Now Simon Hughes Is Forced To Tell The Truth About HIS "Secret"

In an stunning about face, Simon Hughes today attends the confession box in the the form of an exclusive interview with The Sun's Trevor Kavanagh.

• Simon tells Trevor he has had homosexual relationships.

• Special Bets find this hard to tally with Simon's unnecessary statement to the Independent ten days ago that he has not.

• This appears to have been prompted not by a bout of honesty on Hughes' part but by information The Sun have on Simon's involvement with a gay chat service — "Man Talk".

The Sun points out that Hughes won his Commons seat in 1983 against a backdrop of anti-gay campaigning designed to erode support for Peter Tatchell — the gay-rights campaigner who opposed him. During the by-election the Lib-Dems presented him as “the straight choice”.

We're surprised at Simon's naiveity in this whole "is he or isn't he" saga. Hughes is a single man, and so we're confused as to why Hughes felt the need to lie so publically about this issue.
We agree with Simon's previous statements that the country IS ready to accept a gay party leader - but what was the need for the bare faced denial?

As we have written before the Lib Dem leadership campaign has been highly damaging to the image of the party. Another contender for the leadership has been forced into an embarrassing admission of deceit. We suspect that the reaction to Hughes' volte face on this issue will not be of sympathy, but rather of anger and confusion that yet another would be Prime Minister was not able to do what David Cameron chose to do on drugs and tell the truth about his private life.

Had Hughes told us about this issue previously, voluntarily - this could have been positive for his image - a missed opportunity for Hughes which potentially spells the end of his campaign in our view. View The Best Odds On The Lib Dem Leadership here;

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