Open Letter to All My Female Friends

Dear all,

This morning's Today programme on Radio 4 has just said that the Foreign Secretary being in a room with another man was a 'lapse of judgement' for a straight politician. Therefore and henceforth I shall have to make some adjustments to the way I live to avoid making a similar 'lapse' seeing as I am an openly gay politician this will affect my female friends and acquaintances.

To Caron, you had better not get ill again. I know during your recent illness I spent many hours coming to see you and sometimes turning up while you were still in your pyjamas. But if the press were to get hold of such information it would be dynamite and a serious lapse of judgement in their opinion. Therefore in future this will have to stop, even if you are on death's bed all meeting you will he have to be clothed in outdoor wear and you will have to wheeled or trolleyed, if necessary, to a public venue. If other's catch the pubonic plague as a result that is a price that will have to be paid.

Also Caron and Elspeth Finlay I know that you have often driven me into the back and beyonds to dump me on some strange street with loads of leaflets. However, in future I may have to insist on a male driver as the exit of a campaign headquarters in the sole company of a woman and not returning for hours, with the same driver, and then looking exhausted might be similarly misconstrued.

Dear Helen Duffett and Meg and others I do love the direct message conversations that we have on Twitter. But I think we are going to have to stop them which means the juicy stuff like planning the BOTY's, or bloggers at conference or just talking about hot men on TV will just have to be done in the open.

As for my dear cousin Rachel, we are going to have to keep using the Lab/Lib Dem supporting cousin epithet on all our tweets to each other using up some of the valuable 140 characters. If only your mother had been born male and we shared the same surname, that would have made things easier.

Addendum paragraph As for Pam Tilson I clearly cannot be seen walking to or from a sporting arena in your company, tongues would wag. So that rules out my accompanying you to the Oval to watch the Glens play at any time*.

So sadly I shall have to make the required changes I cannot afford to have my character besmirched by keeping too close attention and proximity to members of the opposite sex. Guido and the MSM may well think I am slipping or defecting to a heterosexual lifestyle and that can never do.

Yours with regret,

Stephen Glenn

Further addendum I have just had assurances from the PSNI that Dubarrys, Kremlin or any other gay venue I may choose to enter will be swept of fag hags, lesbians and casual female hangers on. A security lock down will then be installed around the venue until 10 minutes after my departure. Drag Queen's are requested to turn up and depart in male apparel and sans make up, changing facilities will be provided at the discretion of the licensee inside the venue.

After all it wouldn't been right for me to be snapped by the press leaving such a place with a woman or faux-woman in shot. Think of the scandal the headlines writers would come up with.

* Actually that works out well for this Bangor fan.