Kieren McCarthy

This story, its unpleasant origins and its concerted prejudice, are a time capsule. But one that was only opened this month - and even that took that an enormous amount of effort

In related news: I came across the clipping because I was clearing out my house as part of a big move back to the UK this summer with my family. I intend to start wading back into the UK’s political and journalistic world. This clipping is a further spur

Incidentally Evan Harris used to be my MP when I lived in Oxford and I met/interviewed him a few times when he supported the Pro-Test movement - another fascinating story. I asked him some hard questions and was impressed with his responses. I may even have a tape of it somewhere

For some reason, I had cut out and kept this clipping and I came across it literally yesterday while doing a clear out. Clearly something about the story seemed off. And now, 16 years later, thanks to Evan Harris suing The Sun, we now know what it was

The story is a pure manufacture built entirely around homophobic shorthand - public toilets - and stemmed from what was likely illegal eavesdropping. It has no value except to feed readers’ prejudice and undercut a politician.

The newspaper clipping pictured above shows how The Sun likely used phone hacking to get hold of personal information - that Hughes was bisexual - and then used it as the foundation for concerted character attack.

“[Harris] also said NGN had disclosed other documents which Dr Harris believes reveal that fellow former Liberal Democrat MP Sir Simon Hughes was ‘outed’ by The Sun as bisexual based on an itemised phone bill said to have shown Sir Simon calling a gay chat line.”

“Dr Harris accepted ‘substantial damages’ from NGN, publisher of the now-defunct News of the World and The Sun, to settle his claim for unlawful information gathering.”

It’s from The Sun in Jan 2006 but became directly relevant this week when another LibDem MP, Evan Harris, settled with News Group Newspapers - owner of the Sun - over phone hacking claims.

Just general thoughts for now but I really think, especially with economic disparity and climate change, that we’re going to need this kind of effort to save ourselves before we get pulled into very dark times.

And, I think, we need an international agreement that whenever a country has had a single leader that has been in power for longer than 8-10 years, we need to start applying pressure and freezing them out of the global picture, regardless of who that country is.