Martyn Sadler

I hope it is. But you're right to make the point.

I was asking you whether it was fake news. The global campaign was triggered by an execution in Iran. If it puts Iran even further in the dock, then so be it. It surely deserves to be there.

Just to quote three sentences from the NBC news story. "The Trump administration is launching a global campaign." "Narrowly focused on criminalization, rather than broader LGBT issues like same-sex marriage, the campaign was conceived partly in response to the recent reported execution by hanging of a young gay man in Iran." "As a candidate, Trump was ambiguous about his position on many gay rights issues, but notably became the first Republican nominee to mention LGBT rights in his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention."

Given that Iran executes gay people I'm not sure why you would want to be a cynic in those circumstances.

So what seems to have happened is that NBC got hold of the story and ran with it before the administration put out an official line, although the ambassador was clearly keen to promote what he is doing.

Whatever this young woman has done, the idea that a Home Secretary can remove her citizenship by the stroke of a pen is outrageous in my opinion. It is such a serious decision, with such wide ramifications, and it is extremely authoritarian. It reminds me of the decision by the NRL to impose a lifetime ban on Ben Barba without any sort of due process. I didn't see the interview with her on TV last night, so I could be wrong about this, but it strikes me that she is at the very least honest about her own position, and she isn't pretending to be something she isn't.

Which goes to show that everything is open to interpretation.

Even if the premise of your statement were correct, do you not think there might be a difference between interviewing a Dutch economist and the American President. In fact it seemed to me that Carlson was sympathetic to the Dutchman until he started telling Carlson that he (Carlson) was acting under orders from Murdoch, which was guaranteed to rile the host, although Carlson could certainly have handled it better. Acosta didn't ask tough questions so much as give his opinions and try to hog the microphone at the press conference you are referring to. As I said at the time, if he wants to be an opinionated journalist, as opposed to a reporter, he should host a CNN show with that aim in mind. I'm sure he'd be good at it.

Does that mean the NBC report is fake news?

One slightly curious thing about Heidi Allen is that she appears to be the only MP who doesn't reveal details about where she went to school. I took an interest in this because her CV does say she grew up in Notton, which is a very pleasant village near Wakefield, so I was curious about whether she attended the same school as my kids. But she seems to have blanked all information about which school she attended. It seems a little odd to do that when most other MPs are only too happy to give out that information.

The Trump administration makes a move to end the illegality of homosexuality in all those countries in which it is still a criminal offence.

I suspect that he isn't the first presenter to lose his temper with a rather smug, self-satisfied guest who makes silly accusations against him.

I'm sure you would and it's very kind of you. But we do have a rule on here that we can use quotes without editing them. And when you think about it, that's an important rule. If someone were to edit your quote maliciously to make it look as though you were saying the opposite of what you intended it could have serious consequences.

I take your point in this particular case but it could be more contentious in other contexts and with other posters.

Craig, I thought one of the forum rules was that we are not allowed to edit quotes from other posters.