Letter: Portillo's hypocrisy

CONTRARY TO your suggestions ("Stay out of poll, Tatchell told", 14 November), I have not been pressured by Labour officials to keep clear of Kensington and Chelsea. Nor has Stephen Twigg MP, or any other gay Labour Party member, asked me not to get involved in the by-election.

Regardless of what the Labour hierarchy wants, I shall continue to challenge Michael Portillo over his endorsement of discrimination against homosexuals, and his double standards. He concedes that he had gay relationships at Cambridge, when he was below 21, the age of consent at the time. He broke the law. In 1994, however, he voted for the criminalisation of young gay men aged 16 and 17 who have under-age homosexual experiences, just as he did.

Mr Portillo supports discriminatory laws that he himself broke. He wants one law for himself and another for everyone else. It is this hypocrisy that makes him unfit to be an MP.

PETER TATCHELL

OutRage!, London SW14