Michael Cashman

Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988 banned councils from "promoting" homosexuality, and the campaign against it produced the professional lobbying group that changed British law over the next 15 years. Cashman, then an EastEnders actor, co-founded Stonewall in 1989 with Ian McKellen, Lisa Power and others to work inside Westminster rather than outside it. Its patient lobbying fed into the equal age of consent in 2000, adoption rights, the repeal of Section 28 in 2003 and civil partnerships in 2004. Cashman then spent 15 years as an MEP working on EU anti-discrimination law, and sits in the Lords.