London - The British Prime Minister, Mr Blair, yesterday bowed to rebellious peers who threw out his attempts to repeal a 12-year-old law forbidding local authorities from "promoting" homosexuality.
Mr Blair's official spokesman said the repeal, one of Labour's flagship policies, would be dropped from a local government bill to prevent wider reforms of regional authorities being held hostage to opposition from the Lords.
He remained committed to scrapping the law, which he considered a "prejudiced" piece of bad legislation, the spokesman said. But he declined to say when the government would renew its effort to repeal Section 28, introduced by former prime minister Baroness Thatcher's government, from the statute books.