Evan Davis talks drugs and temptation: ‘It’s something the gay community has to watch out for’
By Ben Kelly
Attitude’s Naked Issue features more than 100 pages of gorgeous guys in the buff, but rest assured – there’s a lot more to sink your teeth into in the issue too.
Newsnight host Evan Davis sits down with Attitude’s Ben Kelly in what is his first gay press interview since taking over the reins at BBC’s flagship current affairs program.
In a wide-ranging three-page interview, Davis talks about everything from his predictions for the upcoming general election to his oft-rumoured ‘intimate piercings’.
The 52-year-old former economist turned journalist, who can count himself as one of the most influential gay figures in Britain, said he could see the May election would be landmark in British history.
“[The] forecast at the moment is for a very hung parliament – but which I mean Tory and Labour in very similar numbers of seats around 280/290 – an it would be pretty unlikely that one party could take them up to a majority. You’re in the scrambled egg situation where probably you’d need three parties to produce a majority, and that’s pretty unparalleled in our history.”
Davis also speaks about the issues faced by those in the LGBT community at a time when we’re becoming increasingly normalised and welcomed by society.
“I suspect that some of the things that discipline straight men and women, and stop them partying too hard or succumbing to drugs, are conventions of family or children, and also the limitations of money when you have children. Gay people don’t necessarily face that constraint or disciplining factor, so it’s just easier for gay people to succumb,” he says.
“The gay community has less discipline because it doesn’t have kids to go home to, and slightly more disposable income, and then add to that that when these things catch on they tend to have momentum. I just think it’s something gay people have to watch out for.”
And yes, here at Attitude we thought we’d try our luck and enquire about Davis’s rumoured piercings. His response?
“I never answer that question. You’re in a long line of distinguished journalists who have attempted to extract that answer.”
Worth a shot, then.
You can read the full interview with Davis in the new issue of Attitude, which is available to download to your mobile, iPad or tablet device now, at Pocketmags.com/Attitude.
The issue is out now in shops and you can also have it delivered directly to your door at newsstand.co.uk.