UK Gay MP Speaks Out

Chris Bryant has been a very vocal in his campaign for an inquiry into the phone hacking and corrupt behaviour at one of the UK’s leading Sunday Newspapers – The News Of The World.

With a grimace, Chris Bryant recalls the last time he met Rupert Murdoch's embattled lieutenant Rebekah Brooks face to face.    "She came up to me and said, 'Oh, Mr Bryant, it's after dark - shouldn't you be on Clapham Common?"

"At which point Ross Kemp the ex-EastEnders actor and her then husband said, 'Shut up, you homophobic cow'."    The MP, who is openly gay, can afford to smile at the incident, which happened during a News International reception at the Labour Party conference several years ago, was speaking out in an interview with the London paper The Evening Standard.

Back at the time when Brooks said this to him,  Bryant was just an irritant to the powerful Brooks.  But after this week's torrent of revelations about phone hacking he may prove to be her nemesis, the interview goes.

During the interview Chris Bryant talks about his worst moment with the media when ultra homophobic  The Mail on Sunday reported that a picture of him in his underpants was posted on the Gaydar website with explicit comments. "It is the only time in my life I have ever come close to feeling that I did not want to be around any more," he said. "I didn't sleep for about three months. All sorts of other weird stuff happened, including a stalker."   he says honestly in the interview.

As a member of a committee, Bryant once met Rupert Murdoch,  the head of the News International company,  the owners of News Of The World,  the paper at the centre of the phone hacking controversy.  He tells how they met at the media tycoon at lunch in the Judy Garland Room restaurant at Fox studios, also owned by  Murdoch.  Murdoch made a striking impression. "He has a casual violence to him," said Bryant. "He just does this all the time [slapping the back of his knuckles on the table] and he's got quite big rings. And all his staff looked terrified. I think he likes playing gangster."

However, when he tried to enter a News International reception held at the Commons, he was asked to leave.  On a visit to No 10 last year he bumped into Coulson. "I told him, 'It's all right, my mobile phone is downstairs'. He just rolled his eyes.

Full interesting and informative interview in The Evening Standard   'Some MPs suspected a year ago but nobody would've believed it' | Politics