Goodbye, Clause 28

Section 28, that preposterous and offensive chunk of legislation banning ‘promotion’ of homosexuality in schools, is to be repealed on November 18th, when the Local Government Bill comes into effect. The BBC has a report but, for whatever reason, this significant change to the law in England and Wales hasn’t garnered much attention elsewhere.

It’s worth noting that Labour’s previous efforts to do away with the Clause were blocked in the Lords - thanks to the late, vile Baroness Young - and a last ditch attempt by her successor in the Tory’s unofficial campaign to promote homophobia, Baroness Blatch, to make the repeal dependent on granting parents the right to vet schools’ sex education materials failed last July, in a close-run vote. The point being that the Labour government are doing next-to-nothing to rid us of an unelected upper chamber, so we can look forward to future reforms being hampered by peers who answer to no one and in no way represent the people of Britain. Great.

Posted at 1pm on 20/09/03 by Jack Mottram to the politics category.
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