Stephen Fry is just one of those people I use as a moral barometer. Intelligent, brilliantly funny, high profile mental health campaigner & fabulously literary. I follow him avidly on Twitter. I am grateful to Stephen Fry for highlighting a lacuna in knowledge. It was through him, and his decision to cancel a reservation at the very beautiful Coworth Park, that I found out that The Dorchester Group was owned by The Sultan of Brunei

The Dorchester Collection is owned by the Brunei Investment Agency, an arm of the Brunei government that manages the oil-rich country’s luxury hotels in Europe and the U.S LA Times

Brunei have just changed their penal code for the punishment of committing a homosexual act from ten years in prison to death by stoning. Whilst the hotel group have issued a PR statement that they ‘abide by the laws of the country that they operate in’ I find the idea of any country passing such a barbaric law rather mediaeval. The fashion industry in the US started the protest using social media as a means to transmit their message

The fashion industry and its supporters are unified in boycotting these properties… LA Times

Were that I was in a position to book a couple of nights at a luxury hotel this group would be off my list. I was brought up boycotting Barclays bank for the investment in South Africa in the time of apartheid. I am fairly sure that my preventing them funding my student overdraft didn’t bother Barclays in the slightest. One vaguely left-wing student withholding a £500 debt from the bank didn’t topple apartheid. I just knew the bank was wrong.

Cancelled in nick of time: discovered @CoworthParkUK that I was booked into is part of the “Dorchester Collection” Stephen Fry on Twitter

When I read the Stephen Fry tweet I was horrified as Coworth Park is beautiful & local to me. I have been for lunch… Now I know the connection I am afraid it will be off my lunch venues. I suspect that they are not quaking at the the thought of this.

On my Instagram stream yesterday I saw Mark Neimierko hosting a business breakfast at The Dorchester. Mark’s association with the hotel pre-dates this ghastly change in the law in Brunei.

All of us, individually cannot change such horrific discrimination but I ask for the wedding industry to consider joining the fashion industry in this protest. It is the one time when a ‘luxury’ budget is set and we, as wedding professionals or brides & grooms to be, can vote with something more significant than a student debt.