Peter Tatchell occupies the same modest Herbert Morrison-era London County Council flat, a stone’s throw from the Elephant and Castle, where he lived during the Bermondsey by-election campaign that brought him national recognition 35 years ago. It was the dirtiest by-election in living memory.
“I never expected the scale of violence and intimidation that I was subjected to,” he tells me as we sit facing each other in his sitting room, barely able to fit in because of the piles of posters, leaflets and papers that occupy most of the space.
“All the others used really dirty, underhand tactics. There was a leaflet put round the constituency entitled ‘Which Queen would you vote for?’,” an allusion...