Blogging from the Highlands of Scotland
'From fanaticism to barbarism is only one step' - Diderot

Tuesday 30 March 2004

The Conservative 'gay summit' and what it means

Now that this event has occurred, how should one react? To be perfectly honest I'm not certain as there were some confusing signals from the party which now tells us it wishes to 'move on' from the bigotry it preached, and practised, until now. This quite amusingly ironic Guardian summary of what went on at the gay summit yesterday gives what I think is a suitable initial assessment.

Words are nice, but action is better and we still have to see what actually occurs when votes are tabled before Parliament - it is quite clear that Anne Widdecombe, and she is evidently not alone, is nowhere near convinced that, even if her views are sincerely held (which I am sure they are), her willingness to proclaim loudly her dissension from what the party leadership currently wants the public to believe is not likely to achieve the objective of garnering more votes. After all, only 5 Conservative MPs bothered to turn up (out of 165) for the summit. All it is likely to do is to cement the loyalty of the reducing, mainly elderly, segment of the population which thinks as she does. I can admire the 'heroism' and 'integrity' of this stance, but the bottom line is probably that it means that one cannot have confidence that should the Conservative party be returned to power it will not try to resurrect these policies. The probationary status must continue for the present, I fear.

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