Gordon Brown has said sorry. Not for anything he was directly responsible for, but for a previous government driving Alan Turing to eat a poisoned apple after locking him up in a crazy house.Poor bugger. It's curious the way these things work out isn't it? You invent computers and swing the war and then afterwards get caught trousering another man and immediately there's talk of "loose lips" and suddenly you're a nodding eunuch in a mental home.
Alternatively, you're a Nazi rocket scientist who killed thousands? Well, why not come to American and have a lovely life at NASA?
We have much to thank Alan Turing for, although who knows what he'd make of internet dating. He'd probably come up with a formula for it. God knows, some of the guys I've chatted to wouldn't pass the Turing Test.
The sad note about it is the campaigner on the Today Programme. It's well worth a listen. She manages instantly to come across as a moaning minnie for whom nothing is ever good enough. "Well, we're grateful for the apology, I'm sure, but you must remember that Bletchley Park is in a terrible state". Sigh.
2 comments:
I was actually quite impressed by the statement - apart from the inevitable sentence claiming credt for this government for all improvements in gay rights since Leviticus.
It's unusually honest of this government, though, to admit that it has basically been shamed into this by a campaign. The whole "we should really have said this before" tone is quite refreshing.
But how many others suffered as Turing did? I don't like the notion that we're saying sorry not because of what we did to him, but because of who he was...
I think Sir Ian McKellen's made very much the same point on the radio this morning.
Still think - great campaign, just a shame about the spokesperson they stumped up that morning.
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