Benedict Cumberbatch played the part of Alan Turing in the film The Imitation Game recently. Turing cracked the German “Enigma” code and is considered a hero of World War II.
According to The Independent, last February, the real-life family of Alan Turing visited Downing Street to demand that the British government pardon 49,000 men who – like Turing – were prosecuted for being homosexual.
In England, homosexuality was illegal until it was decriminalized in 1967, states the BBC.
The Independent states that Turing’s great-nephew, Nevil Hunt, great-niece, Rachel Barnes, and her son, Thomas, handed over the petition – which had almost half-a-million signatures – and demanded a new law on the matter be approved.
Ms. Barnes, 52, from Taunton, said: “I consider it to be fair and just that everybody who was convicted under the Gross Indecency Law is given a pardon. It is illogical that my great uncle has been the only one to be pardoned when so many were convicted of the same crime.”
Turing, the cryptanalyst and mathematician, was convicted in 1952 for “gross indecency” with a 19-year-old man.
As part of his sentence, he was chemically castrated and he died in 1954 after apparently committing suicide.
He was exonerated in 2013, but his family and petitioners want the government to pardon all the men convicted under the outdated law.
“Generations of gay and bisexual men were forced to live their lives in a state of terror,” said the editor of Attitude Magizine, Matthew Todd.
How does the British government feel about it?
A law on the topic has not yet been enacted, but that would probably change after the British Parliamentary Elections coming up on May 7th.
In March, the Leader of the Labor Party, Ed Miliband, said that a future Labour government would pave the way for posthumous pardons for gay men convicted under historical ‘gross indecency’ laws, according to the BBC. It would allow the families of those men convicted to apply to have their records expunged.
Legislation would be known as “Turing’s Law” in memory of Alan Turing, said Miliband.
Miliband’s decision may have also had an effect on The Conservative (Tory) Party. Recently, during April, The Conservatives pledged to introduce a new law helping to “lift the blight of outdated convictions” from other people found guilty of similar offenses, states The Telegraph.
“Thousands of British men still suffer from similar historic charges, even though they would be completely innocent of any crime today,” the Tory manifesto read.
The manifesto reads: “Many others are dead and cannot correct this injustice themselves through the legal process we have introduced while in government. So we will introduce a new law that will pardon those people, and right these wrong.”
In a effort to show his human side to the electorate ahead of next month’s election for British Parliament, Labour Party Leader Ed Miliband has revealed he recently shed a tear.
The Labour Leader’s sob was over Pride, a film about the gay community helping striking miners, which saw him shedding a tear on his wife’s shoulder.
When asked if he had ever cried over a film, “Red Ed” said: “Have you seen Pride? It’s about the lesbian and gay communities in London and they go and help the miners in Wales.
“Justine and I watched it recently. I blubbed.”
In the same Absolute Radio interview, Miliband also said being called a geek was “a compliment”.
Sources state that the Scottish National Party (SNP) could change the outcome of the election in the U.K., depending on whether a coalition is formed between the SNP and one of the larger parties, like The Labour Party or The Conservative Party.
Piers Morgan, writing for The Daily Mail:
“…(N)either of the two main parties has a hope in hell of winning an overall majority at the general election.”
So one of the bigger parties will need to form a “coalition” with a smaller party to form a working majority to rule the country. The SNP is supposedly the most powerful small party.
The problem is that the SNP wants independence for Scotland. So a party that forms a coalition with the SNP will be working with a party that wants to break away from the U.K.
“So they will have to take a begging bowl to one of the smaller parties to do a deal that allows them to form a ‘coalition’ government. The biggest ‘smaller’ party will almost certainly be the SNP, who should end up with 40-50 seats in Parliament, having pretty much wiped out the socialist Labour party in that country, which used to be considered its heartland,” writes Piers Morgan.
The Labour Party’s leader, Ed Miliband, has accused David Cameron (Conservative) of “demeaning his office” and putting the UK’s future at risk as a fight over the SNP’s future role intensifies, according to the BBC.
Miliband said Mr. Cameron, who has warned of the dangers of a Labour-SNP coalition, should be “taking on the nationalists” not “talking them up,” states the BBC. He suggested other Conservatives were “ashamed” of their election strategy.
However, Labour has said the Conservatives were “talking up” the threat of the SNP for their own political interests.
But former Prime Minister Sir John Major said the SNP could “blackmail” a future Labour government.
The Conservatives have continued their warnings about the SNP’s likely influence on a minority Labour government in the event of a hung Parliament, with the former Conservative leader claiming it would be a “recipe for mayhem”.
The SNP has said it does not want to form a coalition with the Conservatives, but is interested in one with Labour.
Conservative David Cameron has stated that a Conservative government would honor Scottish devolution (granting Scotland more autonomy), but he wants to “ensure the rest of the UK will not ‘lose out.'”
Below is a BBC interview with the head of the SNP, Nicola Sturgeon.
seen Pride? It’s about the lesbian and gay communities in London and they go and help the miners in Wales.
OK, Fine. 