Latest news with #LordMcFall
Telegraph
10-06-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
‘Pride crumble' served in House of Lords
The House of Lords canteen has served peers a 'pride crumble' dessert with a rainbow-coloured topping. The River Restaurant in Parliament, which caters for peers and other staff on the parliamentary estate, offered as its hot dessert option on Tuesday a 'pride crumble'. The topping of the £2.15 pudding appeared to be dyed with red and blue food colouring in horizontal stripes, and was served with custard to mark Pride month. It is unclear whether the crumble was designed to resemble a particular LGBT flag, such as the rainbow flag, or the pink, blue and white transgender flag. It comes after the House of Lords removed Pride flags from its canteen put up at the start of June following a complaint from a peer. The 'Progress Pride' flag, which was among the decorations, includes the colours of the transgender movement and is seen by many as indicative of support for gender ideology – the idea that sex is a spectrum and that people can change their identity. Baroness Nicholson, a Tory peer, complained to the Lord Speaker, Lord McFall, and officials agreed that the flags should be taken down as they had not been sanctioned by the authorities. During her time in Parliament, she voted in favour of section 28, which banned the 'promotion of homosexuality' by local authorities, and against gay marriage. The Progress Pride flag, designed in 2021, is replacing the traditional rainbow Pride flag in many venues. It includes an extra triangle of colour on the left hand side, made up of stripes including white, pink and light blue – the colours of the transgender movement. The flags were not on display in the House of Commons restaurants. The canteen also served rainbow couscous for peers last week as part of its Pride celebrations. The Pride flag was flown from Parliament for the first time in history in June 2016. Last month, Reform UK announced that its councils would not be allowed to fly any LGBT or Pride flags, restricting local authorities to flying only the Union Jack and the St George's Cross.
Times
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Baroness Jones: You're never too old to be arrested as a Green
Criminality in the upper house tends to involve pound signs, but Baroness Jones (Jenny as was) takes pride in her more on-brand naughtiness. She tells Lord McFall on the Lord Speaker's podcast: 'The thing about the Green Party is, if you get arrested because you're at a demonstration [a 2014 one organised by Occupy], it's almost a gold star.' When she got back to the Lords and told colleagues what had happened, one of them asked: 'Aren't you a bit old to get arrested?' It must be the only thing in the Lords for which one can be too old. The art of diplomatic umpiring has been recalled by veteran Australian actor Vincent Ball, who once played in a celebrity cricket match with Charles III,
