Labour Activist Quits Post Over Anti-Catholicism

Conor McGinn has had enough of it. And he's not the only one.

Among other things, McGinn took exception to remarks made by Labour MEP Mary Venomball in a recent piece for the Graun's Comment is Free blog. In an unrelenting miasma of anti-Catholic bile Venomball used one of the oldest anti-Catholic charges in the book - that of divided loyalties - as she openly queried whether Roman Catholics should be discriminated against in front bench Labour politics.

"Anti-Catholicism, although it doesn't overtly manifest itself, is ingrained," McGinn said. "They are, in effect, questioning the loyalty of Catholics and using Guy Fawkes-era language".

Quite so. And why should Roman Catholics have to put up with it? Precisely how can someone as anti-Catholic as Venomball be expected to represent her Roman Catholic constituents?

McGinn reportedly emailed Venomball about her bigoted trash. Unsurprisingly, the insolent baggage didn't bother to reply to him. As ever bigotry is accompanied by bad manners.

Word is getting out about hostility to Roman Catholics in the Labour Party. If it carries on unchecked and liabilities like Venomball continue to belch out their flatulent anti-Catholicism, Roman Catholics might just reciprocate in their own way. At the ballot box.

After the HFE Bill

Predictably, Pro choice campaigners are cock-a-hoop over their recent successful defence of the abortion status quo.
I'm not sure that they aren't being overly hasty. Not because they didn't fight a sterling campaign - they did. It was organised and professional and made Alive & Kicking look totally shambolic in comparison.
But the vote seemed out of kilter with the public mood. There's just something in the air, something one can't quite put one's finger on, something vague and intangible but nonetheless discernible. It's as if the wind has just changed direction on abortion.
On the eve of the 1979 General Election, "Sunny" Jim Callaghan's adviser Bernard Donoghue was urging him to make one last push for victory. But the old sage could just sense change in the air.
"There are times, perhaps once every 30 years, when there is a sea-change in politics." he said. "It then does not matter what you say or what you do... there is now such a sea-change and it is for Mrs Thatcher."
The times were different, so was the subject but his words capture that feeling of a shift in the public mood which I think now hangs around the abortion issue.
It may well be better luck next time.

DO THE RIGHT THING

AM I NOT A MAN AND A BROTHER?

Aaah, Blunkett rises to speak

It's long been known - by this blog at least - that he has serious reservations about removing the need for a father. He was deeply unhappy that the Bill might be whipped, telling another Labour MP that he couldn't understand what kind of message the government were sending out to people. Let's see how he votes.

HFE Bill Cont

Pudgy self-important Brighton Kemptown MP Desmond Turner made to look like a complete tit at least twice during his rambling, self-contradictory speech, first by Geraldine Smith who corrected him for invoking the Human Rights Act, second by Iain Duncan Smith who asked him whether he'd actually read the 1990 legislation. Of course he hadn't. I hope he hasn't the gall ever to talk about childrens' rights in the future.

Free Speech For Thee But Not For Me

Illiberal Democrat pointedly calls for a "measured" debate on the HFE Bill and then, er, makes emotive reference to debilitating diseases and the hope offered for their cures by embryonic stem cell research ... continued ad nauseam by 94 sheep like MPs.

Oh and a dumb Nu Labour bird in a vomit green jacket mentions Playboy-funded no member group Anti Catholics for a Free Choice. Unsurprisingly the stupid fool then goes on to misrepresent the actualite of continuous and consistent Roman Catholic Church teaching on the sanctity of human life. Go ahead, egregriously disrespect Catholic Labourites, you know it makes electoral sense.

Brave Labour MP Geraldine Smith speaks well - she looks good too, with a flattering new coiffeur - putting the case for ethical science and childrens' rights. And she deals well with smartarse questions from Evan Harris. You ask Martin Evans and Robin Lovell Badge why they said the writing was on the wall for embryonic stem cell research, why they couldn't think of any experiments which could be conducted with human animal hybrids and then back these very procedures. You ask them about the self evident contradictions in their positions.

The sound of incredulous laughter ...

... Alan Johnson fatuously declares that the government has treated Labour MPs with ethical concerns about the HFE Bill with "sensitivity". Tosser.