The day I went to see Boston Marriage performed by the Arkle Theatre company was the same day France had voted to lift the ban on same-sex marriage.

A Boston marriage - from Henry James' novel The Bostonians - describes two women living together who are self-supporting: either because they have inherited wealth or because they have professions. By definition, then, David Mamet's play Boston Marriage does not depict a Boston marriage: Claire and Anna are not described as self-supporting.

As originally used, the Boston marriage relationship was presumed to be non-sexual: and this David Mamet does depict. It is romantic comedy very much in the Noel Coward style: and as with Noel Coward's brittle and glittering heterosexual relationships, I felt that even the smallest cup of passion would melt everything.

But it's a long-standing tradition in mainstream art, literature, and drama to depict any relationship between two women as neither passionate nor loyal: to presume that two women cannot object to a man's inclusion in their relationship since according to conventional tenets, only a man can make their relationship sexual. The Bechdel test famously demonstrates how rare it is for any dialogue between two women to discuss any topic other than a man. With the ban on same-sex marriage lifted, will this change art's conception of the relationship between two women?

Read more: Boston Marriages

Margaret Thatcher, former MP for Finchley, Education Secretary, Conservative party leader, and Prime Minister, died on Monday 8th April 2013, after years of ill-health.

Although it is twenty-three years since she left Downing Street - there are people who were old enough to vote in the 2010 General Election who were not born when she was Prime Minister - there can hardly be a political figure of 20th century who remained so well known, and so divisive, even a decade after her health had forced her to give up public speaking engagements.

In a swift reversal, Downing Street announced a state funeral and then edited their announcement to a ceremonial funeral in St Paul's Cathedral. The most measured response to that has already been written by Peter Oborne, the chief political commentator at the Daily Telegraph,  an admirer of Margaret Thatcher and her politics:

Yet her greatness as a prime minister is not enough. State ceremonies can be very damaging unless (as with the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton) the whole nation can come together.

 

This will not happen after Lady Thatcher’s death. There are too many people – for example, shipyard workers from Glasgow, miners from Yorkshire and the Welsh valleys – whose livelihoods were destroyed during her premiership. They struggled against her government passionately at the time, and many still abhor her memory.

One of Margaret Thatcher's political legacies was Section 28.

Read more: Margaret Thatcher: A Legacy

The European Parliament today adopted a non-binding resolution on strengthening the fight against homophobia, transphobia, racism, xenophobia and hate crime: and repeated previous calls to include homophobia and transphobia in the list of grounds covered by the next version of the 2008 Framework Decision, due for review this year. 

Raül Romeva i Rueda MEP, Vice-President of the European Parliament’s LGBT Intergroup, commented:

“Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people face the same type of threats, violence and crimes across the EU. Racist and xenophobic crimes deserve specific punishment, and so do homophobic and transphobic ones: they target an entire group, rather than individuals.”

All but one of the seven political groups in the European Parliament jointly authored the resolution (all but the right-wing eurosceptic group whose largest sub-group is the UKIP MEPs). This unaminity is very unusual, but all agreed that:

the European Union is based on the common values of respect for democracy, human rights and the rule of law and is underpinned by greater promotion of tolerance

Read more: European Parliament Against Hate Speech