Not content with its scoop that Simon Hughes has had gay relationships, the Sun twisted the knife this morning with some typically lazy homophobia. "A second Limp-Dem confesses" and "another one bites the pillow", the paper notes on its front page, gleeful that it is following its stablemate the News of the World in exposing a Liberal Democrat leadership candidate as a secret homosexual. Whether Hughes' career will founder as Mark Oaten's already has remains to be seen.
The line generally peddled about these "scandals" is that hypocrisy is the problem. As many self-righteous texters to Sky News have already opined, Hughes's homosexuality is not the issue, it's his denials that he was gay.
For hypocrisy we could look closer to home. For all the progress in public attitudes made in the past few decades, there is still a reservoir of homophobia out there. The Sun merrily taps that well with its saucy double entendres, grimly attempting to recapture some MacKenzie-era wit with headlines about Elton John taking David Furnish "up the aisle".
Sadly, it is hard to believe that Britain, at least as filtered through the media lens, is ready for a major party leader who is single, let alone gay. It was politically important for both Charles Kennedy and Gordon Brown - who once endured a torrid inquisition from Sue Lawley about his sexuality - to get married and start families. Having a demonstrably virile family man in number 10 has set the bar high.
Is it any wonder that politicians deny they are gay when the penalties for admitting it still seem steep? As Hughes puts it rather wistfully in his Sun interview: "It would be very sad if people who have always been single or who are homosexual felt that their sexuality prevented them from holding high office." The fact that he felt he could not be honest first time round surely says more about our political culture than about his integrity.
The question also arises of News International's attitude to the Liberal Democrat party. The Sun has constantly mocked it in the past as a party of useless anti-war also-rans, in spite of its considerable popularity, and now I believe it wants to crush it. Its scorn is rooted in the fear that the party's rising fortunes have imperilled the political duopoly from which Rupert Murdoch, ever teasing with promises of patronage, has prospered. While Charles Kennedy was leader, Lib Dems could aspire without totally deluding themselves to supplant the Tories as the main party of opposition. But for the cruel pro-Labour bias of the British electoral system they would have had far greater weight in parliament already.
But an already fragile party has now been left reeling after two sucker punches from News International. If MPs defect, as is rumoured, if the Lib Dems flag in the polls, as is happening already, and if its new leader turns out to be a lame duck, David Cameron will be the beneficiary. And that's exactly what News International and much of Fleet Street wants to happen. Once they've seen off the Lib Dems, the rightwing press can turn to its longer-term aim - deposing New Labour and then claiming the credit.
