Simon Hughes - A question of honesty?

9.45.18am GMT Thu 26th Jan 2006

Simon Hughes MP

I awoke this morning to a plethora of text messages arriving telling me the Sun newspaper's headline. Simon Hughes has come out as gay according to the paper (but if you read what he says it would actually seem he has come out as bisexual). Why did Simon deny being gay so many times in the last week?

The Liberal Democrats recently run an election campaign where they talked about 'honesty' and 'trust' and we have seen this year that Kennedy, Oaten and Hughes have all had severe failings in this area. Hughes sexuality, like Kennedy's drinking has been an open secret in the Liberal Democrats for a while. Obviously I have no problem with what he does in his private life but why lie?

The Sun's reporting of this has been terrible though, below is a selection of their front page headlines - I think they speak for themselves:

A second limp-dem confesses "I'm gay too"

Another one bites the pillow: Pages 6 and 7