of any MP in the 1950s about homosexual law reform. Hyde's reselection failed to be ratified by 171 votes to 152. He was absent for the vote, being on an international tour. The Belfast Telegraph reported, "Mr Hyde's rejection is a result of criticism amongst constituents over his attitude over certain problems particularly the Wolfenden report, capital punishment and the return of the Lane pictures to Ireland; further there was a feeling he did not visit the division sufficiently." One view expressed was that as the vote was so close he might have carried the day, had he been present. Two days later, from Belize City, Hyde complained that it was a "rank discourtesy holding the meeting without him", especially as there were 3,000 members in the constituency. His wife in London the next day said, "I shall advise him to cut out the rest of his tour if that is possible and deal with the matter on the spot." She had however written earlier to him in Jamaica: "SO THAT'S THAT. I'm sorry darling perhaps it's for the best. No more politics. No more Belfast politics. Oh bliss." Hyde did make efforts to have the decision overturned by Unionist Party headquarters on procedural grounds but he had no high-level political support. Although he had made little secret of his progressive views during the capital punishment debates, the campaign for access to the Roger Casement diaries, and his writings on Oscar Wilde, Hyde's political undoing were his parliamentary interventions and outspoken views on the decriminalisation of homosexuality. He contributed a half-hour speech to that 1958 debate covering both aspects of the Wolfenden report. He concluded by demanding equality for the homosexual and the prostitute. Earlier he quoted a letter from a consenting adult who had been jailed and released, only to be informed on again, losing his new job. He pointed out "three popular fallacies that have been exposed by the Report": that "male homosexuality always involves sodomy", that homosexuals are "necessarily effeminate", and that most relevant court cases "are of practising male homosexuals in private". Only one hundred men a year, he said, were convicted of sex in private with consenting adults. Hyde's reform efforts at decriminalising homosexuality in England and Wales were not to be successful for another ten years. It took 25 years, until 1982, for the same to happen in Northern Ireland. In later life, he