How else are the children, the ill, the old, unemployed, the poor to be represented? There are no unemployed or poor MPs and it really shows. Or those fully committed to their profession, their work, or their children?

One barrier is how some of the press will attempt to destroy MPs, or candidates, from some backgrounds, and maybe only the most brazen risk that. And they don't necessarily make MPs who listen.

The press is certainly behind there being only one out lesbian there. And she gets classed as gay and invisibilised.

From primary school I was highly socially concerned and political. I would have loved to be an MP, and my party strongly encouraged me to stand, but the press would really have had me, and my partner, and our families, crucified. No one would have enough support to handle that.

I don't see evidence that background has changed, and I don't see what Ms Begg and her committee could suggest to do about it, other than what the government claims to be doing already, across society, and is largely failing to do, or doing wrong. Such as reinforcing discrimination by firmly rejecting marriage equality.

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You have my sympathies having him as your MP.

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An MP who sends you a welcome letter and gives an honest enough interview here sure as hell beats mine.

Malcolm Rifkind (Conservative, Kensington & Chelsea) has a large number of LGBT constituents (around Earl's Court and Notting Hill) and once replied to a letter from me by saying he was opposed to all forms of homophobia.

So I checked out his voting record only to find he had never once supported equality legislation.

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I live in the South West and I could not even join my council without being blocked at every point by them. When I tried to get stories in local newspapers about my campaign they were blocked. When I tried to get co-opted onto the council I was blocked.

Sure if you live in a city I’m sure it’s easier, but I don’t.

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For example, she states that up here in Scotland, that what the priesthood thinks is not what the people think. Sure, there are plenty of open-minded people up here, but in Aberdeen at least, there is a disparity between the "official" statements of a tolerant society we regularly hear from the Scottish government and local council officials, I've certainly seen and heard plenty of homophobia. Aberdeen is considered to be relatively conservative even amongst Scottish cities, particularly by those such as myself who did not grow up here, but moved here instead.

Examples of this backward attitude still persisting, would include the incidents of Aberdeen bus drivers throwing gay couples off their buses for hugging, as reported by pink news, by Stagecoach (owned by the bigot Mr Brian Souter).

I lived in London for quite some time, and although I do enjoy living up here overall, it was still a bit of a shock moving up from the great gay life I had in London. There's still a way to go, and I'm not sure if my patience will last the distance, or if I will move back to London.

At any rate, I've been quite happy with Anne as my local MP, when I registered here as a voter, I even got a nice "welcome to the constituency" letter from her (or certainly her office at least). That was a first.

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