Are 90% of giraffes gay – or have their loving looks been misunderstood?

Dawn Butler's claims regarding animal sexuality have been called 'offensive' and 'homophobic' by one of Jeremy Corbyn's advisers. But what's the scientific verdict?

A new split has emerged in the Labour party over a matter more urgent than Brexit: the sexuality of giraffes. "Ninety per cent of giraffes are gay," Dawn Butler, the shadow secretary for women and equalities, told a PinkNews awards event earlier this month. "Let's just accept people for who they are and live as our true, authentic selves."

Butler's words were meant as praise for the school curriculum, which teaches children that it is normal for people to be gay. However, Jeremy Corbyn's senior domestic policy adviser, Lachlan Stuart, responded angrily on Twitter over what he felt it also meant about gay people. "It is a ludicrous, offensive, homophobic claim," Stuart said, insisting instead that the same-sex physical contact observed between giraffes in the wild is "not gay behaviour" at all, but a display of dominance.