.
Yep.
Chris (32:27):
Uh I find myself very torn about that uh campaign,
partly because it uh NormanFowler was the Secretary of
State for Health at the time.
It it enabled him to convinceMargaret Thatcher to ring fence
money for HIV treatment andresearch, and that probably did
(32:51):
uh make a real difference.
But at the same time it stokedup fear and and suspicion and
the way in which it gave peoplethe idea that if someone with
HIV sneezed um uh ten metresaway from you, uh you might get
(33:12):
infected.
And complete nonsense, ofcourse, but um it did stoke up
quite a lot of fear.
James (33:19):
And and did it give the government an excuse to drive a
legislative agenda that was morehomophobic in the sense of
section 28 and other, I guess,just general public policy that
was actively being homophobicrather than just kind of
ignoring gay people.
Chris (33:35):
I think the homophobic legislation, uh including
section 28, which uh was uh uh areally dreadful bit of
legislation.
It's making a reappearance inFlorida as we speak.
The uh uh I I think uh thedriver for all of that wasn't
(33:57):
actually HIV, it was a real uhuh suspicion and fear of LGBT
people.
And um reading the variousspeeches which the proponents of
section twenty-eight uh gave,uh it's not an exercise that is
(34:20):
good for your blood pressure.
Um the uh if you read theirspeeches uh at the time, it was
all about invertic commasprotection of children.
They uh assumed that um anyonewho happened to be gay was going
to be predatory and um intoabusing children and that they
(34:45):
were protecting kids by uhbringing in this dreadful piece
of legislation.
James (34:52):
But were the two in some way connected in the sense that
you could that there was therewas an attempt to draw this
direct line between being gayand causing a public health
crisis and and therefore somesort of danger?
Chris (35:07):
It it didn't help, but I don't think it was uh the
primary motivating force for thebits of homophobic legislation.
James (35:18):
That's really interesting.
I think I yeah, I think I thinkit's so so interesting to see
how those things kind ofhappened in parallel but maybe
weren't weren't connected.
I mean, you'd obviously been anMP or been for several years, I
guess, unshackled from thissecret in terms of being gay,
and then you decided not to beopen about being HIV positive
(35:42):
because of the stigma, verysimilar stigma in many respects.
How did it feel to have gonefrom being in a place of being
liberated from having a secretto then having another one?
Chris (35:55):
It was difficult, of course, but um the uh
consequences for my health andmy levels of activity of being
HIV positive were such that Ididn't see any particular uh
need to say anything.
There was a very interestingmoment which revealed uh
(36:18):
something about um coming out asbeing gay.
The uh it was one of thedebates we were having on
section 28, and there was aparticularly neandertile Tory
called Nicholas Winterton makinga speech uh in the chamber of
the House of Commons.
And I stood up to make anintervention on him, and I made
(36:42):
my point.
And as I sat down, he uh lookedacross at me and he began his
response by saying the House haslearned to listen to the
honourable gentleman withrespect when he talks about
these matters, but and he thenwent on to disagree with me.
(37:04):
Um but and the fact that he hefelt he had to put in that
little bit about respect showedto me that we had made a tiny
bit of progress because he wasno longer able to talk in windy
generalizations about uh uh gaypeople, uh because their sitting
(37:29):
in front of him was one of thepeople that he was talking
about.
Jonathan (37:35):
And so in 1997, we moved from being in the
opposition, being a shadowminister to Tony Blair forming
forming a government, becomingthe prime minister, and you
becoming the first out LGBTcabinet minister in the world.
Chris (37:53):
I I I'm pretty sure that's the case.
That's what I've read and anduh the rather wonderful thing
was no one noticed.
In all the commentary about whowas being appointed to the new
cabinet and uh what they weregoing to do in their portfolios
(38:14):
and so on, the uh the fact thatfor the first time ever,
anywhere, uh the Prime Ministerhad appointed an openly gay
cabinet minister, it it didn'tsurface.
And that really did show methat we had made real progress
because it was no longer anissue.
Jonathan (38:37):
And if we think about the two, I suppose, flagship
pieces of legislation thataffected LGBT life in the Blair
years, it was the equalizing ofage of consent in 2000, and then
the repeal of section 28 in2003.
Chris (38:56):
Well, we were uh we were able to do a whole raft of
things equalizing the age ofconsent, getting rid of Section
28, uh legislating for equalaccess to goods and services,
freeing up the position of LGBTpeople in the armed services and
the diplomatic service, andthen uh bringing in civil
(39:19):
partnerships.
Now it it's fair to say thefirst of those things, which was
the equalizing of the age ofconsent, uh the Prime Minister's
office were really nervous.
They were very worried about uhwhat the electoral impact would
(39:42):
be of doing this bit of uh proLGBT legislation.
And um what they did end upsaying was if a case gets taken
to the European court, and theEuropean court finds Against the
UK.
We can then turn round toeveryone and say we have to do
(40:07):
this.
And they were as good as theirword.
A very brave young couple tooka case to the European court.
The court found in theirfavour.
The government then introducedlegislation to equalize the age
of consent.
When the House of Lords votedit down, they invoked the
(40:32):
Parliament Act to force itthrough the House of Lords the
following session.
And of course, when the Age ofConsent was equalized, the
electoral roof didn't fall in.
Everyone thought actually thisis quite a sensible bit of
(40:54):
reforming legislation.
It passed without a ripple ofconcern amongst the voters.
And from that moment onwards,it was very easy to persuade the
Prime Minister's office to doall the rest of the reforms
which we were able to putthrough.
(41:16):
And of course, he will now talkabout this as one of the great
achievements of his government.
James (41:23):
What role did you play in convincing Prime Minister, his
office, the political advisorsand other things that that this
list of stuff that that had beenon the kind of big problems
list, things that needed to befixed.
These are the core inequalitiesin law.
You know, this needs to befixed by this government.
Chris (41:42):
There were a number of us, uh, people like Michael
Cashman and uh Wahid Ali, whowere trying to uh uh press the
Prime Minister's office to makeprogress.
There was the initialreluctance, but after that it
became much easier.
Is it something you're proudof?
(42:03):
Oh, I'm very proud of havingbeen part of a government that
uh made such a lot oflegislative change.
I I would add one thing, whichis that uh I think the public
were actually well ahead of thepoliticians on this.
And one of the reasons why itbecame so easy to uh get the
(42:29):
raft of uh legislative changethrough was not so much because
politicians had uh pressed forit, uh not even so much uh that
uh there were prominent actorsand MPs and others uh who had
come out, but it was thatordinary people in their family,
(42:55):
in amongst their friends, intheir workplace, in their
neighborhood had uh been comingout, had been saying, Yes, I am.
And uh because their friendsand their families and their
neighbors uh were um realizingwell they're perfectly normal
(43:15):
people, uh that attitudes hadchanged fundamentally over the
course of the uh 80s and 90s.
James (43:25):
It's easy to understand that the the kind of the
Conservative government that hadbeen in under Margaret Thatch
and to and John Major at thattime hadn't decided to move
ahead with public opinion.
But how how is it that uh manypoliticians, including Labour
politicians, hadn't alsorecognized how much public
opinion had moved forward?
Chris (43:45):
I think partly because the uh the tabloid press hadn't
yet caught up.
And uh so you had this barragethrough the whole of the 80s and
early 90s, this barrage fromthe uh uh tabloids about um uh
Jenny Lives With Eric andMartin, about the so-called
(44:08):
lesbian gym mats uh that uh uhwere purchased by a London
authority, uh, the uh lesbianand gay centre that opened in
London.
I the the the tabloid presswere just frothing at the mouth
about all of this, and and thatcreated an adverse hostile
(44:31):
atmosphere, and I think thataffected quite a number of
politicians.
Meanwhile, of course, thepublic were uh way ahead of
everyone.
James (44:44):
And and yeah, we we we we heard a lot about the tabloids
from Michael Cashman, who wealso interviewed on this
podcast, is really worthlistening to.
And he had a brick through hiswindow, one of a number of
bricks through the window afterthe News of the World published
his address of him where him andhis partner lived.
And it does feel as though thetabloids' influence in the UK
(45:04):
has, as we well, we know this,has been has been very negative
on on uh LGBT issues.
How has that media landscapechanged?
And how did that change in thetime that you were in
parliament, particularly?
Chris (45:17):
I think eventually uh the tabloids just woke up to the
fact that uh they were out ofdate.
The best demonstration of thatwas when we did bring in civil
partnerships, and Elton John andDavid Furnish did uh one of the
very first civil partnerships,and the sun had this big spread
(45:42):
about Elton and David, theycouldn't resist um a snide
headline uh which was Eltontakes David up the aisle.
Um but because there was a sortof celebratory mood amongst
people who were just thinkingabout time too, uh the the
(46:04):
tabloids sort of caught up.
Jonathan (46:06):
And then I'd love to just talk about your decision to
come out publicly as ATVpositive.
Chris (46:11):
Well, as I mentioned earlier, I I had uh decided for
many years to say nothingpublicly about it.
And uh the Sunday Times, therewas a reporter at the Sunday
Times who phoned me up.
This was about 2003, and said,We have information uh about
(46:35):
your health, and uh we'd like totalk with you about it.
James (46:39):
I knew immediately that were you expecting this call at
some point?
Were you surprised in some waythat it had taken until 2003?
Chris (46:47):
I I was a bit surprised, although uh they did say one of
your doctors has uh told us uh Istill don't believe them on
that, because I'm absolutelycertain that no doctor worth
their salt uh would revealdetails of uh an individual
(47:10):
patient.
But uh they had found outsomehow, and I remember saying
to him, Well, um, if you'regoing to do anything on this, uh
I uh need to speak directly toyour editor.
Within half an hour, JohnWitherow, who was then the
editor of the Sunday Times,phoned me up and he said, Uh, we
(47:35):
have information that you areHIV positive.
Uh and I said, Yes, I am, but Ido not want you to publish
anything at this point on this.
Uh and as you will well know,it is it would be in flagrant
breach of the editorial code ofconduct for you to reveal
(47:58):
someone's health details withouttheir consent.
And uh he said, uh, okay, uh wewon't run the story.
And I said, uh, in return foryou not running the story, I
know that at some point I willwant to say something about my
(48:20):
HIV status, and when I do, Iwill do it with the Sunday
Times.
And uh so we made a deal, anduh he was as good as his work,
they they sat on the story foruh a couple of years and uh uh
it it was then the thing thattriggered my decision was Nelson
(48:44):
Mandela at the funeral of hisson, who had died of AIDS, uh uh
giving a speech that said, wemust stop hiding this, we must
be open about it, we must talkabout it, because unless we do
that, we're never going to makeprogress against HIV.
(49:07):
And I just thought, uh, well,perhaps now is the time to uh to
do this.
So I phoned up the Sunday Timesand I said, uh I'm ready to run
with the story.
And they literally cleared thefront page and um uh and ran the
story together with uh lots ofcomment uh inside.
(49:31):
And remarkably, with theexception of a hostile article
in the Daily Mail a couple ofdays later, the press almost
universally was very supportiveand positive about the uh the
story.
The very best moment was on theMonday morning I walked into my
(49:54):
parliamentary office and therewas a note on the desk saying uh
please ring Mr.
Mandela and a telephone numberin South Africa.
And uh so I dialed this number,and picking up the phone at the
other end was Nelson Mandela uhsaying uh I just wanted to say
(50:20):
thank you for uh what you've uhsaid, and uh it it makes a real
difference, and um uh we're allvery grateful.
Um and that conversation almostmade the whole thing worth it.
James (50:39):
Wow, that's amazing.
And he he you presumably wereable to relate to him that it
was kind of his call to actionthat prompted the.
Yes, I've got I've got thearticle here, and and it's it's
a it's an incredible op-ed thatyou that you've written, and you
do make the the argument thatthat HIV is not a death
sentence.
That's fundamentally theargument you're making.
(51:00):
But what's really interestingis, and this is not part of what
you've written, but it's partof the wider article the time
the Sunday Times put together,is it has a list, a bullet point
list called long-term HIVsurvivors include.
And it's got a list.
And it but my reflection seeingthat uh makes me think you just
wouldn't have a list like thatnow.
(51:22):
It's just it's now because ofadvances in medicine, because of
advances in awareness andpeople getting tested and
understanding that that beingtested is important, and then
and then of course, morerecently things like prep that
make transmission more difficultand the work of the Terence
Higgins Trust and others thatyou don't you don't think about
(51:43):
a sort of almost a remarkablelist of people that have
survived with HIV long-term inin averted commas.
Chris (51:50):
And of course, uh there are two further MPs uh who have
uh one no longer an MP, um uhwho have uh uh come out as being
HIV positive since uh I did it.
Um and uh uh the the presshaven't uh gone to town um on
(52:15):
it.
Um and uh I think we are nowgetting to a position where it's
no longer big news in the sameway that people coming out as
being gay is no longer big news.
James (52:32):
And for you personally, you know, it's almost coming out
for the second time.
How how did that feel in termsof was it another was it a
similar feeling to the first?
Chris (52:45):
I it it I was every bit as nervous as I was um earlier
on.
I had no idea what the uhresponse was going to be.
It of course appeared in theSunday Times overnight on the
Saturday night and uh Sundaymorning.
I can remember hordes ofjournalists uh outside my house
(53:10):
the uh uh the following day.
I uh did a television uhinterview first thing in the
morning, and then I spoke toreporters um uh outside my
house, and uh and I found myselfsaying, Um, well, yeah, I've
(53:31):
said everything I'm going tosay, and um please uh pack up
your bags and go home.
And they did.
Um uh and and I can remember Iwas saying two things.
Um the first was um, I hopeI've been able to demonstrate
(53:51):
that it is possible to have HIVand to live a perfectly normal,
productive, contributing life.
Um uh and secondly, um in aperverse kind of way, I've been
lucky because I've had HIV in acountry where there is a
(54:14):
national health service, wherethere are um uh doctors with
real expertise and knowledge,and uh where access to uh
therapy is um uh is relativelyeasy.
And uh there are hundreds ofthousands of people around the
world who are not so lucky.
(54:37):
Um, and we need to rememberthem.
Jonathan (54:40):
You started your tertiary education at Cambridge.
You are here again atCambridge, now as the master of
Pembroke College, and you havethe privilege, I guess, of
seeing young people matriculatethrough this institution and go
out into the world.
Do you have a message for them?
Is there a message that youshare with all of your
(55:01):
experience, all of the thingsthat you've been through that
you have for young people today?
Chris (55:06):
I do indeed have a message, and it's um uh
something that I say to all ofour graduating students uh uh
when I do a speech on the eve oftheir graduation ceremony.
Um and it's uh yeah, I have tosay I uh I must apologize on
(55:28):
behalf of my generation for theworld that we are bequeathing to
you.
Uh we are living in very darkand uh uh desperate times.
The combination of COVID,Brexit, um uh climate change,
(55:49):
Ukraine, um, Israel and Gaza, umuh and now with a daily horror
show uh from the White House,times are very difficult, and
that's the world that youngpeople are uh going into.
But I say to them, you must notdespair, because every single
(56:13):
one of you can light your candleagainst the darkness, and
together you will illuminate theworld.
James (56:21):
I think that's an extremely empowering and
positive message to end on.
It's so the times hard to seebeyond the doom and gloom of the
world we're living in.
But if anything, from today,your life experience has shown
how much things can change, canimprove, can grow.
But it's also because of theactions of people like you and
(56:42):
people that you were workingwith and other activists and
others that are in this spacethat has made that happen.
And I think one of the messagesthat I feel that I've just
taken away from what you've justsaid is if we want to make that
change, we have to, we have topush for that change.
We have to keep pushing and wehave to keep on attacking
ignorance where it's where itwhere it raises its head and and
(57:04):
pushing back on those thatwould want to roll back our
rights.
And we have to keep on pushingthat.
That fight doesn't stop, itneeds to continue.
Chris (57:12):
It does indeed.
And uh one of the things we arelearning increasingly, I think,
is we can't and mustn't rest onour laurels.
Uh the progress, the genuineprogress that we have made over
the last 30 or 40 years in LGBTequality here in the UK.
(57:36):
Um, we constantly need todefend it, to maintain it.
Um, we have only to look acrossthe other side of the Atlantic
and see how easily things can berolled back.
And um we mustn't let thathappen here.
Jonathan (57:55):
Thank you so much.
It's been such a pleasure.
Chris (57:58):
Thank you.
Jonathan (58:02):
Thank you for listening to The View from Here.
Of course, there's a lot ofpolitics in any movement, but
the political views you've heardacross the series don't
necessarily reflect the views ofthe podcast.
James (58:13):
If you enjoyed this episode, please consider
subscribing and leaving areview, as well as sharing the
word on social media.
Join us next time for morepersonal stories from the front
lines of LGBTQ history.
There were a thousand people in the hall, and I said,
My name is Chris Smith.
I'm the Labour MP for IslingtonSouth and Finsbury, and I'm
gay.
Intro (00:11):
A group of us in the Gay Liberation Fund hit on the idea
of holding a gay pride march tochallenge that shameful view.
Equality, and for some peoplein Stonewall like me, equality
was kind of like what you got toas a starting point.
Jonathan (00:27):
Welcome to the View From Here, the podcast that
explores the lives of key peoplein the LGBTQ Plus movement.
I'm Jonathan.
And I'm James.
We hope you enjoy the podcast.
James (00:42):
Today we're joined by Lord Chris Smith, the UK's first
openly gay cabinet minister anda key figure in the legislative
fight for LGBTQ relates.
Jonathan (00:51):
We talked to Chris about coming out and living with
HIV in the 1980s.
He shares what it's like to beout in the corridors of power
and why visibility stillmatters.
James (01:00):
This is an animal podcast exploring an often difficult
period of LGBTQ history.
And as such, this seriescontains discussions of suicide,
conversion therapy, homophobia,transphobia, drug use, strong
language, and graphic sexualdescriptions.
But it also has a lot of joyand lumps along the way.
Chris (01:31):
Thank you for inviting me.
Jonathan (01:33):
I would like to take you back, if that's alright, to
your early days in London.
You were born, if you don'tmind me sharing, in 1951.
And if you think about yourchildhood in the kind of late
50s, early 60s in London, wasthere a moment that you remember
thinking, oh, I'm not like theother boys?
Chris (01:54):
Uh in fact, no.
I uh I came very late to therealization that uh I was
different, and then began tocelebrate that difference.
I grew up, in fact, in Watford,just to the north of London.
That was where I spent thefirst 10 years of my life, and
(02:14):
then our family all moved up toEdinburgh, and uh so all my
teenage years were in Edinburgh,and if you'd asked me at the
age of 20 where do you comefrom, I would unerringly have
said uh Scotland.
Uh, but then I came toCambridge as a student and ended
(02:38):
up uh working for the virtuallythe whole of my life in London.
So uh I came back to where Ihad originally started.
James (02:48):
I had actually a similar journey.
I grew up in in London andmoved at the age of 11 to
Scotland, so it's quite it'samazing the cultural difference
between England and Scotland.
I now live in and live inLondon again.
You said that you came out, oryou came to the realization that
you were, I suppose, differentat a later age.
What what was what were youraffections at that point?
How did that make you feel?
Chris (03:09):
Well, I had already uh become um a counsellor in uh
Islington.
I was uh beginning to embark ona political career, and I
realized uh that I was gay.
And uh I never made anyparticular secret of the fact
(03:32):
that I was gay.
I uh I had boyfriends, I hadflings, I uh went to gay uh pubs
and clubs, but uh I had not atthat point said anything about
myself in public.
That uh came later, just afterI was uh elected as an MP.
James (03:54):
And we're gonna get onto that, but but just in terms of a
political career as you wereyou were embarking on it at that
point, you were electedcouncillor, realizing that you
were gay, did that make youthink, oh wow, how how am I
gonna uh combine these twoaspects of my life?
Being, you know, particularlyin the 70s and 80s, did it feel
(04:14):
something about how hard thatwas potentially gonna make your
career?
Chris (04:17):
It it did, uh, because you have to remember back in the
70s and 80s uh and indeed intothe early 90s, there was a lot
of homophobia, especially in thetabloid press.
Uh there was uh it it very muchwasn't mainstream to uh to be
(04:42):
gay.
I thought at the time this isgoing to make a political career
uh a little bit difficult.
But I decided nonetheless Iwanted to get involved in
politics because I believed itwas the way in which you could
most readily change the worldand change the way in which
(05:05):
society worked.
And I certainly wasn't going togive up my sexuality in order
to do so.
James (05:13):
And and just you know, the the the Labour Party at that
time, obviously, again, we'regonna come on to this, some of
the amazing achievements of thatyou were part of and you led as
part of the Tony Bears Labourgovernment.
But but the Labour Party youwere in at that point, was there
homophobia there?
Did you experience homophobia?
Chris (05:31):
Oh, yeah, so yes.
Uh there were some uh MPs whoweren't particularly enlightened
on this uh set of issues, uh,but also the Labour Party did
not have very good policy atthat time, and um there was a
(05:52):
big um effort to try and get newpolicy in support of uh LGBT
rights uh through the LabourParty conference mechanism.
We had to work very hard,especially on some of the major
trade unions.
(06:13):
Uh one of the key turningpoints was when the National
Union of Mine Workers had, as itthen was, this is all before
the big miners' strike in theearly 80s, but the NUM changed
its policy, and that helped totrigger quite a number of other
(06:36):
trade unions changing their uhview on uh LGBT equality, and
that made it much easier to getuh uh better policy agreed
through the Labour Conference.
Jonathan (06:50):
I'd love to go on a small tangent because I would
imagine people who listen tothis don't necessarily know how
one becomes an MP.
Could you give us just the kindof cliff notes of the selection
process and how that works withthe interviews with the party?
And then also with that how youpresented yourself during
those, whether you kept yoursexuality to yourself, whether
(07:13):
it was something that you keptpublic during the process?
Chris (07:16):
Well, in those days, it's slightly different now.
In those days, the selection ofuh an MP or the selection of a
parliamentary candidate was doneby what was known as the
general committee of the localconstituency party.
This comprised representativesof each of the ward parties.
(07:43):
There were at the time eight ornine wards within the
constituency.
It uh had representatives uh onit of affiliated trade unions,
and they made the decision, andyou had to get nominations from
ward parties and from tradeunions, and then those
(08:07):
nominations uh came to thegeneral committee who would meet
and they'd interview thenominated candidates and vote as
to who was going to be thecandidate.
And I can uh remember I wasgoing through the selection
(08:27):
process for Islington, South andFinsbury, and a number of the
wards uh had already nominated,and I had sort of expected that
they would nominate me, and theydidn't.
And uh there were only twowards left to nominate, and at
(08:49):
that point I was almost on theverge of giving up the attempt,
but I decided to press on withit, and somewhat to my surprise,
both of those uh final wardsnominated me.
And so I came into the finalselection uh process as the only
(09:10):
candidate who had two wardnominations rather than just
one, and I won the selection.
James (09:17):
And and homophobia wasn't a feature of it wasn't a
feature.
Chris (09:21):
Uh as I mentioned, I I had never made any particular
secret of the fact that I wasgay.
A lot of the uh members of thegeneral committee knew, but uh I
I hadn't stood up in front ofan audience and said anything.
(09:42):
Uh that was to come later.
James (09:45):
So actually you ran for election in 1979 and
unsuccessfully, but then managedto get elected in 1983 in in
Isington south of Vinsbury.
Chris (09:55):
No 1979 was a cutting of teeth exercise uh uh in Epsom
and Yule.
Uh uh I managed to save mydeposit.
I was up against a 26,000 Torymajority.
And I can tell you uh theexperience of walking down Epsom
(10:17):
High Street on a Saturdaymorning with a red rosette on is
an experience only for thebrave.
James (10:25):
Oh, fantastic.
So you did get elected in 1983,where you actually served until
2005 as MP, uh, and then cameout in 1984.
Talk us through that moment asa as a sitting MP.
The first, uh in fact, you werelike, I think at that time the
first MP to come outvoluntarily, talk us through
what happened.
(10:45):
What's the story?
Chris (10:46):
Well, I can remember during the course of the
election campaign.
My agent, uh wonderful womancalled Liz Phillipson, had been
really worried what what wouldhappen if during the course of
the election campaign we were ata public meeting and someone in
the audience leapt up and said,uh, we don't want to hear from
(11:10):
him, he's gay.
Now she was all for having aburly working class member of
the party ready to pounce atthat point.
But I can remember saying toher, No, there's only one way to
deal with this if the issuedoes arise, and that's for me to
say, yes, I am.
(11:31):
So what?
Next question, please.
It it never arose during thecourse of the campaign.
I was elected in 1983 forIslington South.
Uh I had a wafer-thin majorityof 363 votes, but nonetheless I
(11:52):
decided uh that at some point Iwanted to say something publicly
about myself.
I had a colleague who was uh MPfor a northern seat, who was
gay, never ever came out.
He was being hounded by thepress.
He had reporters sitting incars outside his uh little block
(12:16):
of flats every night, uhrecording who was going in and
out.
He had people rummaging throughhis dustbins, uh uh he was
being harassed at everyopportunity, and I just decided
I don't want to go through that.
And uh the way that you respondis you remove the story, and
(12:41):
the best way of removing thestory is to tell it yourself,
exactly, and so um I decided Iwanted to say something about
myself and who I was, but theonly question was uh what would
be the right moment.
And I uh was invited to go upto rugby in 1984 because rugby
(13:10):
council had just changedpolitical control, and the
incoming Tory leader of thecouncil had decided he was going
to remove sexual orientationfrom the list of things the
council would not discriminateagainst in its employment
policy.
Wow.
(13:30):
He was effectively saying, I donot want LGBT people coming to
work for Rugby Council.
Um there was a lot of uh ofrage and anger and anxiety about
this, and a big march and rallywas called for the Saturday
(13:51):
lunchtime in the middle ofrugby.
And because I had saidsupportive things about uh LGBT
rights, uh the organizersinvited me to come up and speak.
And uh I can remember sittingon the train going up to rugby,
uh writing this very boringspeech, and uh I walked into the
(14:17):
hall where the rally was takingplace.
It had already started, therewere a thousand people in the
hall, and as I walked up to takemy seat on the platform, I just
suddenly thought uh this is theplace to do it.
Because the issue here is allabout the ability of anyone, no
(14:41):
matter what their sexualorientation happens to be, to do
an equally good job as anyoneelse working for rugby council.
And I just thought exactly thesame thing applies to MPs.
And uh so uh this was about tenminutes before I was due to
(15:03):
speak.
I have to say it was uh some ofthe scariest ten minutes of my
life.
I'm I was shaking like a leaf,because of course no one had
ever done this before.
James (15:17):
And um Did you really on looking back on it have no idea
what was going to happen afteryou said that?
Chris (15:22):
I um well, I thought the atmosphere in the hall was going
to be supportive, but uh I hadno idea what the outside world
would make of it.
And uh I stood up and began myspeech, and I said, My name is
Chris Smith, I'm the Labour MPfor Islington South and
(15:44):
Finsbury, and I'm gay.
At which point uh the entireaudience got to their feet and
gave me a standing ovation.
It's it's the only time I'veever had a standing ovation 20
seconds into a speech.
And uh I have to say I haven'tregretted that moment for a
(16:05):
single instant ever since.
I then for the next week gotletters from people all around
the country.
Now you have to remember thisis 1984, no social media.
Um I got letters, and some ofthe letters said uh
(16:26):
congratulations, well done, goodon you.
Uh I think the letters thatmeant the most were the ones
that said, Thank you for whatyou've said, it's made things
easier for me.
James (16:40):
Yeah.
Chris (16:41):
And if I manage to make things easier just for one or
two people, then it was worthdoing.
James (16:49):
Yeah.
And what about the hate?
Chris (16:52):
Uh uh interestingly, apart from a shouted bit of
abuse across the street in uhIslington, none of my
constituents raised the issue orcomplained.
It it took the hostile press uhquite a while to catch up with
(17:15):
the news.
And uh for the next few years,whenever an article appeared in
the Daily Telegraph, I would getnine or ten uh letters
following it, uh all of whichwould quote Deuteronomy at me.
If something appeared in theSun, I would get nine or ten
(17:38):
letters which were quite oftenracist as well as homophobic.
James (17:43):
Oh wow.
Wow.
And that continued for quitesome time then.
Chris (17:48):
It did.
And of course, for nine years Iwas still the only openly gay
MP in the House of Commons.
James (17:57):
Uh it's now teeming with that um uh you could you could
almost do a social history ofBritain based on the volume and
veracity of letters that youreceived uh over the period of
time you were in Parliament.
Did you did you regret notcoming out before the election,
before the parliament?
Did you did you almost wantsomebody to say to ask that
(18:18):
question in a tower hall?
Chris (18:19):
It's a really interesting question to which I honestly
don't know the answer.
I was, I suppose, concernedabout uh what the response
electorally might be, although Iwas absolutely prepared to be
open and upfront and honestabout it uh if it did arise, but
(18:45):
I hadn't really thought I needto say something in public until
after I'd been elected.
You have to remember though, Ihad this wafer-thin majority.
Yeah.
It wasn't the easiestcircumstances in which to decide
to do this.
And interestingly, uh thesubsequent uh 1987 general
(19:17):
election, uh I was the toptarget seat for the then Social
Democrats uh in the country.
They were second, uh the Torieswere way behind.
And uh even though the Toriesnationally in uh '87 were
running quite a homophobiccampaign, they were making uh an
(19:41):
awful lot, for example, aboutthe tabloid story of uh the
rather wonderful book uh JennyLives With Eric and Martin,
which uh had uh been found in ateacher's center in Islington.
And the tabloids were Wentbananas about it, and the Tories
(20:03):
used that in their nationalcampaigning.
But locally, the Tory partynever mentioned anything about
me being gay.
The SDP, however, were notquite as uh uh as measured, and
um they were using itmercilessly on doorsteps.
(20:25):
I can remember we were trainingour canvasses what uh should
you do if this issue arises on adoorstep?
And we said uh if it does, youhave three lines to use.
Line number one, isn't it goodto have an MP who's honest for a
(20:46):
change?
Line number two, but you knowthat Chris Smith works for
everyone, no matter who or whatthey are.
Line number three, if neitherline one nor line two worked,
you don't mean to tell me you'reprejudiced, do you?
And uh during the entirecampaign in 1987, no one had to
(21:12):
get to line three.
James (21:13):
Oh, brilliant.
Well that that is verypositive, apart from, of course,
the negative campaign.
What what were the attack linesthat they were using?
Chris (21:21):
Oh, uh just uh usual you don't want to vote for him, he's
he's gay.
James (21:27):
Really, just as as as openly as that.
Chris (21:31):
Just reminding people that uh that was who I was.
Jonathan (21:37):
There was an MP who was social democrat at the time
who ran against Peter Tatchell,and I cannot remember his name,
but his tagline was the straightchoice, is my memory from that
period.
We talked about the reaction toyou coming out from the press,
from voters.
But what was the reaction likein the house?
Chris (21:57):
Uh my favorite reaction was uh uh dear old Edwina Curry,
who uh she hadn't yet had heraffair with John Major, but uh
she was uh a very uh prominentuh figure in the house.
This was a few days after I'ddone the rugby thing, and I was
(22:21):
uh queuing up uh in the members'tea room for a cup of to buy a
cup of tea, and uh lots of MPssitting around on armchairs, and
uh Edwina comes marching inthrough the doors, comes up to
me in a very loud voice.
She says, Chris, I gatheryou've come out.
(22:43):
Well done, and turned on herheel and marched out again.
The uh on the whole, theresponse from my fellow MPs was
uh was very supportive.
There were some who probablyshould have known better, who
(23:04):
averted their eyes when they uhuh saw me coming down the
corridor towards them, but uhmost were very supportive and uh
and especially the it was NeilKinnock who was the leader of
the uh party at the time.
Both he and the senior figuresin the shadow cabinet, uh people
(23:28):
like John Smith and uh BrianGould were very supportive.
Jonathan (23:33):
And when you when a person has a public profile and
they come out publicly, comingout doesn't always only affect
them.
So did you have did your familyhave any impact from you coming
out?
Chris (23:47):
My uh my parents uh lived up in rural Scotland.
In fact, the um amidst all theletters that I got the week
after the rugby speech, uh theonly two uh letters which were
anything other than supportivewere a letter from my father and
(24:09):
a letter from my mother.
Uh this was they were saying,you know, we're shocked, we
think this is unnatural, etc.
etc.
Oh, so this was you actuallyalways coming up, you came your
parents were not I hadn't I hadnot previously told my parents.
Oh wow.
So having made the speech inrugby, before I got on the train
(24:35):
to come back uh to London, I uhhad to find a phone box and
phone my parents.
And uh I did the classic uhMum, there's something I've been
meaning to tell you for a longtime.
And by the way, you're about toread about it in the press
(24:57):
tomorrow.
Uh and uh in the phone call,she was um very um calm and uh
unperturbed and uh quitesupportive.
But then I got a letter from myfather, and it was followed by
a letter from my mother uh thatweren't at all supportive.
(25:22):
Now, within two years, theywere inviting my boyfriend to
come and stay.
So they just needed time, andum I don't think they got any
flack at all as uh as a resultof uh my having come out, or not
(25:44):
that they ever told me aboutanyway.
James (25:46):
Well, that's fantastic.
So you I guess came out in1984, and then a few years later
you were diagnosed uh as HIVpositive in 1987.
Talk us through that period inyour life, how that then having
gone through I guess the elationof coming out and being
(26:09):
elected, coming out, coming outto your family as you've just
talked about, then then findingout that that you were HIV
positive at a time when that wasa very scary.
Chris (26:22):
It it was very scary.
And uh at the time I wasdiagnosed, I uh assumed this was
a death sentence.
I can remember vividly uh oneof my doctors um saying to me,
uh, I uh I I don't know what uhyour prognosis is going to be.
(26:47):
Uh you may get an opportunisticinfection uh very soon, and um
this may be really serious, butyou may be able to live for
quite a quite a long while.
The thing is, he said, you needto get used to living with
(27:10):
uncertainty.
And um it was a really goodpiece of advice.
It it's actually not bad advicefor anyone, but uh it was
particularly good advice when uhnone of us knew what the
outcome of uh uh of an HIVdiagnosis was going to be.
(27:32):
And of course, within a fewyears uh combination therapy
came along and uh the uh viralload became undetectable, and um
it has uh happily remained soever since.
Jonathan (27:47):
But I would love to talk about that period between
1987 and 1996, which is when theVancouver conference was where
they understood that actually ifthey combined the three
different therapies, they couldsuppress the viral node.
You know, during that period oftime, lots of people had
medication that made themanemic, made them very sick.
They struggled to adhere to itbecause it was multiple pills
(28:10):
multiple times a day.
Did you go through that?
Did you experience that?
Chris (28:14):
I was quite rapidly put on to AZT monotherapy.
I like to think it bought metime, uh, although ultimately it
failed, of course, um, asmonotherapy would.
But I remember they triedvarious other things as well.
Uh uh uh there was a horribledrug called Alpha Interferon
(28:40):
that um uh you had to inject.
And um I uh went to thehospital to uh try and learn how
to inject myself in my thigh.
And um I fainted as uh uh as asuh the needle came down, and
(29:02):
the next thing I knew I was flatout on the floor and they were
waking me up.
And uh so uh for the next yearwhile I was on this Alpha
Interferon, uh my uh partner hadto do it for me, and he would
uh inject it in the bum.
(29:22):
Uh he said it was really goodwhen he was feeling particularly
annoyed with me.
Um that um it was a horribledrug.
It made you feel completelyrotten for 24 hours, and then uh
you were okay for the next 24hours, and then you had to have
it again.
Oh wow.
(29:43):
Um I'm so glad that uh theydecided it uh fairly rapidly it
wasn't doing any good.
James (29:50):
And so, in terms of the wider society that you were
living in at that time aroundthe period of the HOV crisis,
and and how I I guess how thatactually stoked up a lot more
homophobia.
It it was a very scary time formany people, of course, lots of
LGBT people.
(30:11):
You know, you getting adiagnosis in that period, but
also presumably knowing otherpeople that had been diagnosed
and hadn't been so lucky andhadn't taken to the treatment.
How how how what was it likeliving through that period of
time?
Chris (30:25):
It was uh it was it was very difficult.
I had a number of friends whouh were affected, well, one or
two of them died.
The public sentiment was reallyum very adverse.
For anyone uh uh diagnosed withHIV, they really were affected
(30:52):
in some ways by two diseases uhthe disease of HIV itself, but
also the disease of stigma thatuh came with it.
And uh you just had to try andlive through that.
Uh I had made a deliberatedecision so long as I was uh
(31:14):
able to uh go about doing adecent job and acting uh as an
MP and then as a shadow ministeruh without uh uh any uh let or
hindrance.
So long as that was the case.
I wasn't going to uh sayanything publicly.
(31:35):
Uh eventually I did, of course,but uh that uh came in 2005, so
long after I had uh in factbeen diagnosed.
Jonathan (31:47):
And we'll come on to coming out publicly as as being
HIV positive.
There was a campaign during theI want to say late 1980s, early
1990s, where the governmentsent leaflets to every
household.
And some people I asked reflecton that time and they think it
saved a lot of lives, and forsome people they feel like it
(32:10):
was it made everyone terrifiedof gay people.
Do you remember that campaign?
You were in opposition at thetime?
Chris (32:18):
I remember it vividly.
It um uh it was full of uhtombstones and icebergs.
Jonathan (32:25):
Don't die of ignorance.
Yep.
Chris (32:27):
Uh I find myself very torn about that uh campaign,
partly because it uh NormanFowler was the Secretary of
State for Health at the time.
It it enabled him to convinceMargaret Thatcher to ring fence
money for HIV treatment andresearch, and that probably did
(32:51):
uh make a real difference.
But at the same time it stokedup fear and and suspicion and
the way in which it gave peoplethe idea that if someone with
HIV sneezed um uh ten metresaway from you, uh you might get
(33:12):
infected.
And complete nonsense, ofcourse, but um it did stoke up
quite a lot of fear.
James (33:19):
And and did it give the government an excuse to drive a
legislative agenda that was morehomophobic in the sense of
section 28 and other, I guess,just general public policy that
was actively being homophobicrather than just kind of
ignoring gay people.
Chris (33:35):
I think the homophobic legislation, uh including
section 28, which uh was uh uh areally dreadful bit of
legislation.
It's making a reappearance inFlorida as we speak.
The uh uh I I think uh thedriver for all of that wasn't
(33:57):
actually HIV, it was a real uhuh suspicion and fear of LGBT
people.
And um reading the variousspeeches which the proponents of
section twenty-eight uh gave,uh it's not an exercise that is
(34:20):
good for your blood pressure.
Um the uh if you read theirspeeches uh at the time, it was
all about invertic commasprotection of children.
They uh assumed that um anyonewho happened to be gay was going
to be predatory and um intoabusing children and that they
(34:45):
were protecting kids by uhbringing in this dreadful piece
of legislation.
James (34:52):
But were the two in some way connected in the sense that
you could that there was therewas an attempt to draw this
direct line between being gayand causing a public health
crisis and and therefore somesort of danger?
Chris (35:07):
It it didn't help, but I don't think it was uh the
primary motivating force for thebits of homophobic legislation.
James (35:18):
That's really interesting.
I think I yeah, I think I thinkit's so so interesting to see
how those things kind ofhappened in parallel but maybe
weren't weren't connected.
I mean, you'd obviously been anMP or been for several years, I
guess, unshackled from thissecret in terms of being gay,
and then you decided not to beopen about being HIV positive
(35:42):
because of the stigma, verysimilar stigma in many respects.
How did it feel to have gonefrom being in a place of being
liberated from having a secretto then having another one?
Chris (35:55):
It was difficult, of course, but um the uh
consequences for my health andmy levels of activity of being
HIV positive were such that Ididn't see any particular uh
need to say anything.
There was a very interestingmoment which revealed uh
(36:18):
something about um coming out asbeing gay.
The uh it was one of thedebates we were having on
section 28, and there was aparticularly neandertile Tory
called Nicholas Winterton makinga speech uh in the chamber of
the House of Commons.
And I stood up to make anintervention on him, and I made
(36:42):
my point.
And as I sat down, he uh lookedacross at me and he began his
response by saying the House haslearned to listen to the
honourable gentleman withrespect when he talks about
these matters, but and he thenwent on to disagree with me.
(37:04):
Um but and the fact that he hefelt he had to put in that
little bit about respect showedto me that we had made a tiny
bit of progress because he wasno longer able to talk in windy
generalizations about uh uh gaypeople, uh because their sitting
(37:29):
in front of him was one of thepeople that he was talking
about.
Jonathan (37:35):
And so in 1997, we moved from being in the
opposition, being a shadowminister to Tony Blair forming
forming a government, becomingthe prime minister, and you
becoming the first out LGBTcabinet minister in the world.
Chris (37:53):
I I I'm pretty sure that's the case.
That's what I've read and anduh the rather wonderful thing
was no one noticed.
In all the commentary about whowas being appointed to the new
cabinet and uh what they weregoing to do in their portfolios
(38:14):
and so on, the uh the fact thatfor the first time ever,
anywhere, uh the Prime Ministerhad appointed an openly gay
cabinet minister, it it didn'tsurface.
And that really did show methat we had made real progress
because it was no longer anissue.
Jonathan (38:37):
And if we think about the two, I suppose, flagship
pieces of legislation thataffected LGBT life in the Blair
years, it was the equalizing ofage of consent in 2000, and then
the repeal of section 28 in2003.
Chris (38:56):
Well, we were uh we were able to do a whole raft of
things equalizing the age ofconsent, getting rid of Section
28, uh legislating for equalaccess to goods and services,
freeing up the position of LGBTpeople in the armed services and
the diplomatic service, andthen uh bringing in civil
(39:19):
partnerships.
Now it it's fair to say thefirst of those things, which was
the equalizing of the age ofconsent, uh the Prime Minister's
office were really nervous.
They were very worried about uhwhat the electoral impact would
(39:42):
be of doing this bit of uh proLGBT legislation.
And um what they did end upsaying was if a case gets taken
to the European court, and theEuropean court finds Against the
UK.
We can then turn round toeveryone and say we have to do
(40:07):
this.
And they were as good as theirword.
A very brave young couple tooka case to the European court.
The court found in theirfavour.
The government then introducedlegislation to equalize the age
of consent.
When the House of Lords votedit down, they invoked the
(40:32):
Parliament Act to force itthrough the House of Lords the
following session.
And of course, when the Age ofConsent was equalized, the
electoral roof didn't fall in.
Everyone thought actually thisis quite a sensible bit of
(40:54):
reforming legislation.
It passed without a ripple ofconcern amongst the voters.
And from that moment onwards,it was very easy to persuade the
Prime Minister's office to doall the rest of the reforms
which we were able to putthrough.
(41:16):
And of course, he will now talkabout this as one of the great
achievements of his government.
James (41:23):
What role did you play in convincing Prime Minister, his
office, the political advisorsand other things that that this
list of stuff that that had beenon the kind of big problems
list, things that needed to befixed.
These are the core inequalitiesin law.
You know, this needs to befixed by this government.
Chris (41:42):
There were a number of us, uh, people like Michael
Cashman and uh Wahid Ali, whowere trying to uh uh press the
Prime Minister's office to makeprogress.
There was the initialreluctance, but after that it
became much easier.
Is it something you're proudof?
(42:03):
Oh, I'm very proud of havingbeen part of a government that
uh made such a lot oflegislative change.
I I would add one thing, whichis that uh I think the public
were actually well ahead of thepoliticians on this.
And one of the reasons why itbecame so easy to uh get the
(42:29):
raft of uh legislative changethrough was not so much because
politicians had uh pressed forit, uh not even so much uh that
uh there were prominent actorsand MPs and others uh who had
come out, but it was thatordinary people in their family,
(42:55):
in amongst their friends, intheir workplace, in their
neighborhood had uh been comingout, had been saying, Yes, I am.
And uh because their friendsand their families and their
neighbors uh were um realizingwell they're perfectly normal
(43:15):
people, uh that attitudes hadchanged fundamentally over the
course of the uh 80s and 90s.
James (43:25):
It's easy to understand that the the kind of the
Conservative government that hadbeen in under Margaret Thatch
and to and John Major at thattime hadn't decided to move
ahead with public opinion.
But how how is it that uh manypoliticians, including Labour
politicians, hadn't alsorecognized how much public
opinion had moved forward?
Chris (43:45):
I think partly because the uh the tabloid press hadn't
yet caught up.
And uh so you had this barragethrough the whole of the 80s and
early 90s, this barrage fromthe uh uh tabloids about um uh
Jenny Lives With Eric andMartin, about the so-called
(44:08):
lesbian gym mats uh that uh uhwere purchased by a London
authority, uh, the uh lesbianand gay centre that opened in
London.
I the the the tabloid presswere just frothing at the mouth
about all of this, and and thatcreated an adverse hostile
(44:31):
atmosphere, and I think thataffected quite a number of
politicians.
Meanwhile, of course, thepublic were uh way ahead of
everyone.
James (44:44):
And and yeah, we we we we heard a lot about the tabloids
from Michael Cashman, who wealso interviewed on this
podcast, is really worthlistening to.
And he had a brick through hiswindow, one of a number of
bricks through the window afterthe News of the World published
his address of him where him andhis partner lived.
And it does feel as though thetabloids' influence in the UK
(45:04):
has, as we well, we know this,has been has been very negative
on on uh LGBT issues.
How has that media landscapechanged?
And how did that change in thetime that you were in
parliament, particularly?
Chris (45:17):
I think eventually uh the tabloids just woke up to the
fact that uh they were out ofdate.
The best demonstration of thatwas when we did bring in civil
partnerships, and Elton John andDavid Furnish did uh one of the
very first civil partnerships,and the sun had this big spread
(45:42):
about Elton and David, theycouldn't resist um a snide
headline uh which was Eltontakes David up the aisle.
Um but because there was a sortof celebratory mood amongst
people who were just thinkingabout time too, uh the the
(46:04):
tabloids sort of caught up.
Jonathan (46:06):
And then I'd love to just talk about your decision to
come out publicly as ATVpositive.
Chris (46:11):
Well, as I mentioned earlier, I I had uh decided for
many years to say nothingpublicly about it.
And uh the Sunday Times, therewas a reporter at the Sunday
Times who phoned me up.
This was about 2003, and said,We have information uh about
(46:35):
your health, and uh we'd like totalk with you about it.
James (46:39):
I knew immediately that were you expecting this call at
some point?
Were you surprised in some waythat it had taken until 2003?
Chris (46:47):
I I was a bit surprised, although uh they did say one of
your doctors has uh told us uh Istill don't believe them on
that, because I'm absolutelycertain that no doctor worth
their salt uh would revealdetails of uh an individual
(47:10):
patient.
But uh they had found outsomehow, and I remember saying
to him, Well, um, if you'regoing to do anything on this, uh
I uh need to speak directly toyour editor.
Within half an hour, JohnWitherow, who was then the
editor of the Sunday Times,phoned me up and he said, Uh, we
(47:35):
have information that you areHIV positive.
Uh and I said, Yes, I am, but Ido not want you to publish
anything at this point on this.
Uh and as you will well know,it is it would be in flagrant
breach of the editorial code ofconduct for you to reveal
(47:58):
someone's health details withouttheir consent.
And uh he said, uh, okay, uh wewon't run the story.
And I said, uh, in return foryou not running the story, I
know that at some point I willwant to say something about my
(48:20):
HIV status, and when I do, Iwill do it with the Sunday
Times.
And uh so we made a deal, anduh he was as good as his work,
they they sat on the story foruh a couple of years and uh uh
it it was then the thing thattriggered my decision was Nelson
(48:44):
Mandela at the funeral of hisson, who had died of AIDS, uh uh
giving a speech that said, wemust stop hiding this, we must
be open about it, we must talkabout it, because unless we do
that, we're never going to makeprogress against HIV.
(49:07):
And I just thought, uh, well,perhaps now is the time to uh to
do this.
So I phoned up the Sunday Timesand I said, uh I'm ready to run
with the story.
And they literally cleared thefront page and um uh and ran the
story together with uh lots ofcomment uh inside.
(49:31):
And remarkably, with theexception of a hostile article
in the Daily Mail a couple ofdays later, the press almost
universally was very supportiveand positive about the uh the
story.
The very best moment was on theMonday morning I walked into my
(49:54):
parliamentary office and therewas a note on the desk saying uh
please ring Mr.
Mandela and a telephone numberin South Africa.
And uh so I dialed this number,and picking up the phone at the
other end was Nelson Mandela uhsaying uh I just wanted to say
(50:20):
thank you for uh what you've uhsaid, and uh it it makes a real
difference, and um uh we're allvery grateful.
Um and that conversation almostmade the whole thing worth it.
James (50:39):
Wow, that's amazing.
And he he you presumably wereable to relate to him that it
was kind of his call to actionthat prompted the.
Yes, I've got I've got thearticle here, and and it's it's
a it's an incredible op-ed thatyou that you've written, and you
do make the the argument thatthat HIV is not a death
sentence.
That's fundamentally theargument you're making.
(51:00):
But what's really interestingis, and this is not part of what
you've written, but it's partof the wider article the time
the Sunday Times put together,is it has a list, a bullet point
list called long-term HIVsurvivors include.
And it's got a list.
And it but my reflection seeingthat uh makes me think you just
wouldn't have a list like thatnow.
(51:22):
It's just it's now because ofadvances in medicine, because of
advances in awareness andpeople getting tested and
understanding that that beingtested is important, and then
and then of course, morerecently things like prep that
make transmission more difficultand the work of the Terence
Higgins Trust and others thatyou don't you don't think about
(51:43):
a sort of almost a remarkablelist of people that have
survived with HIV long-term inin averted commas.
Chris (51:50):
And of course, uh there are two further MPs uh who have
uh one no longer an MP, um uhwho have uh uh come out as being
HIV positive since uh I did it.
Um and uh uh the the presshaven't uh gone to town um on
(52:15):
it.
Um and uh I think we are nowgetting to a position where it's
no longer big news in the sameway that people coming out as
being gay is no longer big news.
James (52:32):
And for you personally, you know, it's almost coming out
for the second time.
How how did that feel in termsof was it another was it a
similar feeling to the first?
Chris (52:45):
I it it I was every bit as nervous as I was um earlier
on.
I had no idea what the uhresponse was going to be.
It of course appeared in theSunday Times overnight on the
Saturday night and uh Sundaymorning.
I can remember hordes ofjournalists uh outside my house
(53:10):
the uh uh the following day.
I uh did a television uhinterview first thing in the
morning, and then I spoke toreporters um uh outside my
house, and uh and I found myselfsaying, Um, well, yeah, I've
(53:31):
said everything I'm going tosay, and um please uh pack up
your bags and go home.
And they did.
Um uh and and I can remember Iwas saying two things.
Um the first was um, I hopeI've been able to demonstrate
(53:51):
that it is possible to have HIVand to live a perfectly normal,
productive, contributing life.
Um uh and secondly, um in aperverse kind of way, I've been
lucky because I've had HIV in acountry where there is a
(54:14):
national health service, wherethere are um uh doctors with
real expertise and knowledge,and uh where access to uh
therapy is um uh is relativelyeasy.
And uh there are hundreds ofthousands of people around the
world who are not so lucky.
(54:37):
Um, and we need to rememberthem.
Jonathan (54:40):
You started your tertiary education at Cambridge.
You are here again atCambridge, now as the master of
Pembroke College, and you havethe privilege, I guess, of
seeing young people matriculatethrough this institution and go
out into the world.
Do you have a message for them?
Is there a message that youshare with all of your
(55:01):
experience, all of the thingsthat you've been through that
you have for young people today?
Chris (55:06):
I do indeed have a message, and it's um uh
something that I say to all ofour graduating students uh uh
when I do a speech on the eve oftheir graduation ceremony.
Um and it's uh yeah, I have tosay I uh I must apologize on
(55:28):
behalf of my generation for theworld that we are bequeathing to
you.
Uh we are living in very darkand uh uh desperate times.
The combination of COVID,Brexit, um uh climate change,
(55:49):
Ukraine, um, Israel and Gaza, umuh and now with a daily horror
show uh from the White House,times are very difficult, and
that's the world that youngpeople are uh going into.
But I say to them, you must notdespair, because every single
(56:13):
one of you can light your candleagainst the darkness, and
together you will illuminate theworld.
James (56:21):
I think that's an extremely empowering and
positive message to end on.
It's so the times hard to seebeyond the doom and gloom of the
world we're living in.
But if anything, from today,your life experience has shown
how much things can change, canimprove, can grow.
But it's also because of theactions of people like you and
(56:42):
people that you were workingwith and other activists and
others that are in this spacethat has made that happen.
And I think one of the messagesthat I feel that I've just
taken away from what you've justsaid is if we want to make that
change, we have to, we have topush for that change.
We have to keep pushing and wehave to keep on attacking
ignorance where it's where itwhere it raises its head and and
(57:04):
pushing back on those thatwould want to roll back our
rights.
And we have to keep on pushingthat.
That fight doesn't stop, itneeds to continue.
Chris (57:12):
It does indeed.
And uh one of the things we arelearning increasingly, I think,
is we can't and mustn't rest onour laurels.
Uh the progress, the genuineprogress that we have made over
the last 30 or 40 years in LGBTequality here in the UK.
(57:36):
Um, we constantly need todefend it, to maintain it.
Um, we have only to look acrossthe other side of the Atlantic
and see how easily things can berolled back.
And um we mustn't let thathappen here.
Jonathan (57:55):
Thank you so much.
It's been such a pleasure.
Chris (57:58):
Thank you.
Jonathan (58:02):
Thank you for listening to The View from Here.
Of course, there's a lot ofpolitics in any movement, but
the political views you've heardacross the series don't
necessarily reflect the views ofthe podcast.
James (58:13):
If you enjoyed this episode, please consider
subscribing and leaving areview, as well as sharing the
word on social media.
Join us next time for morepersonal stories from the front
lines of LGBTQ history.
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