Further to my post about the Government’s attempts to exclude Lord Waddington’s free speech clause from the latest ‘equality’ legislation, the Lords last night voted to retain the clause, overturning a large Government majority on Tuesday.

However, Labour peer Lord Smith, who was the first MP to come out openly as gay, warned that a free speech clause could lead to more attacks on homosexuals.

So there we are – straight from the horse’s mouth: no free speech.

Let’s be completely logical and consistent here. Are we to ban criticism of environmentalists in case someone grabs their Aran jumper, or criticism of the police lest anyone tells them they are out of order (see my last post but one), or make it illegal to express an opinion about anything under the sun just in case it ‘incites’ stupid people to break the law?

As has been said a million times before, there are already laws to deal with real crime. People who choose to engage in homosexual behaviour really need to understand that others have a right to criticise their behaviour and anything else they choose.

The government will again try to pass the law before the parliamentary session ends on Thursday.

MPs need to grasp reality too.

It faces deadlock with the Lords over the wide-ranging Coroners and Justice Bill, which aims to remove the defence inserted into a previous act by the Conservative Lord Waddington. He [Lord Waddington] told fellow peers they had to maintain consistency with laws against stirring up religious hatred.

Some animals are more equal than others.