Dear Friends,

I have campaigned for equality - race, gender, sexual orientation, and all the other strands - for over 25 years since before the advent of the dreadful Section 28 which I voted against. As a human rights lawyer long before our own Human Rights Act was introduced, I have seen for myself the worst sort of homophobic attitudes in the British establishment.

Over the years I have recognised that every step towards equality has had to be fought for, whether in the realm of fairness at work, equality in the criminal law or in family life.

It would be wrong to think that the battle is over. There is still much to do in discrimination law to ensure that hard won rights in the recent Equality Bill are not lost in a welter of exceptions. We have to tackle homophobic hate crime and bullying in schools, and we have to get rid of endemic inequality from British statutes raging from fertility laws to pension laws.

While it is true that over the last 5 years many land marks have been achieved, we can be proud of our role in campaigning for them ahead of the other parties but regret that it was only after 5 years of continued repression under new Labour that this started to reform our laws.

It was while I was Lib Dem Shadow Home Secretary that our standing in the LGBT community grew to a point where we were first choice at the last General Election. That was, in large part, due to DELGA and the way you worked with the Parliamentary parties to put our case to the media, and to the Lesbian and Gay community.

As the Party leader I would look forward to continuing to work with what is one of our most effective campaigning organisations in the Party.

0<=(Nothing Less Than Equality) as we used to say!

Simon