Pre-election interviews with all six major party leaders – only in Attitude

As pointed out in an article on The Guardian online yesterday, Attitude is so far the only publication to speak to the three major party leaders in the lead-up to the UK general election.

In fact, we spoke to all six party leaders – David Cameron, Ed Miliband, Nick Clegg, Nigel Farage, Nicola Sturgeon and Natalie Bennett – as part of the 17 pages of election coverage featured in our May issue, in stores now.

Here’s a selection of what you can find in the magazine:

David Cameron – ‘I raised Russian gay rights in 3am meeting with Putin’

 

 

While talking about about how Britain should deal with foreign countries with poor records on LGBT rights, the Prime Minister says he drew attention to Russia’s recently-introduced anti-gay legislation during a G20 meeting Mr Putin was chairing.

“We raise these issues with every country, and I personally remember raising it in the middle of the night in a meeting with Vladimir Putin, at about three in the morning at the G20 he was chairing”, Mr Cameron says.

Ed Miliband: LGBT rights abroad a ‘big priority’ for Labour

The Labour Party leader says he is “proud” of appointing former Eastenders actor and Labour peer Michael Cashman as an international LGBT rights envoy in shadow, calling him a “great hero” of his.

“Yes I’m really proud that Michael Cashman got that role,” Mr Miliband says. “You know, I think just as we’ve seen progress at home in relation to gay rights, I think actually if anything we’ve seen things go backwards in some other countries, and we’ve got to turn that round.”

Nick Clegg: ‘Tories to blame for lack of progress on sex education’

The Liberal Democrat leader and Deputy Prime Minister admits that while the sex and relationship education is “incredibly important”, the Lib Dems have failed to persuade the Conservative party that it should be made a mandatory requirement in all schools in England and Wales.

Asked why government had failed to make progress on the issue, Mr Clegg says he’s “been trying to argue this for five years against the Tories”, but that they “just keep whacking it”.

Nigel Farage: ‘I’ve spoken to Kellie Maloney about her transition’

Farage says that he met the former UKIP parliamentary candidate and had a “very interesting discussion” about her gender identity. Maloney – who managed heavyweight boxer Lennox Lewis to the Undisputed Heavyweight Championship of the World during his career – publicly came out as transgender in August last year shortly before entering the Celebrity Big Brother House, where she became the fifth housemate to be evicted.

Questioned as to whether Maloney will be making a return to the party, as has been rumoured recently, Farage says: “You’ll have to see. I was friendly with Frank for a long time. Since he’s changed to be Kellie, we have met, talked – very interesting conversation. Very interesting. It’s not a subject I know a huge amount about, but it was very interesting talking to Kellie.”

Nicola Sturgeon – ‘We need to tackle LGBT bullying’

 

Asked how LGBT rights could still be improved in the UK, the Scottish Nationalist Party leader told Attitude: “I think bullying would be the thing I would probably highlight. I do think there’s still work to do to change attitudes, and to challenge particular attitudes to raise awareness of the difficulties that LGBT people face, particularly when they’re young and at school, and perhaps making a decision about whether to come out or not, and I think that’s probably where I would say that there’s still work for us to do.”

Natalie Bennett – ‘Our treatment of LGBT asylum seekers is a disgrace’

We asked the Green Party leader about the treatment of LGBT asylum seekers, an area that’s often considered to need a lot of work, with reports that refugees are asked invasive questions about whether they’ve been penetrated and the like.

“It’s worth saying that our failure to live up to our obligations to refugees is a disgrace, and that’s an across the board statement that doesn’t just apply to LGBTI asylum seekers,” she said. “It’s clear that the government system is particularly bad in terms of a discriminatory, unfair and quite frankly hideous treatment of people, and there’s simply no excuse. What’s underlying that is a problem in the system where people are being trained to disbelief. Obviously you need some sort of evidence but that doesn’t mean you can sit there and grill people about their personal lives in wholly inappropriate ways, and in ways that you wouldn’t do with people of other sexual orientations, it’s unacceptable behaviour. These are people who are often rightly in fear of their lives, often victims of torture and rape, and the way we’re treating them is a disgrace.”

You can read our full interviews with each of the six party leaders as part of our comprehensive election coverage in the May issue of Attitude, available to download to your mobile, iPad or tablet device now, at Pocketmags.com/Attitude.

The issue is in shops now, and you can also have it delivered directly to your door at newsstand.co.uk.