Following Pink News‘ investigation which revealed that Gordon has consistently failed to turn up to vote for gay rights, his SpAd Damian McBride went off on one: “This is a ridiculous, irresponsible and shameful piece of garbage from a newspaper which does not understand the parliamentary process. If The Pink News wants to portray Gordon Brown as homophobic, can they explain why he has done more than any politician in history to reform the tax system in favour of gay couples”.

Editor Marc Shoffman said: “Pink News does not believe the report was irresponsible, whilst we understand the time pressures of the Chancellor, the fact is that if the Whips believe the legislation was ‘flagship’ this suggests that someone who themselves seeks to become Prime Minister should also attend... The Treasury is a 5 minute walk from the House of Commons, if you passionately believe in something you can take some time out of the day to vote for it, especially as many of the votes were conducted outside of office hours.”

Gordon has on 14 separate occasions failed to vote when issues relating to gay equality were voted on. He has failed to support the government’s equalisation of the age of consent, the abolition of Section 28, gay couples being able to jointly adopt, civil partnerships and the Equality Act. Tony Blair made the votes…