The Better Part of Valour

The Minister of Incarceration and Deportation has extruded some useful advice for homosexuals at risk of the death penalty from the Iranian theocracy: there is no real risk of discovery or "adverse action" provided they behave discreetly. It is difficult to imagine just how Agent Smith imagines people generally behave when their lives are at risk; it is possible that Iranian homosexuals dye their beards pink and call the ayatollahs "sweetie-pie" whenever opportunity permits, but I have my doubts. Agent Smith also believes that the Iranian government has executed "far fewer" sexual undesirables than the four thousand claimed by gay rights groups; the New New Labour appetite for demonising Tehran apparently having a smaller prioritisability enhancement factor than the New New Labour need to remove asylum seekers. New New Labour, wrote Agent Smith, recognises "that the conditions for gay and lesbian people in Iran – and many other countries – are such that some individuals are able to demonstrate a need for international protection," cunning fiends that they are; however, New New Labour does not "accept that we should make the presumption that each and every asylum-seeker who presents themselves as being of a particular nationality or sexuality, regardless of their particular circumstances, should automatically be ... allowed to remain in the UK", given that so many of them could have evaded trouble simply by being discreet. To pick some examples at random, if the nationalists in Tibet and the anti-Mugabe elements in Zimbabwe had only thought to keep their mouths shut, just think how much easier it would make things. Indeed, if all political dissidents and oppressed minorities would act with a bit more discretion, Agent Smith and her dawn raiders might never again have to deal with another asylum seeker. Then they could start on the rest of us.