This post is just a bit of filler while I attend the Liberal Conspiracy / Guardian event in London today, but is to highlight two stories that have some serious relevance to homosexual rights in this country. The first is regarding the Heinz advert that has been pulled by the company following 200 homophobic complaints about the innocuous contents. The second is the much more dangerous statement by Jacqui Smith that has the audacity to try and tell homosexuals to tone down their behaviour so as to not get caught by the homophobic Iranian officials.

The latest Politalks is here, remember that episode 7 and 8 will also be posted on a Tuesday due to other commitments. This week we've seen childish politics reach new highs and more than just a little bit of borrowing from others to try and get ahead in the polls. Also, more weighty content with a scathing analysis of the ever ongoing Israeli-Palestine conflict.Not work safe with transcript below.

It seems as though everything on the political blogosphere is about the US election race. While it is of course apparent to any old fool that the outcome of the election in a years time is important for the state of global politics, I personally think there are more pressing matter that also deserve some light of day. Futilely, perhaps, I would much prefer to read some more learned opinion about the situations brewing in Pakistan and Kenya than the media food that is largely irrelevant until at least the beginning of February. In fact I would normally be annoyed if we merely centred on the largely irrelevant political point scoring of the UK's national parties such as Cameron's ever so slightly altered Labour policies or Gordon Brown's desire for more screening for all rather than these crisis's in Middle East and Africa (Darfur is more than a lost cause for debate in the public domain now that the allure of saving that part of the world has worn off), however what really confuses me is that even important stories such as the ministers pay rise issue, or a recent report that Labour are failing the very people that they are supposed to be strongest at supporting are getting no insight right now.

Listening to today's PMQ's was much more like those that we have watched through November and October, with Gordon Brown appearing to have very limited skills for getting through the proceedings and both opposition leaders getting the better of him (at least in this posters eyes).

A rather drab PMQ's saw little of national interest, and what little there was of national interest was ducked and avoided by the Labour leader. Issues about Kosovo, the danger for women in Iraq and the inequality of standards applied to police split by the English-Scottish border were all sidestepped largely, and the only question really adequately answered was that of security for those that lost out in their pension schemes.

Now the reason I was drawn to write this post is that Gordon Browns response to a claim from Vince Cable that 40 women have been executed in Basra for "personal immorality", and who exactly have we delivered these powers to, was that there had been a 90% fall in violence recently.

Only three weeks after the shocking story of a young woman placed in a cell with convicted males, preceding being raped relentlessly, another story you don't really expect to some out of some of the more "Christian" nations pops up in the Guardian.

A judge in Australia was facing calls to step down yesterday after she failed to jail nine males who admitted gang-raping a 10-year-old girl in an Aboriginal community in 2005, saying the victim "probably agreed" to have sex with them.