Pint-sized and pompous; the Speaker is out of touch with the people

Think pint-sized, preening, pompous and vain glorious and you have John Bercow the Speaker of the House of Commons. Only this week he demonstrated yet again how out of touch the so called Tribune of the people is with public opinion by supporting a 30 per cent pay rise for MPs even though teachers, doctors and nurses have had their pay frozen.  At Prime Minister’s Questions each week he squeaks  and squawks like a parrot on heat who is unable to find a mate.

At barely 5ft 6in in his socks Bercow is one of the shortest Speakers since deranged Monarchs used to lop off their heads hundreds of years ago. With a £140,000 salary, and a taxpayer funded grace-and-favour apartment in the Palace of Westminster, he is well rewarded for his self-indulgent antics. But he is not just a little man physically, he shows by his reaction to criticism (you would think he is used to it by now) that he is a political pygmy in the hurly  burly of Westminster politics.

This week he barred me from a ceremony at Speaker’s House to install the redoubtable Ann Widdecombe as a Papal Dame a gift from the Pope to mark her sterling public and Christian work. Sir John Major, one of the most honourable occupants of 10 Downing Street, made the tribute speech in front of MPs from all sides of the House. Cardinal  Cormac Murphy O’Connor, the most senior roman catholic cleric in England and Wales, performed the investiture ceremony.

I was on the guest list until hawk eyed Bercow spotted my name and barred me from entering. What a silly little man  he is. He wasn’t even at the investiture ceremony. He’s done it before. He barred me from the launch of a gay networking organisation at Westminster which was being launched by Deputy speaker Nigel Evans. When Evans came out as a gay man he did so in an interview with me in the Daily Mail.

The ban was ironic considering Bercow has spent much of his political career banging on about equality issues. But his pride comes before everything else so no one is allowed in his temporarily rented property if like me they have had the temerity to point out that he is a pompous, puffed up, pipsqueak.

He also objects to my presence because he says I have been unfairly critical  of his wife who brought the office of Speaker into disrepute (again) by posing naked under a curtain in a room overlooking Big Ben and went into the Big Brother House where she rapidly  discovered what I have long known. People think she is a publicity crazed airhead, hence why she was voted out of the House first. Bercow probably hopes that by withdrawing the occasional invite to his apartment from his many critics that we will be silenced. There’s  no chance of that Little John. 

Think pint-sized, preening, pompous and vain glorious and you have John Bercow the Speaker of the House of Commons. Only this week he demonstrated yet again how out of touch the so called Tribune of the people is with public opinion by supporting a 30 per cent pay rise for MPs even though teachers, doctors and nurses have had their pay frozen.  At Prime Minister’s Questions each week he squeaks  and squawks like a parrot on heat who is unable to find a mate. At barely 5ft 6in in his socks Bercow is one of the shortest Speakers since deranged Monarchs used to lop off their heads hundreds of years ago. With a £140,000 salary, and a taxpayer funded grace-and-favour apartment in the Palace of Westminster, he is well rewarded for his self-indulgent antics. But he is not just a little man physically, he shows by his reaction to criticism (you would think he is used to it by now) that he is a political pygmy in the hurly  burly of Westminster politics. This week he barred me from a ceremony at Speaker’s House to install the redoubtable Ann Widdecombe as a Papal Dame a gift from the Pope to mark her sterling public and Christian work. Sir John Major, one of the most honourable occupants of 10 Downing Street, made the tribute speech in front of MPs from all sides of the House. Cardinal  Cormac Murphy O’Connor, the most senior roman catholic cleric in England and Wales, performed the investiture ceremony. I was on the guest list until hawk eyed Bercow spotted my name and barred me from entering. What a silly little man  he is. He wasn’t even at the investiture ceremony. He’s done it before. He barred me from the launch of a gay networking organisation at Westminster which was being launched by Deputy speaker Nigel Evans. When Evans came out as a gay man he did so in an interview with me in the Daily Mail. The ban was ironic considering Bercow has spent much of his political career banging on about equality issues. But his pride comes before everything else so no one is allowed in his temporarily rented property if like me they have had the temerity to point out that he is a pompous, puffed up, pipsqueak. He also objects to my presence because he says I have been unfairly critical  of his wife who brought the office of Speaker into disrepute (again) by posing naked under a curtain in a room overlooking Big Ben and went into the Big Brother House where she rapidly  discovered what I have long known. People think she is a publicity crazed airhead, hence why she was voted out of the House first. Bercow probably hopes that by withdrawing the occasional invite to his apartment from his many critics that we will be silenced. There’s  no chance of that Little John. 

The launch of Conservative Voice should make Mr Cameron very afraid

There is no love lost between two of the Tory Party’s biggest beasts David Davis and Liam Fox who were (and still are) bitter rivals in the 2005 Tory leadership contest.

Davis, the former shadow home secretary, and Fox who quit as Defence Secretary last year, are both battling to be seen as THE standard bearer of the Tory right.

Yet they managed to bury their obvious dislike of each other to make a rare joint appearance today for the launch of Conservative Voice. The group will campaign for small government, lower taxes, radical thinking in the delivery of public services, and more robust approach to Europe.

Davis and Fox may not like each other but they are united in their contempt for David Cameron.

They pledged loyalty of course but then the maverick Tory MP Nadine Dorries, who was at the launch, observed icily: ‘We need a kill Cameron strategy, not a voice.’

The group, which was set up by Don Porter, the former head of the voluntary party, will connect directly with party activists who have been deserting the party in droves in protest at daft policies such as gay marriage.

Mr Porter was also joined by Steve Barclay and Dominic Raab, two of the brightest MPs from the 2010 intake and whom should have been given high flying ministerial jobs by Mr Cameron but instead languish on the backbenches.  They loyally maintained that while they can make the case for traditional Tory values, Mr Cameron and his ministers are constrained by Coalition government.

Yes. But, only to a point. They have a point. But there is nothing to stop Mr Cameron and George Osborne, his chancellor, from repeating the mantra that the Tory Party believes in a smaller state, less government, tax cuts to stimulate demand to kick start the moribund economy, and a more sceptical stance on the EU. As messrs Cameron and Osborne won’t, let’s hope Conservative Voice steps in to fill the policy and philosophy vacuum.

The group is a welcome addition to the Conservative Party political landscape. If it’s successful it should operate as a thorn in the side of the Cameron leadership which steadfastly ignores the views of its natural supporters and paid-up party members.

It’s why the choice of Conservative Voice as the title of the new group is so simple but clever. Party members have been neutered by the control freaks in Tory leadership. If the Prime Minister was listening, he would long ago have abandoned the Lib Dem plan for gay marriage which is designed to appeal to Mr Cameron’s Notting Hill elite and would have at least advance don his case for a Bill of rights to replace the wretched Human Rights Act. 

Mr Cameron is in dangerous territory. If he continues to ignore the views of his MPs and party members who back good honest groups like Conservative Voice, then Nadine Dorries’s wish could yet become a political reality.

The signs of revolt are growing in Greece

‘Crisis, prices’ screamed the large sign in the window of an achingly fashionable clothes store on the Greek island of Mykonos. There are similar posters  in the island’s jewellery stores which are boasting 50 per cent discounts.

Mykonos, the most famous of the Cyclades islands lying between Naxos and Paros, is facing up to the grim reality of recession. For years the island, popular with the gay community and experienced cruisers (no pun intended),  has been immune from the reckless spending decisions of the Athens government.  Until now.

Now there is a palpable sense of  fear on some of the most popular tourist islands that the Greek government, which is even now still begging Germany for more time to try to reduce its deficit,  will drive them to ruin. The tell tale signs are there for all to see. Some beaches are virtually deserted.  Municipal bins are overflowing with uncollected rubbish.

Petrol, at almost £1.60 a litre, is even more expensive than in Britain. The result is fewer cars and taxis on the roads, which is just as well. Most of the windy roads are pitted with pot holes.  There is no sign of any police officers. Bars which traditionally heaved with young, well heeled holidaymakers, are now employing  people to hand out flyers offering cut-price drinks. The Happy Hour,  the staple of  the downmarket pub, has spread across Mykonos which prides itself on being a cut above the rest of its neighbours.

The anger of the traders is raw. They blame successive national governments for not just taking them into the Euro by cooking the books. But for maintaining the status quo when it is so obvious to ordinary people that Greece has to revert to the Drachma which would see a 40 per cent devaluation.  It will bring the visitors back who are deterred by the sky high prices such as £10 for a gin and tonic.

It will also do wonders for the national morale as most people on the islands that I talked too never wanted to give up the drachma in the first place. It is only the pride of the national politicians such as Germany’s Angela Merkel and the Greek PM Antonis Samaras which is stopping the single  currency from imploding. When Samaras appears on TV screens in bars there is a cacophony of jeers and insults. They hate the fact that Samaras is allowing the German Chancellor, a woman at that, to call all the shots. The country has lost its self-resect.

The Euro is now more than ever before a transparently political vanity project for the EU elite.

The longer Greece languishes in the Euro the more tavernas, restaurants and bars will be boarded up.

There are  already stirrings of a revolt. The hated ban on smoking in public places, introduced in September 2010, is being openly defied by traders across the region. Staff even smoke behind bars and there are ashtrays in most food and drink outlets. 

How long before they start breaking other laws such as withholding taxes, which in the past has been the preserve of Greece’s billionaire ship owners. If there is a revolt the Greek government will have only itself to blame. And the last thing the Greek government can afford is the scenes of public unrest in Athens spreading to its islands, the mainstay of its tourism industry. The Greek government has been warned.

Cameron needs to offer his party some red-meat- and be seen to lead the Coalition rather than be led by it

David Cameron will finally reshuffle his Cabinet next month but it will make precious little difference to the party’s parlous position in the polls.

The weakest link in the Cabinet (and there are plenty to choose from)  is the Chancellor George Osborne. Yet David Cameron has already indicated that Osborne, his closest friend, will not be moved which means continued paralysis in economic policy making, and the Tories slipping even further behind in the polls. It will be interesting to time the length of the obligatory standing ovation for the Chancellor and the Prime Minister when they address the Tory conference.

Hundreds of tickets for the conference hall are still unsold  which is why for the first time the party is offering cut-price access to the conference hall in Birmingham.  But the truth is the party faithful are no longer as faithful. The volunteers have had their patience tried and tested to bursting point since Cameron began his modernisation drive. In the last six months members have been leaving in droves in protest at  Cameron’s support for gay marriage, the revived policy of relaxing planning laws on the Green Belt, the failure to get to grips with immigration, and to reform the dreaded Human rights Act.

On Europe the party is in danger of losing critical support and members to Ukip who I predict will do well in the forthcoming Corby by-election  caused by the resignation of the A-Lister Louise Mensch.  But still Cameron and Osborne refuse to talk referendum because they think to do so will toxify the Tory brand. But when Cameron wielded the veto at an EU summit last year his personal approval ratings – and the Tories – soared to their highest level in years. Figures published today show that the Tories income fell by  around £250,000 in the last quarter to just over £3 million.

If Cameron does not offer his party some red meat – and be seen to lead the Coalition rather than be led by it – the  party in the country will simply die. And how can you fight local elections, for police commissioners, and the general election, without an army of volunteers willing to brave the elements to knock on doors to ensure their people go out to vote?

Sebastian Coe deserves his Olympic plaudits - but we must learn from the ticketing farce

One of the biggest cheers at the closing ceremony of the Olympic Games was for Sebastian Coe. He is now even more popular than when he memorably won his own four Olympic medals, including two golds, more than two decades ago.

It’s not surprising Lord Coe is being feted. An initial Olympics sceptic, I too warmed to the roar of the crowd and shared the tears of Sir Chris Hoy and Jessica Ennis.  But what if there had not been a great gold rush for Team GB? It may be heresy to suggest it, but if we had done badly in the medals table I suspect that people would have been baying for Coe’s head rather than cheering him to the rafters at the closing ceremony.

If our athletes had not performed so magnificently, would London 2012 really have been the greatest games on earth? Have we already forgotten the tens of thousands of empty seats during the first three or four days?

One fifth of accredited seats at the Olympics remained unfilled despite the organisers' efforts to reclaim them for general sale. There was genuine  anger from fans who were desperate to buy tickets, and found they had sold out on the London 2012 website while the TV pictures showed rafts of empty seats.

At Friday's opening session of track and field in the main stadium, where Jessica Ennis opened her bid for heptathlon gold, many seats in the area used by the international athletics federation were empty.

And then there were the rows over GS4 security. And the shoddy treatment of the soldiers drafted in to bolster the security effort. Did you see any of them in the crowds cheering on our finest? Even on Friday, as the Games were coming to an end, there were tickets going begging. As long as you had £700 in your begging bowl of course.

And what of the centre of London? It was deserted for large parts of the Olympics. Even the Ritz was offering cut price dinners to try to woo people in from the streets. The Olympic organisers - and Lord Coe must surely take some responsibility - simply frightened people away with their apocalyptic warnings of traffic and tube congestion.

The Zil lanes, for the pampered IOC officials, were redolent of Soviet controlled Moscow.

When the excitement has worn off there should be a proper analysis of the conduct of London 2012. The London Chamber of Commerce should be given a major input. I’m delighted Team GB did so well, and that the stadium was filled for the second week. But in our excitement we should not forget that in the few days before we struck gold, it looked like the Games could be a public relations disaster.

Calamity Clegg's shameful hypocrisy

Another week and another broken promise from the Lib Dems. Nick Clegg has been caught in the act (again) this time over political special advisers. When he revelled in the luxury of Opposition, when even the most deluded Lib Dem never ever expected they would be in government, Clegg issued holier than thou proclamations about what a Lib Dem government would or would not do.

So, in September 2009, in a policy document A Better Politics for Less, he pledged: ‘The [Labour] government employs 74 special advisers, an increase of 90 per cent since 1995, at a cost to the taxpayer of £5.9million each year. These are political jobs and therefore should be funded by political parties. Special advisers will not be paid for by the taxpayer.’

When he became Deputy Prime Minister he rapidly abandoned his pious commitment to slashing Whitehall’s ‘Spadocracy’ at the very time his personal approval ratings plumbed new low depths for modern political leaders. The Lib Dems have no fewer than 21 special advisers - and 14 of them are at the beck and call of Clegg. His cost £900,000. The total bill is £1.3 million. It’s not just the rank hypocrisy over the money that sticks in the craw.

Remember this is the party that is still refusing to repay the £2.4 million donation from the convicted fraudster Michael Brown who is behind bars once more even though it was transparently not his money to give. But the fact is the money is clearly being wasted. 

When Clegg moved into Downing Street he had an approval rating of plus 53 per cent and he had a mere three special advisers to serve him. By contrast, today he has 14 and his ratings are now languishing at minus 59 per cent. Even the hapless Labour leader Michael Foot, who was demolished by Margaret Thatcher in the 1983 election, never scaled such depths of public contempt.

The fact is Clegg has been found out on issues ranging from his U-turn over university tuition fees, raising VAT, or reneging on his commitment to  have a referendum on Europe.

The public has decided that Clegg is a hypocrite. No amount of special advisers will ever be able to change that

If Madonna's Hyde Park concert was a taste of Olympic chaos, I'm getting out of London now

‘Like a virgin,’ trilled Madonna in her open air concert at Hyde Park. I was the virgin too. My first open air pop concert….and my last.

The world’s most famous female vocalist was a mere speck on a far distant stage. You could hardly see her. There were not enough screens. And the wretched woman sang only a handful of the songs we had paid £80 to hear. Holiday, Lucky Star, Ray of Light featured in five second flashes and Papa don’t preach barely two minutes.

Not that we could even hear that well as  the volume control was so mixed. It’s why all around me conversations broke out as people were clearly bored, frustrated and restless. It was also a great commercial rip-off - no doubt a curtain raiser for the Olympic Games.

Those of us who had organised a picnic were dismayed to have our wine confiscated as our bags were searched.  Bottles of bubbly were also kept back by the over zealous security staff. Do you think they work for G4S?

My bottle, I insisted, was emptied on to the park to the evident fury and disappointment of the burly woman security guard, who could have done with a shave, and who clearly was looking forward to drinking my bottle of chilled chardonnay.

To quench our thirst we were forced into an airport style queue for warm miniature bottles of white wine with no ice at the cash only bar.  A jobsworth rampaged up and down bellowing instructions into a megaphone which neither the customers, let alone the bar staff, could understand. He sounded almost as garbled as Madonna. It’s why hundreds of fans were streaming home long before the end. And then of course we had to endure the usual nightmare journey home on the tube.

I think I’ve seen a glimpse of London 2012 – it’s why I might just be joining the great exodus out of London.

Yet another promise bites the dust from the double-dealing Lib Dems

Over the next two days MPs will make a rare appearance in the Commons chamber to debate House of Lords reform. A massive majority of Tory MPs are implacably opposed.

My understanding is that the majority of Tory Cabinet ministers are entirely sympathetic to their backbench rebels who will vote against.

They know that despite its failings the Lords regularly gives the government of the day a bloody nose. Tony Blair’s government was defeated only four times in the Commons in a decade – but more than 450 times in the Upper House. The Thatcher government was also regularly thwarted by their Lordships.

Nick Clegg has delivered a thinly-veiled warning to David Cameron that he must face down a major Tory rebellion and press ahead with Lords reform

The truth is, Tory or Labour, they do their job to revise and improve legislation coming from the Commons which is often shoddy and second rate.

As I have pointed out in my Daily Mail column, the current House of Lords has inflicted more than 50 defeats on the Coalition government. Proof again it is doing its job properly. Yet still the Lib Dems – who else? – are being indulged by this so called Conservative government which has made Lords reform the flagship legislation of the entire parliament.

Faced with the prospect of a major Tory rebellion the Lib Dems are now threatening to withdraw support for one of the more popular measures of this government – to reduce the number of MPs by 50. I would go further and cut the number by 250 to 400 but that is a debate for another day.

Richard Reeves, the Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg's outgoing adviser, has given a newspaper interview in which he has made public the threat to wreck the boundary changes if Lords reform is defeated. Yet another promise bites the dust from the dishonourable Lib Dems.

When David Cameron agreed to the referendum last year on AV (another pointless waste of time, effort and money) it was on the specific understanding that the Lib Dems back the boundary changes. The Lib Dems lost the referendum of course because voters are not interested in tinkering with the constitution especially at a time of national emergency over the economy.

Cameron is now talking of offering a national vote on Lords’ reform. No, Prime Minister. Let the Tories stay true to the maxim: If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it. And if the Lib Dems walk away, agree to a referendum. But not on Lords reform. On the EU. He will win the next election by a landslide and bury the wretched Lib Dems in the process.

Has anyone asked the Queen if she wants to shake hands with McGuinness? Let's hope she has disposable gloves

After the extraordinary highs of the Diamond Jubilee celebrations the Queen is  brought back to earth with a horrible jolt. On the advice of her government, which she feels she can’t resist, she will shake hands with the former terrorist turned double dealing politician Martin McGuinness. 

David Cameron should hang his head in shame for putting the Queen in the position where she felt she had no option but to follow her ministers’ advice to meet such a terrible man on British soil. Let’s hope  McGuiness, the Deputy first Minister of Northern Ireland, walks through a metal detector before he meets his head of state and that she is wearing disposable gloves.

The encounter will be excruciating for her. It will bring back unhappy memories of 1978 when she was required by the then Labour government to sit alongside the Romanian despot Nicolae Ceausescu  in a carriage procession to Buckingham Palace. He was shot dead by his own people in a popular  uprising some 15 years later. McGuinness is a former deputy commander of the IRA. At the very least he ordered murder and has never apologised for the 30 years of bloodshed.  

He insists that he left the IRA in 1974 after serving time for transporting weapons.  I don’t believe him. He should be ordered to undergo a lie detector test.  There have been at least eight acclaimed books which accuse him of being at the very heart of the IRA for more than two decades after he claimed to have left. The authors are  all  ‘misinformed’,  according to McGuinness. But the money grabbing Sinn Fein MP,  who has milked hundreds of thousands of pounds in expenses from the Westminster Parliament even though he has never set foot in the building because he will not swear an oath of allegiance  to the Queen, has conspicuously not sued for defamation. 

When he ran for the presidency of Ireland last year – a sickening prospect for the thousands of victims of  the  IRA  -  he exploded in rage when he was asked how he  could reconcile his devout Roman Catholicism with being involved in the murder of so many people. He never answered the question of course but at least his obfuscation  helped put paid to his offensive  presidential  ambitions.  Last year Gay Byrne, Ireland’s most celebrated TV interrogator, asked about the difficulties of interviewing McGuinness and his revolting cohort Gerry Adams, replied:  ‘’You get no where with them. They lie. They lie and lie all the time.’  Indeed they do. In fairness, after 60 years on the throne, there can be few public tasks that will throw the Queen of her stride. But when she extends her hands to McGuinness  will she see flashbacks of the death of her much loved cousin Lord Mountbatten. 

It was the IRA that in 1979 blew up his fishing boat killing also  his 14-year-old grandson Nicholas Knatchbull,  and a 15-year-old crew member, Paul Maxwell. The Dowager Lady Brabourne, his daughter’s mother in law, died from her injuries the following day. Nicholas’s mother, father and twin brother were seriously injured. There was no word of condemnation from McGuinness.  In 1984 a serious plot by the IRA to assassinate Prince Charles and Princess  Diana was uncovered.

Yet still the Queen has agreed to put aside  any feelings of personal animosity and agreed to come face to face with McGuinness whose IRA harmed or made threats against her family for decades. The Brighton Bomb in 1984 was an attempt to assassinate Margaret Thatcher, her first woman Prime Minister. There were fatalities and Lord Tebbit’s wife Margaret has been in a wheelchair ever since. The handshake — which is unlikely to be in public — will take place at an event sponsored by Co-operation Ireland, which works to bring divided communities together -  in the Lyric Theatre in south Belfast. It was made possible after the first State visit to Ireland for 100 years. After  bowing her head in the Dublin Garden of Remembrance, speaking in Gaelic, and dressing in various shades of emerald green, the Queen advanced the cause of reconciliation with a diplomatic  triumph which was remarkable even by her standards. And where was the lily livered McGuiness?

The Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland refused an opportunity to meet the Queen. After the success of the visit he realised it was a serious tactical blunder in a career littered with them. Hence his wish now for the handshake to take place. Downing Street should have rejected his unwanted advances. 

What purpose does it serve today by forcing  the Queen to embrace this dishonest  thug whose organisation  wreaking death and destruction on his own people  - and as recently as 1996 had the Queen herself on a on a death list. I’m glad it will not be televised. I couldn’t bear to watch our great Queen have to extend any public courtesy to such a disgusting, dishonest,  debased  little man.

 

Johnny come lately Lord Browne is demanding quotas for gays in the boardroom, the worst form of social engineering

When he was chief executive of BP Lord Browne of Madingley, often described as Tony Blair’s favourite businessman, was one of the most influential men on the planet.

In 2005 he was asked by the Financial Times if he was gay. He replied ‘you have got the wrong man there’. The journalists knew that he was lying. His sexuality was an open secret in certain circles.

Browne, in his speech at Arup this week to launch the company’s Connect Out gay networking organisation, revealed he had lived in the closet for so long was because of his mother Paula.

Mrs Browne regularly accompanied her son to BP social events to the evident bemusement of some of his colleagues. David Laws, who resigned as Chief Secretary to the Treasury over his expenses fiddle, also cited his aged mother for hiding his sexuality. Simon Hughes, the Lib Dem MP, came up with something similar.

Does anyone really think their mothers hadn’t worked it out for themselves? I told my Roman Catholic mother, to whom I was equally devoted, in 1983 long before homosexuality had become a fashionable cause. My sexuality was not a problem for my parents who would have loved me equally whether I was straight or gay.

But Browne, in his speech, went further. ‘My mother, whom I dearly loved, rejected any discussion of my sexuality, as many parents do. With her background of being persecuted she was sure that the same would happen to me.

After all, that is what she had seen in Auschwitz.’ I was in the audience to hear Browne’s speech. No one argued with his extraordinary reasoning. But afterwards many people agreed that he could and should have persuaded his mother that living a lie was making him unhappy and, I’m afraid to say, a laughing stock among his senior colleagues.

Of course people are entitled to be private about their sexuality. But people who are in exalted positions such as Lord Browne have a duty to be honest. It would have made it so much easier for other gay men and lesbians to come out in industry if he had done the right thing.

Now Johnny come lately Browne is demanding quotas for gays in the boardroom, which is the worse form of social engineering. If Browne had come out voluntarily he would have received a similar positive reaction to the international rugby player Gareth Thomas who came out in 2009. Sadly, Mrs Browne died 12 years ago.

But still Browne continued to live a lie. He was eventually forced out of the closet in 2007 when he was exposed as having lied in court documents over his lover, a male escort, who he trying to block from selling his story of their life together to a Sunday newspaper. It caused his resignation from BP.

A great career ended in ruins because his refusal to publicly acknowledge his sexuality meant he was reduced to consorting with a male escort who by definition was only interested in the money. Browne never revealed the truth about the manner of his outing in his speech the other day.

The humiliation clearly still runs deep. He says he now feels liberated and more relaxed. I’m glad he does. But I’m still troubled by Browne’s apparent conversion to talking publicly about his homophobia in the boardroom.

During questions at the end I asked him if he would take the same route, and cover-up his sexuality if he had his time again and if that was the only way to ensure he could rise to become Britain’s most successful businessman. His answer spoke volumes about his priorities in life.

‘That is a difficult question,’ he said. ‘I don’t know the answer.’ What an incredibly sad response. Being true to himself, and honest with his friends and family, would have made Lord Browne a more confident and relaxed person and perhaps an even more accomplished businessman.