MATTHEW PARRIS
Why didn’t I celebrate Oscar Wilde’s birthday?
Would Peter Tatchell feel comfortable at
this reception? No. Does that matter? No.
Peter’s a hero, but heroes are for epochs as
horses are for courses. A change has come.
Tatchell helped bring it, but that work is done.
Here on Park Lane we were celebrating. And
if some of those celebrating would not have
been with us in the difficult days, then praise
be! We have brought them over.
I looked into the mêlée: a room full of
goodwill and friendliness and, yes, maybe a
touch of wanting to be seen: a touch of the
‘darling — everyone was there’ ... but that’s a
good thing, isn’t it? Great that everyone was
there. Better than those grim Blackpool gath-erings when nobody was there, and the few
that were didn’t want to be seen?
A super party organised by an admira-
ble man, and packed with top people. Wilde
would have adored every minute. After a long
battle, we’ve arrived at last. Even bishops. So,
happy birthday, Oscar — but allow me to
peek in at the jolly crowd, as it were, unseen;
whisper a contented ‘mission accomplished’,
then tiptoe away: to toast success quietly, and
alone. [ENDS]
Version Two
[CONTINUES] ...I struggle to explain.
Where were these people when we needed
them? Where were they when Oscar, whose
birthday they were now toasting, needed
them? Where were they when he stood in the
dock? Where were they when the door to his
cell in Reading Gaol locked shut?
I think it was the bishop that proved the
last straw. You could spot the purple at once.There he was at the Grosvenor House, a glass
in his hand amid all those braying people as
the champagne flowed. Yes I realise — you’ve
no need to tell me — that there were Angli-
can churchmen who supported our cause
from the start. It’s possible, even likely, that
this cleric had fought alongside the best of
us; possible, even likely, that he had always
spoken out. I doubt he took any part in the
Church of England’s campaign against equal
marriage. Perhaps his voice has joined the
outcry in Belize against the finally unsuccess-
ful Anglican campaign to stop the decriminal-
isation of homosexuality...
But, oh, I don’t know, just seeing a bishop,
and remembering what the Anglican and
Roman Catholic churches have done to
hurt us over the years, and still do, suddenly
enraged me. The church will turn, of course.
It will turn late, but it will turn. It will turn
in our favour as the English establishment
has turned — the English establishment, with
its marvellous, self-serving capacity to sniff
change in the wind, and change with it. Do
these people believe — really believe — any-
thing? Or do they just know when to duck?
The braying seemed to grow louder. Dar-
ling, everyone was there. No, don’t knock
Gyles: he was with our campaign before the
Hooray people would touch the issue, and if
he’s bringing the Hooray people on board
— well, why complain? Besides, let’s not kid
ourselves Oscar was some kind of gay liber-
ationist. Wilde sought pleasure, not justice.
Tatchell would have horrified him. Oscar
would have been networking happily among
the grand here. Oscar with a placard on a gay
pride march? It defies the imagination.
It’s just that — oh, I don’t know — after
all, if same-sex love had been easier then, I’d
be dead now. But it was so bloody wretched
in the 1980s: Tory friends advising me to leave
this issue alone. The closed doors, ministeri-
al brick walls, heart-rending letters from gay
men, frightened teenagers, lonely bank clerks
entrapped by the police.
And now this, this Babylon, this celebrity
fizz. As though none of that ever happened.
As though this crowd had always thought
what they think now. They probably think
they did.
Am I bitter? Yes. I paused at the doors,
and turned back, hardly knowing why.O
n Wednesday 19 October at the
Grosvenor House Hotel on Park
Lane in London, a reception was
held to celebrate Oscar Wilde’s birthday.
Invited by the excellent Gyles Brandreth, I
arrived in good time. But as I approached
the doors of the reception room, something
stopped me.
These are the facts. But what is the expla-
nation?
A few months ago Boris Johnson wrote
two newspaper columns, one in favour of a
proposition, one against. As an exercise in
clearing one’s mind, the approach has much
to commend it. So, to clear my own mind,
let me try the same plan. There follow two
alternative submissions of the diary item that
could follow the first two paragraphs above.
Version One
[CONTINUES] [NEW PAR] I struggle to
explain. All these years — decades — of push-
ing hopelessly against an epoch whose face
was set against us. I had almost despaired:
thought nothing could change. Then eve-
rything did. So fast. There was something
dreamlike in this now- fashionable scene.
Smart people pushed past me. There was air-
kissing, there was laughter. Was I dreaming?
Had I fallen asleep after yet another dismal
evening at yet another 1980s Tory conference:
yet again in Blackpool, directing yet again the
little gaggle of embarrassed conference-goers
to our fringe event that the conference guide
refused to list: down the stairs at a cheap hotel
where the signs I’d handwritten (‘CGHE’ —
we didn’t want the word ‘homosexual’ spelt
out) pointed?
And now this. All credit to Gyles, a stal-
wart who even before it was fashionable sup-
ported our cause in Commons votes — but
who now brings a dash of establishment
glamour. Only last year he got the Duchess
of Cornwall along for the same event...
And what’s this? Entering the busy room
was a bishop in all his purple, offered a glass
of champagne from a handsome waiter’s tray.
In Blackpool it had been crisps and warm
white wine — and that unsettling fellow with
an untucked shirt who haunted our fringe
event every year, spooking our attempts to
feel mainstream and respectable. Now bish-
ops and peers and government ministers
graced Gyles’s gathering.
I think it was the bishop that proved the
last straw. You could spot the purple
at once. There he was, glass in hand‘I’ve added Boris to my bucket list!’